Create a Playlist

Each user on a Plex server can create their own playlists. A playlist can contain either videos, music, or photos, and can't be shared with other users. There are smart and non-smart playlists. This API command will create a non-smart playlist for a user.

URL

POST http://{ip_address}:32400/playlists?type={type}&title={title}&smart={smart}&uri=server://{machine_id}/com.plexapp.plugins.library/{library_id}?X-Plex-Token={plex_token}

Parameters

Return Status

Response

XML string value that provides details of the playlist that was just created. An example of the XML return value is shown below:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <MediaContainer size="1">
        <Playlist ratingKey="289130" key="/playlists/289130/items" guid="com.plexapp.agents.none://aa1ce6fe-b6f3-48c5-bd4f-23df120ee1f8" type="playlist" title="My Playlist" summary="" smart="0" playlistType="video" composite="/playlists/279131/composite/1786162547" icon="playlist://image.smart" duration="4246000" leafCount="1" addedAt="1684162647" updatedAt="1684162647"></Playlist>
    </MediaContainer>
</MediaContainer>

The XML return provides information on the new playlist. The root is the MediaContainer element. This element contains a single attribute indicating that one playlist has been returned from the server.

Within the MediaContainer there is one Playlist child element. The Playlist element contains information on the new playlist on the Plex server.

Remarks

Library key parameter

The Library Key parameter value can be found if you access the Plex server from the Web app.

When you hover over any item - movie, TV show, music, photo, etc. there will be a key parameter in the URL. That key value is the value you will use for the Library Key parameter.

The value is easy to find in the URL of the item. It has the structure /library/metadata/{id}. You will use the entire value of the key parameter from the media item URL.

Playlist type

The type parameter should indicate the type of media that will be in the playlist. A playlist cannot have different media types. This means that a playlist can only contain either videos, music or photos, but not more than one type.

If the value of the type parameter does not match the media item specified in the uri parameter, the playlist type will be the same as the media item.

For example, if the type parameter value is video but the media item type in the uri parameter is a photo, the playlist will be a photo playlist and not a video playlist. The response XML will indicate the proper playlist type.

If a video was added to that same playlist, a new video playlist with the same name will be created for videos.

The type parameter must be provided or a 400 - Bad Request will be returned and the playlist won't be created.

Smart playlist

The command and parameters explained on this page are used for creating non-smart playlists in Plex. If you use the same command but set the smart parameter to 1 you will create an empty playlist.

The API request for submitting a smart playlist is similar, but is different with regards to parameters.

Examples

curl -X POST http://{ip_address}:32400/playlists?type={type}&title={title}&smart={smart}&uri=server://{machine_id}/com.plexapp.plugins.library/{library_id}?X-Plex-Token={plex_token}

import requests
plex_url = http://{ip_address}:32400/playlists?type={type}&title={title}&smart={smart}&uri=server://{machine_id}/com.plexapp.plugins.library/{library_id}?X-Plex-Token={plex_token}
response = requests.post(plex_url)
print(response.text)

$response = Invoke-RestMethod 'http://{ip_address}:32400/playlists?type={type}&title={title}&smart={smart}&uri=server://{machine_id}/com.plexapp.plugins.library/{library_id}?X-Plex-Token={plex_token}' -Method 'POST'
Write-Output $response