Playlists
A playlist goes through scenes on its own: every few minutes, or by the time of day. You can make as many as you like, name them, and choose one for each screen.
Making one
Click Playlists in the rail. The first time, the page says No playlists yet; click New playlist. Later, New playlist sits under your playlists in the rail.
A new playlist is called "New playlist" and changes every 15 minutes. It starts empty.
There are two quicker ways in:
- On an opened scene, Add to a playlist offers your playlists and A new playlist. A new one made this way is named after the scene ("Nebula Drift's playlist") and has it as its first scene; the note that pops up has Open it.
- A collection brought in from Motion Hub offers Play as a playlist, which makes a playlist with the collection's name and scenes and plays it on every screen. See Motion Hub in the app.
Naming it
Click the pen by the playlist's name (Rename), type, and press Enter or click away. Esc leaves the name as it was. Names can be 60 characters long. Two playlists can't share a name: if you pick one that's taken, Motion adds a number ("Night 2").
In the rail, each playlist shows how many scenes it has, or Playing when a screen plays it.
Adding and ordering scenes
Under Scenes, click Add a scene and pick one from the grid. Each row in the list has:
- the up and down arrows (Earlier and Later) to move it
- its picture and name
- its place, #1, #2, or, by the time of day, the time it starts
- Showing on the one on screen now, and when the next comes
- the cross (Remove from playlist), which removes it from this playlist. The note that pops up has Undo.
A scene you've since deleted shows as Missing with its folder's name. Remove it with the cross.
A playlist holds up to 200 scenes. An empty playlist that changes every few minutes isn't empty in practice: None listed, so every scene takes a turn. Add scenes to choose which.
Every few minutes
How it changes at the top: Every few minutes. Then pick how long each scene stays, under Next scene every:
1 min, 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 3 hours or A day.
Scenes play in the list's order, from the top, and start again after the last.
Shuffle
Turn on Shuffle, at the foot of the page, and the order is mixed. Every scene still plays once before any plays again, and a new round never starts with the scene that ended the last one.
By the time of day
How it changes: By the time of day. Each scene gets a time to start, and shows until the next scene's time. The last one of the day carries on past midnight until the first one's time comes round.
When you switch a playlist to this, scenes without a time get one, spread over the day from six in the morning. A scene you add later gets a time three hours after the latest one.
To change when a scene starts:
- type the time in its row, after from, as
07:00, or - drag the edges in The day, the strip above the list. It shows the day from midnight to midnight, each scene's picture over its part, and a line at now. Edges move in quarter hours.
Times use your computer's clock and time zone.
Choosing the screens
Plays on lists your screens. Click one to play the playlist there; click it again to stop it. Each screen plays one playlist at a time: a screen playing another playlist says so ("Screen 2 · now Night"), and choosing this one replaces it.
Other ways to choose:
- On Screens, pick a screen, then A playlist under what it shows.
- On Home, a screen playing a playlist has a Playlist button that opens it.
A playlist that plays nowhere says Not on a screen. One that plays says where, what it's showing and when the next comes: "On screen 1 and screen 2 · now showing Nebula Drift, next in 12 min".
What makes it change
Playlists run on the clock, not on a timer of their own:
- Every few minutes counts from the moment the playlist started, so every screen playing it changes at the same moment, and a spanned scene stays in one piece. It keeps its place when you sign out and back in, or restart.
- By the time of day looks at the time and shows the scene whose part of the day it is.
The clock starts again from the first scene when you make a playlist or switch how it changes. Adding, removing, reordering or retiming scenes doesn't restart it.
A change you make to a playlist goes to every screen playing it straight away.
Putting a scene on a screen by hand, with Use as wallpaper or by dragging it onto the screen, stops that screen's playlist. So does A scene on the Screens page; its note has Undo.
Deleting one
Click Delete playlist at the foot of the page. Screens playing it keep the scene they're showing. The note that pops up has Undo, which brings it back with its screens.
On Windows and the tray
The tray panel's Next scene button moves a screen on to its next scene now, and every other screen playing the same playlist with it. On a screen with no playlist it goes to the next scene in your library. Playlists by the time of day don't have one.
Last changed 2 November 2026. Something wrong here? Tell us.