Playlists

Playlists can be found at the bottom of the Navigation sidebar in Roon. If you don't see your playlists, access your Roon Settings → General and ensure "Show playlists in the sidebar" is enabled:

Using Playlists in Roon

Creating Playlists

You can add tracks or albums to playlists from almost any screen in Roon. First, select what you want to add by right-clicking if you're using a mouse, or pressing and holding when using touch. A selection bar will appear across the top of Roon. Click the 3 dots icon and select Add To Playlist to add the selected songs or albums to an existing playlist, or to create a new playlist. To learn more about Creating Playlists, with some examples, click here:

Duplicate Track Warning

When adding tracks to a playlist, Roon will automatically check if any of the tracks already exist in that playlist and warn you before adding them.

Depending on what was found, you will see one of the following:

One track is already in the playlist. Roon shows “Duplicate track found” with two buttons: "Add anyway" to add it regardless, or "Don’t add" to cancel.

All tracks are already in the playlist. Roon shows “Duplicate tracks found” with two buttons: "Add all tracks" to add them regardless, or "Don’t add" to cancel.

Some tracks are already in the playlist. Roon shows “Duplicate tracks found” with three buttons: "Add all tracks" to add everything including duplicates, "Add only new tracks" to skip the ones already there, or "Don’t add: to cancel:

Editing Playlists

Playlists created in Roon can be edited by selecting Playlists from the main navigation sidebar. Click the 3 dots icon to the right of the playlist you want to edit and select Edit...

This will allow you to:

Rename the playlist
Move the playlist to another playlist folder
Delete the playlist

Please note the following consequences of deleting an imported playlist:
1. iTunes Playlist - Not editable in Roon -- it must be deleted in iTunes.
2. M3U Playlists - The M3U file will be permanently deleted from your hard drive
3. Streaming Service Playlist - A playlist made by a streaming service will be unfavorited on the platform. A playlist you created in the streaming service will be removed from your streaming service account.

When clicking into the playlist itself, you can make a few different edits:

Select tracks to remove them from the playlist
Use the "drag handle" to reorder tracks (left of the play button on each track)

Playlists that have been imported aren't editable. You must first Save a Local Copy. To do this, click on the playlist and then click the 3 dots icon and select Edit. Now select + Copy:

Custom Playlist Covers

By default, Roon builds a playlist's artwork automatically as a mosaic of album art from its tracks. You can replace the mosaic with your own cover image on any Roon playlist or Smart playlist.

Adding a Cover

Open the playlist's Edit... dialog, or hover over the playlist image and click the edit option that appears.
Add an image by browsing for a file, dragging one into the dialog, or pasting an image URL. JPEG and PNG are supported.
Check the preview in the dialog. It shows exactly how your cover will look.
Save your changes.

Non-square images are cropped to the center to fill the square artwork slot. Your cover replaces the mosaic everywhere the playlist appears: the playlists browser, the playlist page header, search results, and phone layouts. Covers are stored with your library, so they're kept through restarts and backups.

Removing a Cover

To go back to the automatic mosaic, please open Edit... and remove the cover.

You can set and edit covers in Roon on desktop and tablet. Phone remotes show custom covers but can't edit them. Roon ARC shows the automatic mosaic for now; support for custom covers will come in a future ARC update.

Custom covers aren't available for streaming service playlists (TIDAL, Qobuz, KKBOX, nugs) or imported playlists (iTunes and M3U). This includes streaming playlists you edit in Roon through 2-Way Playlist Sync. These playlists keep their existing artwork.

2-Way Playlist Sync

In the past, playlists stored in Roon could be edited, but playlists stored within streaming services couldn’t be edited in Roon. Now, those streaming service playlists can be edited in either Roon or the streaming service, and the edits you make will auto-sync properly both ways, creating a 2-way sync between the two.

Streaming Service Playlists

Content added from the same streaming service as the playlist will sync just like if you were using that service’s app.

example: Browsing in Roon, you add 1 track from Qobuz into a playlist within your Qobuz folder:

(you can also use the ‘Recent' playlist list for faster adding and editing)

If the track you are adding is not from the same service (either because it’s a local track or from a different service) Roon will have to find a match before the playlist can be synced. Any tracks that are matched to the service will be added to the playlist. If any tracks don’t match, Roon will let you know.

example: Browsing in Roon, you add 1 local track into a playlist within your Qobuz folder:

(notice how the added track now shows the Qobuz version when viewing the playlist)

Roon may not be able to match all tracks to TIDAL/Qobuz/KKBOX/nugs. Syncing will depend on the availability of the track within the streaming service. If this happens, Roon will notify you that a track wasn’t able to be identified:

What if I see the same song I’m trying to add in Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX/nugs, and Roon still isn’t able to match it?

In these cases, it’s likely a mismatch with the specific version of the song you’re trying to add. If you are certain you see the same version of the song, get in touch with our Technical Support team on Community.

Using Folders to Manage Playlists

We’ve added a few management tools to help you shape your ideal playlist hierarchy. Two important tools are the "Copy" function and the "Move" function, which can both be found when clicking the 3 dots icon “…” right of your playlist:

Copying Playlists

Copy provides an excellent way to duplicate your favorite playlists across Roon and Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX. Using the same 3 dots icon to pull down the available playlist tools, you can use Copy to:

Copy a playlist from a local location into your Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX playlist folder
Copy a local playlist into a different local folder
Copy a playlist from Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX into a local folder.

The process of copying a local playlist to the Qobuz folder:

Moving Playlists

A fresh way to manage your playlists, the Move tool allows for moving between different playlist folders. A good thing to keep in mind when using the Move function is where you’re planning on moving your playlist. For example, you can Move a playlist:

From a local playlist into a different local folder - this happens instantly, no need for Roon to match or sync any tracks.
From Tidal/Qobuz into a local folder - this also happens instantly without any need for track matching and syncing. The playlist will keep the streaming service version of each track after being moved into a local folder.
From a local location into your Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX/nugs playlist folder - When doing this, Roon will auto-match the tracks from your playlist with the tracks available on Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX/nugs. This will replace any local tracks with tracks from the streaming service.

Important: This move cannot be undone. There is the option to Copy this new playlist back to its prior location, but the files will remain in their Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX form.

Currently, there is no function to retroactively replace Tidal/Qobuz/KKBOX files with local files.

Watch the video below to see the process of adding a local playlist to the Qobuz playlist folder:

Additional Playlist Tools

Roon allows you more flexibility in editing and displaying Playlist information. You are now able to reorder, sort by various columns, and filter by track name, album, or artist. You can also add or delete track fields. For example, you can include the Dynamic Range and Number of Plays columns in your Playlist Views. You can find these options when clicking the Cogwheel:

Sorting by Column

To sort by column, just click the name of the column.

Reorder Tracks

To reorder your tracks, simply use the “Drag Handles”

the tracks will be renumbered automatically.

Play Options

There are various options to play your playlist:

Click Play Playlist will allow you to start playing the entire playlist. All songs will be added to your queue in order.
Left-click (or tap) a song as your starting point, and that song, plus the following, songs will be added to your queue.
Right-click (or long press) a song. Select Play at the top of the screen and only that song will be added to your queue.

Importing Playlists

Information about importing playlists into Roon from iTunes, TIDAL, and M3U files can be found here.

How do I delete tracks in my playlist?

Select tracks by right-clicking, from there the red 'Remove' button will appear. Click this to remove the track or tracks from the playlist.

Still have questions? Get in touch with our Technical Support team.

Roon Playlists