Managing Playlists in UniPlayer: Updating, Hiding, Sorting & Favorites

UniPlayer is built to work with several playlists at once, and almost everything in it can be organized to your taste: updates, visibility across devices, hiding the clutter, channel order, favorites and logos. There are two places to manage all of this:

• In the app on your device (Apple TV, iPhone, iPad) — quick actions on the spot.
• In the personal cabinet at my.uniplayer.net — central management of every playlist and device at once.

Here’s how it all works.

Adding a playlist: by link or file

There are two ways to add a playlist, and the choice determines whether it will update:

• By link (URL). The playlist updates automatically on a schedule and syncs, and you can also refresh it manually to pull the latest data from your provider right away. The interval is set per device — daily, every 3 days, weekly, or off. Off simply means that device stops asking your provider for a fresh copy of the playlist via its link; it doesn’t affect syncing of your changes (hiding, sorting, favorites) across devices — that works independently.
• By file. The playlist is static: if your provider makes changes, the file won’t update — you’d upload it again. Adding by file is available only from the personal cabinet.

You can also rename a playlist and change its link — for example, when your provider rotates a key or token in the URL. This is better than deleting and re-adding: all your settings (hiding, sorting, favorites) are preserved.

Playlists on a local network

There’s an important distinction in who actually fetches the playlist:

• A playlist added by link from the personal cabinet is fetched by our servers — so the link must be reachable from the internet.
• If the playlist lives on a local or closed network with no access from the outside, add and update it directly from a device on that same network — then the device itself fetches the playlist.

Playlist visibility per device

From the personal cabinet you can hide any playlist on any device and leave only the ones you need on each. For example, one set on the living-room TV, another on your iPhone. Access to all playlists remains in the personal cabinet — hiding affects only specific devices, it doesn’t delete the playlist.

Hiding categories and channels

Providers often hand over hundreds of channels split into categories (groups). You can clear out the clutter:

• An entire category can be hidden on all devices — from the category menu in the app or from the personal cabinet. This is handy for limiting adult content or channel categories for regions you don’t need.
• An individual channel can be hidden too — from the personal cabinet or from any device.

Hiding categories and channels applies globally (on all devices, synced through your account), unlike playlist visibility, which is set per device. You can restore hidden categories and channels from the personal cabinet.

Hiding isn’t parental control

Hiding and PIN locking solve different problems, and they’re easy to confuse:

• Hiding removes a channel or category from all your devices and syncs through your account. It’s the way to keep clutter out of sight for good.
• A PIN lock works on that device only. The PIN isn’t synced, isn’t stored remotely, and can’t be recovered from the device itself; a channel locked on one device stays open on another. You can reset the password only in the personal cabinet.

Why hidden channels sometimes come back

UniPlayer identifies each channel primarily by its stream URL. It follows that:

• If the URL stays the same and only the name changes, UniPlayer recognizes it as the same channel (a rename) and keeps its state — hidden status, sorting, favorite.
• If the stream URL itself changes (for example, the channel gets both a new name and a new link), UniPlayer treats it as a new channel — and it can reappear even if the old one was hidden.
• If your provider adds new channels to an already-hidden category, they show up as new — you’ll need to hide them separately.

Sorting channels

Channels within a playlist or category can be sorted — in the app or in the personal cabinet. After that, the provider’s order is replaced by your own sorting inside UniPlayer.

To restore the original order, delete your custom sorting in the personal cabinet.

Favorites

Add the channels you love and use most to Favorites — in the app or in the personal cabinet. A dedicated Favorites section gathers your picks from all your playlists in one place, and you can sort it separately from the ordering inside each playlist.

Search

Search gets you to a channel faster — it’s available both in the app and in the personal cabinet. Recent searches are kept in the device’s memory (locally) and aren’t synced.

Channel logos

By default, UniPlayer supplies channel logos from its own database. If you’d rather use logos from the playlist, switch the priority in Settings → Personalization, where you choose which logos to show first. Logo priority syncs across devices.

UniPlayer does not take logos from TV-guide (EPG) files.

What syncs across devices

• Synced through your account: hidden channels and categories, custom sorting, favorites, logo priority.
• Set separately on each device: which playlists are visible, the auto-update interval, search history, PIN channel locks.

Where to do what

Action	In the app	In the cabinet
Add a playlist by link	✓	✓
Add a playlist by file	—	✓
Rename a playlist / change its link	✓	✓
Refresh a playlist manually	✓	✓
Auto-update interval	✓	—
Hide a playlist for a specific device	—	✓
Hide a category (on all devices)	✓	✓
Hide an individual channel	✓	✓
Restore hidden categories and channels	—	✓
Sort channels	✓	✓
Reset your custom sorting	—	✓
Favorites	✓	✓
Channel search	✓	✓
Logo priority	✓	✓
PIN lock a channel (local)	✓	—
Reset the PIN	—	✓

UniPlayer doesn’t sell or supply channels — you organize your own playlists, which you have the rights to use.