Creating A Playlist In The Gospel Library

While a playlist is not available, there is a workaround

I received an email asking if there was a playlist feature in the Gospel Library. For example, a playlist of all of the conference talks of President Nelson. I responded that it would be a great feature, but it is not available in the Library at this time. However, I provided him with a workaround that I am sharing below.

The following setup is for the playlist mentioned above. The setup only has to be done one time.

Create The Playlist

1. Open Search
2. Tap on Collections
3. Tap on General Conference
4. Tap on Speakers
5. Tap on Russel M. Nelson

You now have a list of President Nelson's talks. Note there is an option above the list to the right where you can sort by Most Recent or Relevance. I would suggest setting the sort to Most Recent.

Setup The Playlist In Screens

1. Tap on the first talk
2. Tap on Screens
3. Place your finger on the Screen that has the talk
4. A menu opens; tap on Rename Screen
5. Create a Screen Name, e.g., President Nelson Playlist
6. Tap on Save or OK
7. Tap on Plus
8. Tap on the Library icon at the bottom of the screen

Turn-off Continuous Play

1. Tap on Screens
2. Tap on the playlist
3. Tap on the Earphone icon
4. Tap on Audio Settings (three lines with circles on each line, or three dots)
5. Make sure that Continuous Play is off

Listening To The Playlist

1. Tap on Screens
2. Tap on the playlist Screen
3. Listen to the first talk
4. After the talk, tap on the Back button in the upper-left corner
5. Tap on the next talk in the list

For this setup to work, you must make sure you follow the procedure below:

Caveats

When you have stopped listing to the talks, do the following:

1. Make sure you are on a talk before doing something else in the Library
2. Go to Screens and tap on one of the other screens or tap on the Plus

If you do not do the above, you will lose the setup and have to go through the setup procedures above again.

The reason is if you are listening to a talk and then go to something else in the Library, that screen will be replaced by the new location.

Screens in the Library work the same as tabs in a browser. Suppose you are reading the news in your browser; if you change to another website while in the tab with the news, that tab will show the most recent website. Instead, if you create a new tab and go to another website, the tab with the news will remain.

So, when you are done listening to the talks, ALWAYS make sure you are on a talk, and ALWAYS go to Screens BEFORE going anywhere else in the Library.

After I asked for feedback from my friend Samuel Bradshaw he reminded me that if you close the app, restart your phone, or update Library app you will lose the playlist.

He also suggested an alternative to the playlist. Go to Library/General Conference/Russell M. Nelson. Using this approach if you engage in any of the actions in the above paragraph the list will remain. The one downside to this approach is there is no way to remember what is next on the list. Using the first option, the playlist method, as you progress through the playlist in search the talks that you have listened to are grayed out.

Let me know which method you prefer.