Sorting and Limits

Multiple Sorting Levels

You can add up to 3 sorting options for both playlists and collections to create cascading sorts. Items are first sorted by the first option, then items with equal values are sorted by the second option, and so on.

Example: Sort by "Production Year" descending, then "Community Rating" descending to group movies by year with highest-rated movies first within each year.

Sort Fields

No Order

Items appear in library order without any specific sorting applied.

Name

Sort alphabetically by the item's title. Respects Jellyfin's Sort Title metadata field when set.

Name (Ignore 'The')

Sort alphabetically by title, ignoring the leading article "The". Respects Jellyfin's Sort Title metadata field when set.

Production Year

Sort by the year the content was produced or released.

Release Date

Sort by the specific release date of the content.

Date Created

Sort by when the item was added to your Jellyfin library.

Community Rating

Sort by user ratings. Higher ratings first when descending.

Play Count (owner)

Sort by how many times the playlist/collection owner has played each item. Useful for finding least-played or most-played content.

Last Played (owner)

Sort by when the playlist/collection owner last played each item. Great for rediscovering content or finding recently watched items.

Runtime

Sort by the duration or runtime of items in minutes.

Series Name

Sort TV episodes by their series name. Respects Jellyfin's Sort Title metadata field when set.

Season Number

Sort TV episodes by season number.

Episode Number

Sort TV episodes by episode number.

Album Name

Sort music and music videos by album name.

Artist

Sort music and music videos by artist name.

Track Number

Sort by album name, disc number, then track number. Designed specifically for music to maintain proper album order.

Similarity

Sort by similarity score (highest first). Only available when using the "Similar To" filter field in your rules.

Random

Randomize the order of items. Each refresh generates a new random order.

Rule Block Order

Preserves the natural grouping from OR blocks by keeping items from each block together.

How it works:

Items from OR Block 1 appear first
Then items from OR Block 2
Then OR Block 3, and so on

When to use: Perfect for creating playlists with distinct sections from different rule groups, especially when combined with Per-Group Max Items.

Works with secondary sorts: Items within each block are sorted by your secondary sort options.

Requires Multiple OR Blocks

This sort option requires multiple OR blocks to be meaningful. With only one OR block, it behaves like regular sorting.

Sorting Collections by Child Item Values

When creating a smart collection that contains other collections, you can sort those collections by aggregated values from the items within them.

How It Works

When you have a "collection of collections" (a smart collection containing child collections), you may want to sort by the earliest, most recent, or highest-rated item within each child collection, rather than by the collection's own metadata.

This feature is automatically enabled when your Collection name rule has a Collection search depth greater than 0 and you're sorting by one of the supported fields.

Supported Sort Fields

This feature is available for the following sort fields:

Sort Field	Ascending	Descending
Production Year	Minimum (earliest year)	Maximum (most recent year)
Community Rating	Minimum (lowest rating)	Maximum (highest rating)
Date Created	Minimum (oldest)	Maximum (most recently added)
Release Date	Minimum (earliest release)	Maximum (most recently released)

The aggregation method depends on sort direction to ensure consistent, intuitive ordering.

Configuration

Set the output type to Collection
Add a rule using the Collection name field
Set "Include collections only" to "Yes" (to include the collection objects themselves)
Set the Collection search depth field to 1 or higher (this controls how deep to look for items to aggregate)
Select a supported sort field (e.g., Production Year)

Limits

Max Items

Set a maximum number of items for your smart list. The limit applies after sorting is applied.

Common uses:

Create "Top 10" or "Best of" style lists
Limit large lists to a manageable size
Improve performance for very large libraries

Performance

Setting this to unlimited (0) might cause performance issues for very large lists.

Per-Group Max Items

When using multiple OR blocks, you can set a Max Items limit for each individual OR block. This allows precise control over your smart list composition.

How it works:

Items matching each OR block's rules are collected separately
Each group is sorted using the playlist's sort options
The MaxItems limit is applied to each group independently
The limited results from all groups are combined
The global Max Items limit (if set) is applied to the final combined result

Configuration:

Create your rule(s) within an OR block
At the bottom of each OR block, enter a value in "Max Items for this OR block"
Leave empty or set to 0 for unlimited items from that group

Example: Create a balanced playlist with 50 trailers and 50 episodes by setting MaxItems to 50 on each OR block.

Combining with Global Limits

Per-group limits are applied first, then the global Max Items limit. Example: 3 blocks × 50 items each = 150 total, then global limit of 100 = final result of 100 items.

See Examples

For detailed examples using per-group limits, see Common Use Cases and Advanced Examples.

Max Playtime

Set a maximum playtime in minutes for your smart playlist (playlists only, not collections).

How it works: The plugin calculates the total runtime and stops adding items when the time limit is reached. The last item that would exceed the limit is excluded.

Common uses:

Workout playlists matching your exercise duration
Pomodoro-style work sessions with music
Playlists that fit within specific time constraints

Works with all media types (movies, TV shows, music) using the actual runtime of each item.