Can iTunes add songs to top of playlist by default?

This did not work for me, I didn't understand your phrase 'click on the playlist with a down arrow', but I clicked on View at the very top of the screen, scrolled down to 'sort by' and saw that 'playlist order' was already selected, but still my new additions go to the bottom of the playlist. Any ideas please?

Steve

You can flip the order of a sorted list from ascending to descending, either through the view menu or by clicking the small triangle at the top of the current sort column when in the Songs layout. Note however that playlists copied to a device are sent in Play Order, Ascending, regardless of the order shown on screen in iTunes. If you have the list in Play Order, Descending then new additions should be added to the top (since this is actually the end), but descending sorts orders can sometimes cause iTunes to play in the wrong order when viewing the list in other layouts.

tt2

Ok, so I go to the View list, click on Show View options, select Sort by: Playlist order, then click Descending, and my whole playlist of 456 songs gets flipped upside-down, so that is not the way to solve this problem, cuz when I listen to that playlist I want to hear the newly added tracks first and not the songs I downloaded 7 years ago. I should say, this is a very new problem, this only started to happen a couple of weeks ago, and until then everything I added went straight to the top of the playlist like since the beginning of time. Something has happened which I need to reverse, and I feel the remedy will be a little harder to find. But thanks

If Date Added, Descending, is the order you want (where date added refers to the library as whole, not the specific list) then that is easy enough to achieve by selecting the heading of the Date Added column in Songs. You can right click on the playlist name and use Copy to Play Order to make sure this is the order copied to any device.

Unfortunately Apple do seem to make a habit of making unannounced changes to the way iTunes behaves. Without knowing exactly how you had things set up before it is hard to know if you've been affected by an under the hood change, or simply that a setting didn't make the transition when the library was updated from one build to another.

tt2

I just noticed the I can copy songs from a playlists or from the library, and then past them into a selected spot on a playlist. Though it seems like cannot do it within a single playlist, for no particular reason.

I also like to fill out ongoing playlists with the newest tracks first. This wasn't a problem back when multiple windows could be opened. The arbitrary lack of functionality is pretty ominous.

If I were to start a new playlist, I could just have it set to play in reverse order, but the prospect of flopping 100 tacks by hand isn't appealing.

Sort the list on the left most column of numbers, i.e. the play order, click the heading of the list to reverse it so the triangle points down. Newly added tracks will now be at the top. Reverse sorting on Date Added puts the playlist in the order things were added to the library rather than added to that particular list.

tt2

For the latest iTune 12.3.1.23, you have to click on the playlist with a down arrow > Select 'Sort by: Playlist Order'. Your latest songs will be added to the top of your playlist.