The queue
The queue is not a plain append-only list. It remembers what filled it, and that decides what happens when you play something else.
| You play | What happens |
|---|---|
| A track from the playlist already on | Moves within the queue. The running order and anything queued behind it survive. |
| A track from a different playlist or album | Replaces the queue with that one, starting where you picked. |
| A one-off from search, mid-playlist | Slots in as the next track and plays. The playlist resumes right after it. |
A on anything |
Appends to the end. Never interrupts. |
That third row is the one worth knowing. Hearing one song from search used to mean losing your playlist; now the song plays and the playlist picks up immediately afterwards.
Shuffle
Section titled “Shuffle”The visible list and the playback order are kept separate. Turning shuffle on never scrambles the list on screen, and turning it off restores the original sequence rather than an approximation of it.
A track inserted with “play next” lands after the current one in both, so it really is next even when shuffled.
Gapless
Section titled “Gapless”ytkew keeps two tracks in mpv’s playlist at all times: the current one and the next. Every YouTube track needs a yt-dlp round trip to resolve, which takes one to seven seconds cold, so without prefetching every transition would stall. With it, only the very first track waits and skipping is instant.