Control & Sort YouTube Playlists Using These Settings From the Desktop
Are you annoyed by YouTube’s default practice of sorting Watch Later videos and other Playlists chronologically? Are you picky about the sorting methodology for each playlist? Then you’re in luck! YouTube in typical Google fashion introduced a setting to sort personal playlists but made it nearly unnoticeable for unassuming users. Learn how to control and sort YouTube playlists from YouTube’s desktop site.
Change Ordering & Other Playlist Settings on YouTube
First, navigate to the YouTube website and make sure to sign-in to your account.
Rules for How This Works
- You must own the playlists which you’ll be controlling. If you saved a publicly available playlist to your account, these options will fail to show up on those playlists.
- Watch Later has a limited number of options compared to other playlists.
- Although Purchases and History are sort of like playlists, the same amount of control cannot be exercised.
RELATED: Add YouTube Links to Watch Later Playlist Without Opening the App
How to Control & Sort YouTube Playlists
Step 1: Playlists are accessible from the hamburger menu and depending on which version of YouTube you’re using it should look something like this:
From left to right: old vs new YouTube UI
Step 2: Once you select the playlist you’d like to control, press the Playlist settings button.
Press the Playlist settings button
Step 3: From the ordering drop-down change the preference and press Save.
Change ordering
Hitting the checkbox below the drop-down will make sure the newest videos are always on top.
If you’re controlling any other playlist apart from Watcher Later, the Playlist settings button will include more options such as:
Playlist Privacy: Ability to change the playlist from being publicly accessible via search or making it private.
Change playlist privacy
Auto Add: It’s a useful feature where YouTube automatically looks for certain predefined keywords and title names and automatically adds them to a playlist
Define rules to auto add videos
Collaborate: This will allow users to send links to playlists to colleagues and friends for collaboration purposes.
Add others as collaborators
What About Mobile Users?
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this setting is half baked and can only be accessed from YouTube’s desktop site and isn’t available for mobile users where a majority of the growth is occurring. But to be fair, once you change the preferences of playlists from the desktop, it’s automatically reflected throughout your mobile apps.
I built a website Playbackloop to watch YouTube playlists in order from oldest to newest. I can’t believe youtube doesn’t allow this sort order as it’s my preferred sort order for catching up on a series.
The idea is nice but how can we trust your site. It is asking for account access which I think should not be required.
@Abhishek account access is not required to view public videos. Also from the google consent screen, playbackloop only requests email, name, and read only access to youtube. It’s to allow users to view their own private videos which no one else can view unless logged in on youtube. I use the user login to keep track of the position of the playlist they were on. But if you don’t trust the site, you can use it without login.
Thanks for the clarification Andrew.
Anyone other than the author’s doppelganger care to verify the above claims?