In some implementations, a computing device can be configured to manage playlist-only media items for a user's media library. For example, when a user adds a media item to a playlist, the user can be presented with an option to add the media item to the playlist as a playlist-only media item. When the user selects to add the media item to the playlist as a playlist-only media item, the computing device can update media metadata associated with the user's media library with data indicating that the media item is a playlist-only media item. When the computing device performs operations (e.g., displaying, searching, etc.) on the user's media library, the computing device can exclude the playlist-only media items from the operations. The computing device can change the playlist-only settings for a media item to add and/or remove a media item from the user's media library.