How to export m3u playlist

There are pending feature requests for the ability to export m3u playlists without the files. While we’re waiting, here’s a workaround for Windows. (Apologies if already discussed.)

  1. Open playlist in roon.

  2. Right click on a track to select it.

  3. In the selection dropdown at the top left, click ‘select all.’

  4. Click the three dot menu to the right, and click ‘export.’

  5. In the Export popup, click the ‘Export to Excel’ tab.

  6. Click the ‘Export to Excel’ button.

  7. An .xls file will be placed on your desktop, and a file explorer window will open with the file highlighted.Double click on it to open the file in Excel or whatever spreadsheet you use.

  8. Scroll over and click on the ‘Path’ column header to highlight the entire column.

  9. Right click on the column header and click ‘copy.’

  10. Open Notepad or your favorite text editor and create a new document.

  11. Past the copied file names into the new document (Edit/Paste or CTL-V).Delete the first line with the ‘Path’ column heading.

  12. Save the file with a .m3u extension, e.g. myplaylist.m3u,.

Bob’s your uncle. A lot simpler than it sounds. I have started using this technique to export playlists to use with other software for syncing to mobile.

(Note: Tidal and Qobuz tracks won’t be included in your playlist.)

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Exporting playlists to excel from Mac

A post was merged into an existing topic: Playlist (m3u) Export WITHOUT the music files

The order in which the songs are organized is lost during this process. That’s an important element of a playlist as it sets a mood.

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Curiously enough, I do not have the “Export” option when I open a playlist (be it a Roon or a Tidal playlist). It is only present if I am viewing an Album. Thoughts?

Don’t know. I only tried it with local playlists. That looks like a tidal playlist?

hi @SKBubba. it is true that all the tracks are from tidal. but the playlist was created in the roon client, and it is not visible in the tidal app. in fact, that’s what i’m trying to do - to use roon to listen to my music, create playlists, and then keep them on tidal so i have access everywhere (including on my iphone when working out).

Weird. I tried with a mixed roon/qobuz playlist created in roon. I get the export option on Windows desktop. It outputs the track name, album, artist etc for all selected tracks, except the path is empty for qobuz tracks. Works the same for a roon playlist with only qobuz tracks. The only time I don’t see the export option is for qobuz created playlists.

Hi @ALN1,

The export option only appears for content that is from your Roon library. If you’ve added content to a playlist from outside of your library you will not have the Export option.

Great guide, you may also MusConv Tool to export your playlists, not only from m3u but from all the top streaming services including spotify, apple music etc.

Is it still not possible to export a tidal-sourced, made-in-Roon playlist to a basic text file?

If the playlist is made from TIDAL content in your library, you can export it. However, at this time, Roon cannot export content from outside of your library.

Great instructions - thank you.

Two things to add:

  1. Points 2. and 3. can be substituted with Ctrl-A.

  2. You may need to alter the file path format in the m3u playlist for it to be compatible with certain apps.

Some apps using the m3u playlist don’t like the file path format that Roon exports it in.
For example, I tried to play the exported playlists using Kodi and VLC on an Nvidia Shield TV Pro and it didn’t work. Playing the same playlists using VLC on a Windows PC did work.

I had to do a global “Replace All” using Word to remove the NAS name and subfolder.
For example:
\NAS1\Music\Pop\Artist - Album\Album - Title.flac
had to be changed to
\Pop\Artist - Album\Album - Title.flac
[Replace “\NAS1\Music” with “”]

Also, the location of the playlist file had to be in \NAS1\Music folder [and not a higher or lower folder] otherwise the music files will not be found. The presumption is the the folder with the music files [\NAS1\Music\Pop] is located in the same folder where the m3u playlist file is [\NAS1\Music].

Hopefully the above is not too confusing!

All my files are located on a local NAS. I can’t export a m3u file? I am new user, very surprised not to find this basic feature. If I spend hours creating custom playlists, I won’t have an easy way to export the list?

Why not create your playlist in Roon? Or, are you talking about playlist that your ALREADY SPENT hours creating?

Currently Roon only exports M3U files with the corresponding media. It does not export the file alone.

You can add your voice to the Feature Request here:

HI @Jim_F,

This issue is not the about the Roon playlists per se, but that during export Roon does not offer the option to generate an .m3u format file.

Did you mean that? A .m3u file is just a text file of media locations.

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@Brian, thanks for heads-up … post now adjusted.

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Hi James,

Checkout this Wiki page …

Now according to the RKB

However, Roon’s export function only creates a MFU file when the music files are also exported.

I suspect this is what the OP has come across.