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 public playlist to your account, these options will fail to show up.
Watch Later has a limited number of options compared to other playlists you create.
Although Purchases and History are sort of like playlists, the same amount of control cannot be exercised.

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: new vs old 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.

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