Playlist Folders are created when Playlists are imported from iTunes. They are displayed in several players, Roku, iOS… but are not displayed or managed in the Web App.
Once an iTunes Playlist Folder is imported into the Plex database, it seems that it is there to stay. If the folder is deleted in iTunes, no amount of reimporting from iTunes or deleting music libraries will remove it from the Plex database. If you reorganize your iTunes playlists in iTunes, you end up with quite a mess and no way to fix it. It really distracts from the great presentation Plex adds to your iTunes music library.
Please add the ability to display / manage and delete unused playlist folders from the Web App. Alternately, please clear all unused or previously deleted folders when importing from iTunes.
As always, thanks for your continued efforts to make Plex the best media software. I’ve been using Plex since December 2011. It is by far the best thing to ever happen to my media collection.
Same problem. Deleting non iTunes playlists works fine but there’s no way to get rid of all these empty iTunes created playlists. Would be great to add a delete button for them and/or show them in the Web UI and allow management from there.
Yes, this issue of not being able to get rid of the playlists is ‘inconceivable’! I thought If I imported my iTunes playlist and told it to overwrite existing playlist, it would update my playlists with newly created lists from iTunes (I don’t use Plex to maintain playlists, I use exclusively iTunes, for many reasons I won’t go into here). Now I have 150 duplicate playlists!!! Two of each, plus the new ones I have recently created. I cannot get rid of them so I can import again and start from scratch? REALLY???
I find this is ‘inconceivable’ (to quote from The Princess Bride)!!!. This is The Cliffs of Insanity embodied in an incomplete implementation of a really good concept (PLEX).
Somebody please add the 30 or 40 lines of code into PLEX to allow me to DELETE ALL in my Playlist section so I can start over!
OK…so I found out how to delete my playlists
one
at
a
time.
So after I finished deleting my 200+ playlists (duplicates, triplicates, fourpacks), I waited for a moment and re-imported my iTunes playlist into an empty playlist list, and lo and behold I had my 75 REAL playlists in place and accessible.
So let me get this straight - every time I make a change in my playlist in iTunes, before I import them, I must go through my Plex playlists and delete them
one
at
a
time
before I import the iTunes playlists?
DELETE ALL PLAYLISTS button, guys? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
You can have it say “THIS WILL DELETE YOUR PLAYLISTS AND CANNOT BE UNDONE, ARE YOU SURE?”
"ARE YOU REALLY SURE’
“YOU KNOW THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE”
“OK, IF YOU INSIST!”
before it allows you to delete your playlists.
I have 40 iTunes playlists which I would like to upload. When I click on the gear button the window “Import from iTunes” shows up and allows me to import by clicking on the button. I do so and I get a screen that says "There was a problem importing immediately. It goes away and the “import button circle” goes around forever (hours). I have to click cancel. I have tried SuperSync software to import my playlist and it indicates they were uploaded but nothing shows up in the Plex playlist folder. What am I doing wrong? I can’t seem to find the answer on reading the posts on the forum or searching the net.
TIA
Scott
@jeebert said:
OK…so I found out how to delete my playlists
one
at
a
time.
So after I finished deleting my 200+ playlists (duplicates, triplicates, fourpacks), I waited for a moment and re-imported my iTunes playlist into an empty playlist list, and lo and behold I had my 75 REAL playlists in place and accessible.
So let me get this straight - every time I make a change in my playlist in iTunes, before I import them, I must go through my Plex playlists and delete them
one
at
a
time
before I import the iTunes playlists?
DELETE ALL PLAYLISTS button, guys? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
You can have it say “THIS WILL DELETE YOUR PLAYLISTS AND CANNOT BE UNDONE, ARE YOU SURE?”
"ARE YOU REALLY SURE’
“YOU KNOW THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE”
“OK, IF YOU INSIST!”
before it allows you to delete your playlists.
But please add this option.
The problem cited in this thread is about deleting Playlist Folders, not playlists themselves.
That said, the problem you are encountering is mostly unnecessary. When you import from iTunes, follow the following steps in the web browser version of Plex…
Navigate to your playlists by clicking on Playlists under “Libraries” in the left side menu.
Click on the gear pulldown in the upper right corner and select “Import from iTunes”.
in the dialog box that appears be sure to select “Overwrite existing playlists”. This will prevent the creation of “duplicates, triplicates, fourpacks”. Only then should you click on “Import”.
Yes, you are right, I can find no way to easily delete all playlists, so avoiding the creation of duplicates is really important.
@powerplaytwo said:
I have 40 iTunes playlists which I would like to upload. When I click on the gear button the window “Import from iTunes” shows up and allows me to import by clicking on the button. I do so and I get a screen that says "There was a problem importing immediately. It goes away and the “import button circle” goes around forever (hours). I have to click cancel. I have tried SuperSync software to import my playlist and it indicates they were uploaded but nothing shows up in the Plex playlist folder. What am I doing wrong? I can’t seem to find the answer on reading the posts on the forum or searching the net.
TIA
Scott
Scott, I’ve had some similar difficulties on occasion. Mine were fixed by making sure the iTunes music library was in a “proper location”. Plex is kinda particular about where the library and songs are located.
My iTunes folder is located in the normal position on the HD on my iMac. Plex accesses it to find and play my music. SuperSync also uses it to sync my music/playlists from the iMac to the NAS. I work on this issue everyday trying to figure out what I am doing wrong or have missed.
