I’ve been bashing my head trying to create a few smart collections, but the limited filters just don’t seem to allow it.
For instance, I can create a filter that only shows TV shows that have had an episode released in the last year, but I can not show the opposite of that for every TV show that has not released an episode in the last year. So there is no way for me to make two lists with no repeating shows with these limited filters.
There are many examples of the filters not having an exact opposite filter, even many of the true and false filters do not work as opposite switches for TV shows.
I would love to set up a filter that would only show TV shows that have at least one episode that is either marked as played or is in progress, and does not have all episodes marked as played. This is exactly what the continue playing list does, but the smart collections do not seem to be able to do this.
I would also love it if smart TV collections also had the ability to be sorted by the last episode air date. The closest I can get to this is sorting by the last episode added date. If I switch to episode view it can do it, but then it will have every single episode in the list instead of just the show, and that is not desirable at all.
Episode Air Date > Is not in the last > 12Months (alternatively use 1Years)
Match any of the following
Episode in Progress > is true
Episode Unplayed > is true
That’s indeed not possible at the moment while displaying the library by tv-shows. The option is available if you display the library by episodes.
IIRC there’s been a feature suggestion asking for this option to be added.
I have literally tried every option, including your suggestions.
This returns if ANY episode has not aired in the last year. I only want it to return if EVERY single episode has not aired in the least year. That would exclude every show that has had any episode air in the last year. That would allow two lists without duplicates. The way it is, you will end up with duplicates in two lists.
(I am not advocating to change the behavior either, it would be better to add more filters that behave differently, so that more options exist. There could be use cases for more filters that have not been thought of yet, so why limit options?)
“Episode Unplayed” doesn’t catch all shows that have unplayed episodes, but “Unplayed Episodes” catches all shows with unplayed episodes… Those two filters should really be more descriptively named.
But this will also include every show with no episodes played and none in progress (shows that would not be included in the continue watching list).
I ended up using this so that I could make another collection without the shows in it:
I suppose there’s a general premise that’ll be getting in your way.
While you’re filtering for shows, Plex will always only look for entire shows that meet your criteria. The moment you open that show, Plex will display that show as it will if you open it regularly from your library → that means with all its seasons – watched or unwatched.
You can of course filter for episodes – but then you’ll end up with a long list of episodes (no grouping by show / seasons).
If they would simply add the ability to sort by last episode air date as requested, then I would likely not need to restrict my list with the “Episode Air Date” filter.
