Smart Playlists

The Smart Playlists plugin lets you create rule-based playlists from your Music Assistant library.

Smart playlists are dynamic: the tracks are re-evaluated whenever you play the playlist, based on your saved rules and current library/provider state.

Experimental

This plugin is currently marked as experimental. Behaviour may change before the final release.

Installation

Enable the Smart Playlists plugin via Settings → Plugins → Add a plugin. No additional configuration is required.

Creating a Smart Playlist

In the Playlists view, select the button in the top right and choose Create Smart Playlist.

The screenshot above shows a Discover mode setup.

The screenshot above shows From my library mode (rule-based setup).

Enter a name and choose a source mode:

• From my library: build from tracks already in your MA library.
• Discover mode: use one or more seed items (tracks, artists, albums, or playlists) and fetch similar content from supported streaming providers.

Rule model

Smart playlists use include/exclude style rules:

• Genre: is / is not (one or more genres)
• Artist: is / is not (library mode, one or more artists)
• Album: is / is not (library mode, one or more albums)
• Album type: is / is not (filter by album type: album, single, EP, compilation, etc.)
• Explicit: filter tracks by explicit content marker (three options: allowed, explicit only, not allowed; provider-dependent)
• Favorite: yes (library mode)
• Year: between from/to (it is possible to use only from or only to)
• Duration: between from/to in MM:SS format (filter tracks by length)
• Last played: filter tracks by how recently they were played (e.g., “1 days ago”, “2 weeks ago”)

Album type examples:

• Album type is “Album”: only full-length albums (excludes singles, EPs, compilations)
• Album type is not “Single”: excludes all single releases
• Album type is “Album” or “EP”: includes full albums and EPs (excludes singles and compilations)
• Album type is “Live”: only live recordings/concerts

Available album types: Album, Single, EP, Compilation, Live, Soundtrack, Audiobook, Podcast, Unknown album type (albums without a specific type classification or where the music provider does not provide type information).

Explicit content filter options:

• Allowed: include both explicit and non-explicit tracks (no filtering)
• Explicit only: include only tracks marked as explicit content
• Not allowed: exclude all tracks marked as explicit content

Note: Explicit content filtering depends on your music provider supplying explicit markers in their metadata. Not all music providers include this information, and availability varies by provider and region. If your provider does not supply explicit markers, this filter will have no effect.

Year examples:

• from: 1969 means 1969 or newer.
• to: 1980 means 1980 or older.

Duration examples:

• from: 0:30 means 30 seconds or longer (excludes very short tracks such as interludes).
• to: 5:00 means 5 minutes or shorter.
• between: 3:00 and 6:00 means tracks between 3 and 6 minutes.

Last played examples:

• 1 days ago means tracks played within the last day.
• 7 days ago means tracks played within the last week.
• Use this to create “recently played” playlists or to exclude tracks played recently.

In From my library mode you can choose whether tracks must match all rules or any rule.

In Discover mode, filters are applied to the provider result after similar content is fetched.

Discover mode

Discover mode fetches similar content from your streaming providers based on seed items.

Best Effort Service

Discover mode relies on external music provider APIs for content recommendations. Results depend on:

• Provider availability and API limits
• Seed track/artist/album recognition by the provider
• Provider-specific recommendation algorithms

Quality and availability of results may vary between providers and over time.

When using Discover mode:

• Add one or more seeds from tracks, artists, albums, or playlists.
• Seed lookups depend on provider support for the selected seed types.
• Results are sampled from provider output and refreshed on each play.

Track count and duration hint

The dialog shows a live estimate while you edit rules:

• From my library mode: live matching track count + duration estimate, updated as rules change.
• Discover mode: no live matching-count calculation; the UI only shows guidance that up to 50 tracks are fetched from your streaming provider.

The screenshot below shows From my library mode (rule-based smart playlist).

The screenshot below shows the Track Count hint for Discover mode.

Playlist detail

After saving, open the smart playlist to view a current sample output based on your rules.

AI descriptions

The Smart Playlists provider settings have an AI descriptions option. With it switched on, Music Assistant writes a short description for each smart playlist from the rules you gave it, so the playlist says what it holds without you having to write that yourself.

This needs an AI engine, which comes from another plugin. Switching AI descriptions on reveals an AI engine picker directly beneath it, which you can change at any time. See AI and text-to-speech engines.

Notes

• Smart playlists only exist as long as the Smart Playlists plugin is installed. Removing the plugin also removes associated smart playlists from the MA library.