Playlist Export functionality

I just wanted to touch base on the Export Function under Playlist. I thought it would export just the playlist, maybe even in a readable format, text or Excel (like it does in the album view), but, it instead copied just the files listed in the playlist along with Roon db information.

  1. Is this export supposed to be imported into another Roon install? I"m not sure what the point of this function is really.

  2. So, I suggest that there be added an option to export the playlist to Excel or Text. That way a user can review the playlist or share the playlist.

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did you not get an m3u file?

We have a ticket to get the m3u generation working @Rugby – thanks for flagging this.

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Hi Roon team.

Unless I’m missing something, when you export a playlist to Excel you lose the order of the playlist – it alphabetizes by main artist. There’s also no column for “playlist track #” – just the original disc & track numbers for the song.

This makes it less of a playlist export and more of a “here are the songs in your playlist” export. I think we’d all agree that the order of a playlist is part of its core being, so I’d like to request you add the order # into the export itself (you must have that info in the database somewhere since the playlist keeps its order…).

Let me know if I’ve missed something, though!

Thank you,

Peter

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Rugby – FYI, I ran into the same issue. If you hit export in a playlist, the only option it gives you is to export the files. This is a bit wonky (and likely just a bug), especially given that…

…if you select all of the songs in the playlist (I use Control-A in Windows, but there’s multiple ways to do it including right-clicking a file), at the top you get a new row that also has a “3 dot option box”. If you export via that, you get the option to export to a spreadsheet.

That said, neither keeps the order, which is what my post was about. :wink:

Cheers,

Peter

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@mike @support

Resuscitating this thread, as 1.3 didn’t fix the issue as far as I can tell.

Two issues, as I see it:

  1. No .m3u file generated when you export files from a playlist (I think this is a bug if I read Mike’s note correctly, which is why I’ve copied Support), and

  2. When you export a playlist to a spreadsheet, it doesn’t add a column for playlist order – so you lose the order of the playlist entirely (which pretty much defeats the point of a playlist). I don’t know if this is a bug or a feature request – I’ll leave that up to the Roon folks. :wink:

Thanks,

Peter

Re: item 1:

Are you sure you’re exporting the playlist rather than the tracks in the playlist? I just tried exporting a playlist on my computer and it seems to work. Try: Playlists tab -> 3 dots for a playlist -> export

@ben Thanks – you’re absolutely correct. Because I couldn’t export to a spreadsheet that way, I highlighted all the tracks first, and when you export the files once you’ve done that there’s no m3u file. However, your way (which I agree is the more natural thing) completely works.

So, #1 was operator error. I think #2 is still an issue, though. Playlist Tab -> 3 dots for a playlist -> export only gives me the option of exporting the files, not to a spreadsheet… The only way I get the spreadsheet option is by selecting all the files. Unless I’m missing something on that too?

Peter

Did this Playlist Export function ever get implemented? Because it still seems to be exporting the track files themselves, rather than the Playlist in some readable form.

At the moment, if we want to share Playlists in the Roon community, I don’t see any way of accomplishing this, other than recreating a Playlist on another Roon system. Am I missing something? Thanks.

Yes, we export media files + M3U files, as that works in all configurations.

Exporting just M3U files (without media) is a more complex feature – due to Roon’s architecture, there are lots of cases when it just doesn’t work.

For example, say you have ROCK + NAS + Macbook. The playlist is going to be looking at paths from ROCK > NAS, but there’s no guarantee that the Macbook has the NAS mounted in the same way, or even has access at all.

For the moment there isn’t really a good way to do this, but it is something I’d like to add in the future.

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What about using acoustic IDs or album IDs instead of file paths for Roon users who want to exchange playlists with other Roon users?

This is why file tag embedded playlists are vastly superior, as they are path independent. Back in my Foobar days, I’d use custom embedded metatags to designate which playlists my files were members of. This way if you changed the path of a file, Foobar would dynamically adjust.

I’ve been using Roon tags the same way. However, I’ve not changed file paths and Roon tags are not embedded. So is it the case that if the path changes, the Roon Tags will no longer “stick” to a given track, album, or artist? I thought Roon was supposed to be good at finding objects that had been moved?

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As a brand new Roon user (who is otherwise very pleased with it), I’d like to cast my vote for adding the ability to Export and Import Playlists (just the Song Titles, not the actual content). Given the increasingly social nature of technology in general, and music in particular, this seems like a very desirable feature that would expand the potential market for Roon.

Giving users the ability to easily share the music they enjoy with other Roon users, has got to be a good thing for Roon!

Hello,

Possibility to export playlist as original format AND ability to change format (mp3, etc.).
Ability to export just a selection of a playlist

Hello,

I really would like to re-build my entire meta DB; I created several playlists; therefore I would appreciate vey much to be able to export these playlists and re-import them later again …

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I too want to rebuild my DB but would like to maintain Playlists.

If there is no “automagically” way of doing that, I would like to manually recreate them. However, I want the ORDER of the tracks in each playlist to remain as I originally created them. The Excel Export does NOT keep the tracks ordered as they originally were!

Roon’s 1st. column (in a Playlist) contains the track numbering that I would like to maintain. If the original track ordering can’t be maintained in the Excel output, can at least the 1st. column numbering be carried into/added to the Excel export? If so, that column could be sorted and used as I would like.

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Would it be possible to change the default behaviour, so that the export is sorted by the ‘playlist order’ (rather than alphabetical) when using Export to Excel.

Seem like a fairly simple change (if the export function has across to the ‘playlist order’).

I can’t imagine the current alphabetical ordering would be the primary choice of ordering for most users, if any. The whole point of playlists is in manually arranging the order of them.

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What am I missing here? I have a friend who uses Roon. He would like to use a playlist I have created. He does NOT want the music files, just the Playlist. I find it hard to imagine why Roon doesn’t provide (or hasn’t provided) a straight forward way of doing this. Or if they have, how do I do it? And what exactly gets exported when I export a Roon Playlist? No copy protection involved. Nothing illegal. It is a good thing for Roon and all of its users.