itunes
I have several songs in the Play Next queue.
I am not playing anything at the moment. How do I play the queue. Clicking play prompts me with a dialog asking if I want to overwrite the plainest queue or play the song selected in iTunes, but I just want the play next queue
You could use iTunes DJ. Select the playlist that you want from the list in the left-hand corner.
Then, you can right click on a song, and select "Play next in iTunes DJ"
optionenter (shiftenter on Windows) will add the selected song to the Up Next list (in iTunes 11.0, this does not work in album view, but does in all other views). However, iTunes will always ask you if you want to clear the previous songs from the list, so an extra keystroke is needed.
There are one or two drawbacks to this method, firstly: It defaults to clear the previous songs so a simple enter will not suffice and a P keystroke is needed to add the song while keeping the existing list. Secondly: In addition the added song will default to the top of the 'Up Next' playlist as oppose to when you click to add a song (in this instance the added song will default to the bottom of the list).
I'm only running Windows so I can't say the same (or similar) is true for Macs.
Best Answer
Open the up next queue and double-click on the title of the first song in the queue.
(In iTunes 12) the up next queue button looks like this:
It is in the top right corner of the playing now area of iTunes.