The story of adding a duration-based sorting feature to YouTube playlists

YouTube's sorting feature only has
categories for "Date published," "Date added," and "Most popular."

Background of creation

※Creation period: around July 2025

Tocope with forgetfulness due to aging, I have recently started
strengthening my task management.

When I tried it, I noticed that I strangely feel calm when looking at my ToDo list,
and I feel strangely happy when I check off completed tasks.

However... perhaps because of this,
I have started to feel that consuming hobby content like reading
is also a "task" for me.

For example,YouTube.

I register videos I want to watch to my "Watch Later" list,
but.

Videos pileup. The number of
itemsincreases. The number
itselfgrows.

It feels kind of uncomfortable (lol)
Anxiety

Moreover, I am also

someone who suffers from "the disease of not wanting to waste spare time."

For example,

For example,

・I have about 10 minutes after finishing my morning routine before leaving the house.
・I want to choose and consume a video that I can finish watching within these 10 minutes.

But YouTube only has sort functions for "Date published" and "Date added" ("Most popular" is almost never used).

Therefore, when I add videos to a playlist,
3-hour long videos and 1-minute videos
end up being listed in the order they were added.

I really hate this state!

I want to be able to instantly choose a video from the list that I can watch in my 10 minutes in the morning.

I want to get through them efficiently.

I wish I could sort by duration like I could on
Niconico Douga.

Why doesn't YouTube have this?

So, as usual, I asked
chatGPT.

"Is there a way to sort 'Watch Later' by duration?"

chatGPT's response was simple.

"Yes, there is."

How it works

So, I built it.
This is also a Chrome extension.

Actually, I created this
before the feature in my previous article,

and I set up things like
"Google Cloud OAuth settings"

and "YouTube Data API activation"
when I made this feature,
and have been reusing them since.
(It seems once you set it up, you can make as many local extensions as you want.)

Previous article

1. Open 'Watch Later' (or any playlist)

First, open
'Watch Later' or any playlist on YouTube.

Run the extension in that state.

Once executed, the videos are sorted by shortest duration first.

This is my favorite part.

It feels good to have the tasks
all lined up.

2. You can select videos with checkboxes

By default, all videos are selected.

You can deselect all of them
and then check the boxes
to select only the videos you need.

Depending on the selection status,

• Total duration

• Total duration at 1.2x and 1.5x speed

are automatically recalculated.

You can use it for things like,
"Which videos can I watch within 30 minutes from now?"

3. Filtering by duration is also possible

You can also specify a duration range
from the pull-down menu.

For example:

• Within 3 minutes

• Within 10 minutes

• 30 minutes or more

Filtering like this is possible.

4. Save with "Add to Playlist"

Finally, when you press the "Add to Playlist" button,

it will be added to a new playlist
in the sorted order.

With this,

• Shortest-first playlist

• Lists that can be finished today

You can manage things like that.

Drawbacks

If I had my way, I would have liked to
keep it all within the original playlist.

My workflow is like this:

1. Generate a playlist sorted by shortest duration using the extension above
2. Delete all videos from the original playlist
3. Add the videos from 1 to the original playlist
　*At this point, the Chrome extension
　"YouTube™ Multiple Selection"
　is useful to use.
4. Delete the playlist from 1

It takes a bit of extra effort and is a hassle (crying).

Reference

Summary

Watching YouTube is entertainment, but
for me, it's half a task.

Having a backlog is stressful.

Having them out of order is also stressful.

So, I organized them.

Personally, I am quite satisfied.

Rather than changing the YouTube experience,

maybe I just resolved my own sense of discomfort.

But that was enough for me.