It would be nice to have an option to point Plex to existing m3u playlists and use those for Plex playlists for a DLNA/UPnP music server or serving to Plex clients. Or if not to be used as Plex playlists it could be a separate feature called something like "External Playlists." Right now I am aware of one piece of software that can make M3u available via UPnP, but I was hoping just to consolidate to use just Plex for all media serving.
Agreed!
I have several custom built music playlists containing 1000+ songs that i would like to import into plex via locally stored m3u's.
1 Like
Agreed!
I have several custom built music playlists containing 1000+ songs that i would like to import into plex via locally stored m3u's.
Check this out:
2 Likes
It's a good idea.
+1
I entered a request for this the other day, and was referred to this thread. Just to keep it all in one place, I'm pasting the case I made for the feature here:
Classical music is the best example of the need for this, I think. Symphonies generally include 3 to 5 movements, and each movement is generally a separate file.
Now let's say I want to create a playlist containing several symphonies by various composers. Currently I can add all the files for all the movements for all the symphonies to a playlist, and I can play them in order. But if I want to randomly play this playlist, but keep each symphony together and in order, I can't do it. In the current feature, random playback would randomly play individual movements.
If, however, I could build my playlist by picking each symphony as a single piece (defined by an m3u file), random playback could do what I want. Randomly play complete, intact symphonies, without randomizing the movements within each symphony.
2 Likes
Definetly a +1 from me.
I migrated away from iTunes to MedaiMonkey, and I'd love a way to get my playlists into Plex. I've got over a hundred of them, some with over 1000 songs.
1 Like
I would also really enjoy seeing this implemented, but not just an import - also an export feature so playlists I create within Plex can be backed up.
+1½
Votes didn’t make it through the changeover to the new forum software. Please re-vote for this by Liking the first post above.
As much as I would like to keep everything (Video + MUSIC) with just Plex, Logitech Media Server (LMS) is still my main music source. One of my reasons not to move to Plex completely (besides multiroom audio sync, which is not something I use every day) is that I have a long list of playlists that I would like to import into Plex. The best use case for me would be that Plex could monitor a folder full of .m3u files (LMS case) and update accordingly. If it could work both ways, and EXPORT the playlists created on Plex, it would be excellent. And of course, allow apps to sync playlists to the device for offline access.
Just today, my wife asked me “how can I sync this (LMS) playlist to my phone?”. Having an Android phone is not an issue: there is a download option on most LMS controllers. But her iPhone is a completely different story: almost nothing lets you do this (and she is a believer of “no computer to manage my phone’s music” hence she avoids iTunes religiously). Plex DOES let you sync content to the device (hooray!) But not my m3u. In the end, the quick and dirty option was to recreate the playlist on Spotify and sync the playlist to the device from there.
PLEEASE make this happen! I beg you. I want plex to be my main source of music… But I can’t give up my spotify account until this is fixed… Itunes is a NIGHTMARE!
2 Likes
I would like M3U import. Dedicated media players and managers like MusicBee, WMP, MediaMonkey, foobar and even iTunes all support M3u have been around for a long time. Lots of people are embedded and invested in that infrastructure and making playlists with hundreds or thousands of songs of them is a real chore that nobody should have to repeat from scratch once they’ve done it once, not should we force people to use iTunes in order to get this functionality. I’m sure this is not something too hard to code as we had a plugin, but it needs to be a basic feature.
At the very least you have to give them a way to export their old playlist to Plex playlists and since M3U is the closest thing to a playlist standard we have, why not start with that. I would also like to see global and per user playlists. With music collections it can be nice to share playlists and cooperatively improve them.
Thanks
Liked.
Every time I see more news or an announcement about music I look for this. I know music hasn’t been a priority for Plex for a long time, but improvements in that area have clearly been pushed forward recently and I’m always surprised this isn’t part of it.
Maybe those of us who don’t use iTunes are just that much of a minority, but m3u is such a universal standard that I’ve yet to find any other music player that doesn’t have some sort of import/export part of it. Even those who do use iTunes are missing out on the ability to export a playlist created in Plex to anything else, and that really limits someone to wanting to use Plex for creating or managing playlists.
2 Likes
“Every time I see more news or an announcement about music I look for this” … Completely agree. It’s the ONLY thing I look for every time. Plex is useless for me for music until it recognises externally created playlists. I’m not recreating hundreds of playlists from scratch.
2 Likes
In the same boat here. Missing Playlist import for non-iTunes Plex-on-NAS user. Also looking with every update if this finally made the cut.
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Isn’t it the case that most of us looking for something like Plex are doing so because we are sick of iTunes? I thought I was won over, and just invested in a Plex Pass to take on the mobile sync functions. Oh dear. I now find I can’t get my (non-iTunes) playlists into Plex. Fortunately, in a moment of sanity I only took a 1 month pass. It might be my last.
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I finally gave up and resorted to trying to import playlists from iTunes. That’s Plex running on a QNAP NAS under Linux. Anyone like to suggest how I import my iTunes playlists? Doh!
@GHouse said:
Countinbiskitsyo wrote on October 8 2014, 2:29 PM: »Agreed!
I have several custom built music playlists containing 1000+ songs that i would like to import into plex via locally stored m3u’s.Check this out:
https://forums.plex.tv/topic/120292-m3u-playlist-converter/
That tool looks like it would do the job… 'cept it runs on Windows, not Linux, so no good to me.
I haven’t done this myself (don’t use iTunes), but iTunes playlists can be imported when creating a music library (basic or premium).
See this page: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204892678-Creating-a-Premium-Music-Library
Thanks @beckfield, but importing iTunes playlists requires that “iTunes be installed in the default location on the computer running Plex Media Server”. In my case, PMS is running under Linux on a QNAP box.
