I have recently started using the shuffle option to play episodes of tv shows such as south park (where the order they are viewed in doesnt matter) and this option works great and I love it for having some background media playing, but what I have found is that when I come back to play more random episodes after watching a movie, or another show, plex selects from ALL episodes, including ones I may have just watched. As I write this I realize I could use the view unwatched filter, and then shuffle from those available items, but I still feel it would be handy to simple have a "shuffle unwatched" feature. Then one wouldnt have to constantly be changing the unwatched filter back and forth.
I'd actually like to see the "intelligence" of the shuffle feature increased to take into account view counts and last viewed date of items... i.e. when shuffling media play content with lowest view count that hasn't be watched within 7 days (or whichever the default is... maybe that's a setting to add somewhere)
Smarter playlists could also help... But this I mean creating playlist as "saved filters" of sorts...
i.e. we can playlist a show (South Park) with specific criteria, such as "unwatched" and "shuffled", and playing the playlist will have the latest (as with us going in and applying filters again does)
Doing it this way would open a bigger world of user customisation :)
Not exactly what you're asking for - but If you create a smart playlist at the library level in web or iOS you will get a saved filter. You can then shuffle that playlist.
Hope that helps.
@Dom C; Thanks for pointing out the smart playlist feature; as happy as I've been for playlists, I missed this gem. It's a little rough, and I can't find it on Plex/Web, but it's very promising.
To speak to the feature request:
I'd love a button right next the shuffle button that is dedicated to "shuffle unwatched" - it's common that I filter to unwatched, shuffle, then change it back to view all in order to show the whole library.
By contrast, I don't think I've ever intentionally shuffled watched and unwatched items together.
Design examples (don't judge me):
Early 2021 clean-up: duplicate
