ProPresenter Libraries, Playlists & Songs: How It All Fits Together

A volunteer imports a new song on Thursday, and on Sunday morning it’s nowhere in the service. Someone else asks which file to copy before the old computer gets replaced, and nobody knows. Both problems come from the same gap: not knowing how ProPresenter separates where things are stored from what you run.

This guide walks through libraries, playlists and songs the way I set them up, from importing and backups to Planning Center and the playlist tools that are easy to overlook. It’s beginner-friendly, and still useful if you’ve been running ProPresenter for a while. Menu labels are from the version shown in the video, so a button may have moved in yours.

Libraries Store Everything. Playlists Run the Service.

The library is the panel in the top left of ProPresenter. It’s where all of your songs, media and content are stored. When you go to File → New Presentation, that new presentation is saved into a library.

A playlist is where you divide things up. You grab exactly what you need out of the library and put it in order for a service.

That split explains a lot of confusing behavior. Remove a presentation from a playlist and it’s still sitting in the library, so you can search for it and drag it back in. Items in a playlist also show which library they come from, which starts to matter once you have more than one.

One Library or Several?

You can make more than one. New Library lets you split things up: one for youth, one for the main weekend services, one for a college ministry.

I like to keep just one. I do understand the case for several, though. When one computer is shared by a bunch of ministry areas and different people, it’s nice for each group to have its own version of the songs they lead.

Before you split, consider arrangements. Open a song (in the video it’s “Good Grace”), go up to the arrangements, and create a youth arrangement, a young adults arrangement and a weekend arrangement. The groups you built for that song stay consistent, and each ministry gets its own order of slides. I go deeper on this in ProPresenter 7 | How to Import Songs, using Groups, and the Arrangements Editor.

What a Real Weekend Playlist Looks Like

The weekend playlist in the video is busy, and that’s normal. It has an announcement loop, a countdown, four worship songs, some hosting slides and the sermon message notes, all in service order.

Next to it sit separate playlists for other events: a funeral, a conference, a worship night and a couple of retreats. That’s the pattern to copy. The library holds everything long-term, and each playlist is a focused list for one gathering.

One small detail in that file: clicking the first slide of a song triggers a macro, so everything is formatted correctly the moment the song starts. It’s a good habit to build once your playlists are organized.

Import a Song Into the Library (and a Playlist)

Most songs come in through Search, imported from SongSelect or MultiTracks. Here’s the flow from the video.

1. Choose How the Slides Split and the Theme

Click Import and the import window opens. Break the slides up by paragraph, then pick a theme. In the video I chose a simple one with bold text in the middle of the screen.

2. Pick the Library and the Playlist

At the bottom of the window is the library selection. This is the step that trips people up.

Your song has to go to a library, but it doesn’t have to go to a playlist. Skip the playlist and you’ll be stuck going through the process of finding it later.

So send it to both. It costs one click now and saves a search on Sunday morning.

3. Click Edit and Clean Up the Slides

Click Edit before importing. This window works a lot like the Reflow editor. Place your cursor after some text and press Option + Return on a Mac to break it into a new slide. The shortcut is different on a PC, but you’ll find it.

On the left you’ll see the groups, like Verse 1, Verse 2 and Chorus. Right-click a slide to set its group. I add a blank first slide and make it the Intro, then add two blank slides at the end for an Interlude and an Outro, so there’s a clean, lyric-free slide for the instrumental moments.

4. Import, Then Check the Fit

Don’t like the theme? You can change it in the top right of the import window, or pick a different theme for the song after it’s imported. For text fixes after the fact, use the Reflow editor.

Then check the longest lines. I like two lines per slide, and more than that is just wild. Sometimes you’ll need to adjust a slide to keep it in the two-line scheme. For more on formatting, see ProPresenter 7 | Best Practices for Song Lyric Slides.

Build a Blank Presentation for Sermon Notes

Not everything comes from a song database. For sermon notes, create a new presentation and leave it blank. Give it a name, and apply a theme if you’d like.

The size setting is more helpful than it looks. It lists common sizes, like 1920×1080, and it also shows the resolution of the screens you have set up, such as your main output and stream output. Match the presentation to the screen it’s headed for.

Finally, choose a playlist or no playlist. Either way, the presentation is saved to the library. If you can’t spot it by scrolling, type part of its name into the library’s filter and it pops right up.

Back Up One Presentation or a Whole Playlist

Knowing which file to grab matters most on the day you need it. ProPresenter gives you two kinds of backup, plus templates for reuse.

