How to Use Plex to Easily Create Playlists for PlexAmp
I love Plex, the self-hosting solution for movies, TV shows, music, and even audiobooks (though this last is still only partly supported). I usually try to go more towards the FOSS (or at least Open Source) end of the market, but, while Jellyfin and Kodi are friggen awesome, their development lags way behind Plex and even Emby.
I have a massive media library that I’ve built over the years, and I wanted to be able to access it quickly and easily without having to pay out monthly fees. The one-time $100 fee to become a lifetime PlexPass member was absolutely worth it in terms of how many services I was able to compress into a single app.
In the last couple of years, PlexAmp (Plex’s music-centered app that plays content stored in your Plex server) has become known as one of the go-to music clients out there, offering a modern and powerful app for your music collection needs. But, as with any app, it still needs work, and Plex’s development has always been a little laggy in odd ways. The largest lag I’ve encountered with PlexAmp is the inability to easily create playlists from within the app. Sure, you can create a playlist by manually clicking on each song and choosing “add to playlist”, but if you’re like me and have playlists featuring hundreds of songs that are already curated, then this feature just doesn’t make sense.
The other problem is that because PlexAmp is just a client app, it doesn’t let you create playlists from inside the app that anyone with access to your server can see! If you want to share your cool music collection with your family, therefore, what are you supposed to do?
The answer is surprisingly simple and comes about by setting things up in the main Plex web-app. By setting things up directly inside your server, you can not only create customized playlists from your music with ease, you can set up collections that everyone with server access will be able to create their own playlists from in just two clicks, offering massive library customization for all of your server members.