I have tried everything I can think of and the playlists do not show up in the Plex playlist folder. The QNAP TS-251+ NAS has software to allow access to the files/folders that are loaded on it and it shows the 40 playlists are loaded into the playlist folder on the NAS. SuperSync confirms the playlists are loaded in the same folder as well. But once Plex is running ( both the remote web and Mac desktop versions) the playlist folder reflects no files are there. I am about to give up on Plex and find another solution. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
My iTunes folder is located in the normal position on the HD on my iMac. Plex accesses it to find and play my music. SuperSync also uses it to sync my music/playlists from the iMac to the NAS. I work on this issue everyday trying to figure out what I am doing wrong or have missed.
I have tried everything I can think of and the playlists do not show up in the Plex playlist folder. The QNAP TS-251+ NAS has software to allow access to the files/folders that are loaded on it and it shows the 40 playlists are loaded into the playlist folder on the NAS. SuperSync confirms the playlists are loaded in the same folder as well. But once Plex is running ( both the remote web and Mac desktop versions) the playlist folder reflects no files are there. I am about to give up on Plex and find another solution. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
You did not say where Plex is hosted, but I am assuming it is on the NAS, not on the iMac. I suspect that the problem is trying to import the playlists from the copy on the NAS. I understand that Plex relies quite heavily on the information contained in the iTune Library.xml, especially the file location information. On the NAS, this information does not point to the correct location. Plex’s documentation confirms that unless you are running Plex on the iMac where iTunes is located, the import is not likely to work. Here’s an excerpt from the docs…
"Import from iTunes
Enabling this option will attempt to import your music playlists from iTunes. It will also import your ratings, the date you added the music, as well as play and skip counts for tracks in your library.
This option requires that iTunes be installed in the default location on the computer running Plex Media Server."
Plex is hosted on the NAS as you mentioned. I also have it loaded on the iMac so I can access it in both places. I also have it loaded on my Sonos controller on the iMac, so I can access my music from the NAS via the Sonos system for playing music throughout the house. The playlists don’t show up in any of these locations, even though SuperSync says they are in the Multimedia, playlist folder on the NAS.
The problem I am having is importing the 40 playlists located on the iMac HD where iTunes and Plex are resident. The iTunes folders are located in the normal place on the HD and functions correctly on the iMac. I have pointed Plex to the .xml iTunes file in the Settings, Channels directory on the NAS. I am not aware where else i could do this in Plex.
I have started the long and painstaking task of creating new playlists within Plex. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear Plex gives you the same flexibility in the creation of the playlists that iTunes does. I can’t create the same playlists, but it is better than nothing. Some of my playlists I don’t think I will be able to create at all, so I am still trying to learn how to do this.
Your help and time provided is greatly appreciated. I am hoping I will eventually be able to simply load my iTunes playlists into Plex and then they will be available everywhere. I invested in a NAS so I could listen and control my music from wherever I am without having to have my iMac up and running all the time. I am a long way from reaching that goal at the moment.
i have no experience with two of the items you are using, your NAS and SuperSync. However, I have had qualified success in getting my iTunes and Plex to play together on my Mac Mini. I’ll try to clarify how I’ve used a couple of methods that are available.
First the two methods I use are 1) setting up a Music Library and 2) the iTunes Music Channel. The Library and the Channel approaches are two entirely separate methods of accessing iTunes from within Plex. They do not interact with each other in any way that I know of.
You may be getting the two methods confused. The playlists that appear in “Playlists” item that appears under “Libraries” in the browser version of the player originate from the creation of a Music Library, not from the use of the iTunes Channel. When accessing music via the iTunes Channel, the playlists are accessed from within the channel. You can used either or both methods, but don’t expect the Channel method to create playlists in the Libraries/Playlists folder.
How I have the Mac/iTunes music installed… On my Mac, I have the iTunes Library (.xml and .itl files) in its default location… that is “/Users/bob/Music/iTunes”. The music itself is in the artist and compilation folders kept organized by iTunes two folder levels down in “/Users/bob/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music”.
For the Library method… I create a Music Library just as I would a Movie or TV Library, except I select type of “Music”. I then use the Add Folders selection to point to the music library “/Users/bob/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music”. The import takes a while, but when done, the Playlist folder contains my iTunes playlists. Depending on the player used, the playlists may show up organized into folders or just in a single list of all playlists. Note that the Library creation / import method does not properly handle many smart playlists, particularly any with complex logic or which rely on the music ratings. Manual Playlists import reliably.
The instructions for the Library method are here.
Full disclosure: I do have a PlexPass and am likely using Premium Library options.
For the Channel method… In settings for the server, under Channels, I have selected the Enable iTunes channel checkbox. Under the iTunes library XML path i have entered “/Users/bob/Music/iTunes”. The channel method does faithfully handle smart playlists and the playlist folder structure. But, the playlists do appear within the channel (Channels / iTunes Music), not in the Libraries / Playlist folder.
Thank you Bob for the detailed explanation. It was very helpful and greatly appreciated.
Since my last post, I went ahead and recreated all of my playlists within Plex so they are there now. It took awhile to recreate them, but I learned more about Plex in doing so. Not a bad thing at all to learn more about the software. I am now on a mission to fill in all of the “blank” posters for the tracks that Plex couldn’t find. I now know when Plex can’t find a poster for the artist, it doesn’t go to the iTunes file and load the artwork for those tracks. Once it has a poster, which you can upload to the track it will retrieve the artwork from iTunes. All of my tracks have solid metadata which I am “■■■■” about.
Thanks again. I am going to save your information as it may come in very handy at some point.