A Single Presentation

Right-click the item in your playlist and choose Show in Library. Then right-click it in the library and choose Show in Finder.

That file is the one to copy to another computer, send to a friend or keep as a backup.

An Entire Playlist

Right-click the playlist itself and choose Export. In the dialog you can choose to include media and set where it saves. Click Save and you get a single .proPlaylist file.

One warning: a big playlist can take a while to export. In the video I picked a busy one and the computer was chugging hard, so try a small playlist first.

Save a Playlist as a Template

If your Sunday layout is the same every week, save the playlist as a template. Next week, click the plus and choose New Playlist from Template for a clean starting point.

For a fuller routine for protecting your files, watch How to Backup and Organize Pro7 Files and Media | ProPresenter 7.

Let Planning Center Fill the Playlist

If your services are planned in Planning Center, you can import a service straight into ProPresenter. You can even import media.

The helpful part is the matching. ProPresenter looks through your computer for songs, sermons, countdowns, announcement loops and static announcement presentations that match the Planning Center service. When it finds them, it pulls that content from your library into the playlist, and you don’t have to drag and drop anything.

That’s one more reason to keep a tidy library. The import is matching against what you already have.

Headers, Placeholders and Header Timers

Open a playlist and click the plus underneath it. Besides presentations, you can add two organizing items.

Headers

A header is a labeled divider, like “Pre-Service Worship.” Headers can also carry a timer.

Click a header, link a timer to it and set the timer’s details. In the video I linked a countdown and changed it from 40 to 50 minutes, and clicking the header updated the timer and started it. For choosing the right kind of timer, see 3 Timer types in ProPresenter 7 and Training to use them.

Placeholders

A placeholder holds a slot for something you haven’t picked yet, like another song when the set list isn’t final. When you know the song, search the library and drag it into the placeholder’s slot.

Be patient with the drop, because the target is picky. In the video it took a specific spot to land, so watch that moment if yours won’t take.

Placeholders unlock one extra option. Right-click a song that was dropped onto a placeholder and you’ll see Unlink Item, which pulls the song back out and leaves the placeholder in place. A normal playlist item only offers Hide Item.

Playlist Folders

You can also group playlists into folders. Realistically, though, if you’re creating folders, you should probably start deleting stuff.

I used to keep a folder called “old.” If you don’t use it anymore, just delete it.

If you’re rebuilding a messy file, it can be faster to start from one that’s already organized. The ProPresenter Quick Start Template comes with pre-built playlists, songs, sermon notes, headers and announcement presentations, plus the Macros, Looks, Themes and Props to run them. It also includes install guides and tips for bringing your old content into the new setup.

Troubleshooting: “Where Did My Song Go?”

Work through these before you assume anything is lost:

• You imported a song and it’s not in the playlist. It went to the library only. Search the library and drag it into the playlist, then pick a playlist at import next time.
• You removed something from a playlist and think it’s gone. Removing it from a playlist doesn’t remove it from the library. Search for it there.
• You can’t find the actual file on the computer. Right-click the playlist item, choose Show in Library, then right-click and choose Show in Finder.
• A playlist export is taking forever. Including media makes the export much heavier. Let it finish, or test with a smaller playlist.
• A song won’t drop into a placeholder. Adjust where you release it; the drop target is specific.
• You have three copies of the same song for different ministries. Use arrangements inside one song instead of separate copies.
• A screen in the size list isn’t set up. In the video, the main output wasn’t set because no physical screen was connected to it. Sort out your screens before building slides to that size.

The Whole Thing in One Picture

• Library = where presentations are stored. File → New Presentation saves here.
• Playlist = what you pull from the library for one service or event.
• Arrangements let one song serve several ministries without duplicate copies.
• On import, a song must go to a library. Send it to a playlist too.
• Back up one item with Show in Library → Show in Finder, or a whole service with Export.
• Save your standard Sunday as a playlist template.
• Planning Center can build the playlist from what’s already in your library.
• Headers label sections and can trigger timers. Placeholders hold a spot for undecided songs.

Watch the Video

I walk through all of this on screen, from the library to header timers. Jump straight to playlists, importing a song, exporting or headers and placeholders.

Keep Going

• For the big picture, start with ProPresenter 7 for Church: The Complete Training Guide.
• Once songs are importing cleanly, make them readable with ProPresenter Song Lyric Slides: Import, Format & Best Practices.
• If the size list shows screens that aren’t set up, fix that first with ProPresenter Screen Setup for Church.

More training is on the YouTube channel: youtube.com/@CrazyAmazingDesigns.