# How can I get started writing a plugin for Plex.

**URL:** https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-can-i-get-started-writing-a-plugin-for-plex/187594
**Category:** Dev/API Corner
**Tags:** plugin-dev
**Created:** [April 6, 2017, 4:56am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-can-i-get-started-writing-a-plugin-for-plex/187594 "2017-04-06T04:56:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![rhillis2004](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rhillis2004/32/84642_2.png) [@rhillis2004](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rhillis2004)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 4:56am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-can-i-get-started-writing-a-plugin-for-plex/187594/1 "2017-04-06T04:56:09Z")

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I have playlists in an M3U format. I want to see if I can write a scanner to update playlists on the server from a directory of M3U files.

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### Author: ![shopgirl284](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shopgirl284](https://forums.plex.tv/u/shopgirl284)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-can-i-get-started-writing-a-plugin-for-plex/187594/2 "2017-04-07T15:05:38Z")

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For general channel development advice, see [forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1399929/#Comment\_1399929](https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1399929/#Comment_1399929 "https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1399929/#Comment\_1399929").

If you are wanting to access local media hosted by Plex, you would want to refer to the [PMS web api documentation](https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/104353/pms-web-api-documentation/p1 "PMS web api documentation").

The [IPTV channel](https://github.com/Cigaras/IPTV.bundle "IPTV channel") shows an example of a Plex channel that pulls the data in an m3u8. His simple version would probably be the best to start - [github.com/Cigaras/IPTVLite.bundle/blob/master/Contents/Code/ **init**.py](https://github.com/Cigaras/IPTVLite.bundle/blob/master/Contents/Code/ __init__.py "https://github.com/Cigaras/IPTVLite.bundle/blob/master/Contents/Code/\_\_init\_\_.py").

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### Author: ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2020, 8:03pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-can-i-get-started-writing-a-plugin-for-plex/187594/3 "2020-01-08T20:03:21Z")

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