.m3u files
.m3u file
Media Playlist
A plain-text list of tracks or stream URLs — it holds no audio itself.
What opens a .m3u file
- Windows
- VLC, Media Player (built in), foobar2000, Notepad (built in)
- macOS
- Music (built in), VLC, TextEdit (built in)
- Linux
- VLC, Rhythmbox / Music (built in), Text Editor (built in)
What a .m3u file is
An M3U is just a text file listing file paths or internet radio URLs, one per line, which players read as a playlist. Because it only points at files, moving or renaming the music breaks the playlist and copying the M3U alone copies no music. The .m3u8 variant is the same thing saved as UTF-8, and is also what HLS streaming uses to index video segments.
Converting it
A .m3u file is commonly converted to .pls, .xspf or .txt. It is a plain text format, so any text editor can open and edit it directly.
Details
- Extension
- .m3u
- Full name
- Media Playlist
- Category
- Audio
- MIME type
- audio/x-mpegurl
- Created by
- Fraunhofer / Winamp convention
- Format
- Plain text
Common questions
- How do I open a .m3u file?
- On Windows use VLC; on macOS use Music (built in); on Linux use VLC. A plain-text list of tracks or stream URLs — it holds no audio itself.
- What is a .m3u file?
- Media Playlist. An M3U is just a text file listing file paths or internet radio URLs, one per line, which players read as a playlist. Because it only points at files, moving or renaming the music breaks the playlist and copying the M3U alone copies no music.
- Can I convert a .m3u file?
- Yes. It is usually converted to .pls, .xspf or .txt, either by exporting from one of the programs listed above or with a format converter.
Related pages
- .mp3 — MPEG-1 Audio Layer III The lossy audio format that made digital music portable, and still plays on ever
- .wav — Waveform Audio File Uncompressed audio — perfect quality, very large files, universal support.
- .m4a — MPEG-4 Audio Audio in an MP4 container — what iTunes, Voice Memos and most modern recorders p
- .flac — Free Lossless Audio Codec Compressed audio that throws nothing away — about half the size of WAV, bit-for-
- .aac — Advanced Audio Coding The successor to MP3 — better sound per byte, used by YouTube, Apple and broadca
- .ogg — Ogg Vorbis Audio The open, patent-free audio format used by Spotify, Wikipedia and countless game
- .opus — Opus Audio The modern low-latency codec behind WhatsApp voice notes, Discord and web calls.
- .mid — MIDI Sequence Not audio at all — a list of notes and instructions for a synthesiser to perform
- .wma — Windows Media Audio Microsoft's music format from the Windows XP years, now legacy.
- .aiff — Audio Interchange File Format Apple's uncompressed audio format — the Mac equivalent of WAV.
- .m4b — MPEG-4 Audiobook An audiobook file that remembers your place and supports chapters.
- .amr — Adaptive Multi-Rate Audio The narrow-band speech codec behind old phone voice recordings and MMS messages.
Sources
- Media Types Registry — IANA
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place