.M3U File Format

Introduction

M3U is a plain text playlist: one track per line, given as a file path or a web address. It became popular with the Winamp player and is now read by almost every media player. An extended form adds a title and a length for each track.

A plain .m3u file uses the system’s local text encoding. The .m3u8 extension marks the same format in UTF-8. Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming also uses M3U8 files, with many extra tags, for video and audio streams.

Structure

Each line is either a track or a comment. A track line is a path, relative to the playlist or absolute, or a URL. Lines starting with # are comments, which players skip, except for the extended directives. An extended M3U file begins with #EXTM3U, and each track line is preceded by #EXTINF: with the length in seconds (-1 when unknown), a comma and a display title.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:215,Artist Name - First Song
Music/First Song.mp3
#EXTINF:-1,Internet Radio
https://radio.example.com/stream

Also used for

• HTTP Live Streaming playlist – The HLS playlist: text tags listing stream versions and the segments to fetch.

Links