Systems and methods are provided for notifying users about videos in a playback sequence. The systems and methods determine that a video that meets a criterion is currently available on a video server associated with a messaging client. In response to determining that the video that meets the criterion is currently available, the messaging client on the client device prefetches a sequence of videos from a recommendation engine that match a profile of a user associated with the messaging client. The recommendation engine is being used to provide sequence of videos to a video playback graphical user interface (GUI) that automatically plays back the videos in the sequence. The systems and methods determine that the video that meets the criterion is in a first position in the sequence of videos and, in response, present a notification that indicates the availability of the video on the video playback GUI.