Converting WinAmp (M3U) Playlists Into iTunes (XML) Playlists

iTunes 10.4 had an issue where it wasn't able to import M3U playlists. It would just create an empty list then fail to add any tracks to it. It seems to have been fixed in iTunes 10.5.

tt2

So it's working like it should. 🙂

Thanks for the update.

Just want to +1 that this is still, or again, a problem in 10.5. Win 7, iPod Classic 160gig, all are updated with latest firmware/software updates.

Workarounds, while appreciated, should be unnecessary.

Hmm, iTunes 10.5 will import M3U files and add entries with fully qualified paths or paths relative to the location of the m3u file, but it appears to have problems with paths that are relative to the root of the drive. In theory this list would be three copies of the same song but, as I see it, iTunes 10.5 will import only the first two entries.

Playlist file: D:\iTunes\Playlists\Test.m3u

#EXTM3U

#EXTINF:230,Take On Me - a-ha

D:\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\a-ha\Take On Me\01 Take On Me.mp3

#EXTINF:230,Take On Me - a-ha

..\iTunes Media\Music\a-ha\Take On Me\01 Take On Me.mp3

#EXTINF:230,Take On Me - a-ha

\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\a-ha\Take On Me\01 Take On Me.mp3

(In fact iTunes ignores repeated entries but that is another story).

When I wrote my ImportM3U script the M3U specification I found only mentioned the first two path styles. I've since modified the script to work properly with the last one which seems to be what WinAmp generates.

I'll file a Bug Report but in the meantime my script is there if you want it...

tt2

Thanks TT2. Am sure your scripts work well. Only resisting it because I have fairly large playlists (sometimes a couple thousand tunes), and maintaining quality control between Winamp/iTunes, following updates between them (which seems to have different relationships with playlists) etc, it'd be simpler if Apple just got it right for such a central part of their software.

I have other M3U files already imported (30 or so of them). Had a similar problem with previous versions of iTunes. All of my playlists are built in Winamp, as I don't use iTunes to import or play files- am held hostage by it simply because of my iPod and iPhone.

Anyway, here's the first few lines from one of my playlists for reference. It's home (and the files themselves) is on a "C" drive:

#EXTM3U

#EXTINF:336,Allan Holdsworth - 01 - 5 to 1

\Users\CUF\Music\fusion, guitar music, progressive\allan holdsworth - 5 to 10.mp3

#EXTINF:188,Allan Holdsworth - Above And Below

\Users\CUF\Music\fusion, guitar music, progressive\allan holdsworth - above and below.mp3

Would argue this is part and parcel of Apple's efforts to maintain eyeball time/proprietary use as much as possible. It'd be a fairly simple fix, and is arguably being done by many other producers/manufacturers with other hardware/software. Just the virtue of software playing MP3s prior to having mobile devices should be enough reason for Apple to make iTunes backwards and/or cross-platform compatible, that the software might be used with pre-existing databases. It plays MP3s, not just AAC, so why not use M3U in addition to XML and etc?

If you don't fancy using my script which, while perfectly safe, may be much slower than iTunes itself with a large library, then a simple text edit that prepends every path with the drive letter would fix things so that iTunes can import the file made by Winamp.

So...

#EXTM3U

#EXTINF:336,Allan Holdsworth - 01 - 5 to 1

\Users\CUF\Music\fusion, guitar music, progressive\allan holdsworth - 5 to 10.mp3

#EXTINF:188,Allan Holdsworth - Above And Below

\Users\CUF\Music\fusion, guitar music, progressive\allan holdsworth - above and below.mp3

becomes...

#EXTM3U

#EXTINF:336,Allan Holdsworth - 01 - 5 to 1

C:\Users\CUF\Music\fusion, guitar music, progressive\allan holdsworth - 5 to 10.mp3

#EXTINF:188,Allan Holdsworth - Above And Below

C:\Users\CUF\Music\fusion, guitar music, progressive\allan holdsworth - above and below.mp3

I'd suggest Notepad++ for the job. Select Search... Replace... choose the extended search option and replace \n\ with \nC:\ It converted a test playlist of some 6000 entries in the blink of an eye.

It would be nice if it all "just worked", but even if this is an accidental limitation on the import feature (my guess) it will still take time for a new build to come out that fixes it.

tt2

As per usual, you're really helpful TT2. Appreciate it. Mad props and etc.

With iTunes 10.4.1.10 (possibly earlier, but I've only been of aware of it since then) it won't have mattered what form the entries were in, iTunes would have failed to import the list. With the latest build it won't import a list exported from Winamp "as is" but if you add in the drive letter it should work.

To test things I installed Winamp, imported my collection of compilation albums, made a playlist (6610 items), saved the m3u, modified it with Notepad++ - replacing \n\ with \nD:\ in my case since the media is on D: - then imported it into iTunes (6410 items imported) so something is still not quite right. 😟

Exported the imported list, hacked around in Excel a bit to work out what was missing and found exactly 200 tracks that had some kind of accented character in the file path. iTunes had declined to import them. My script fared a little better missing just one track whose path had an ř converted to an r (Dvořák) when exported by Winamp. Try as I might I can't create a plain text file with an importable entry for this track but I can't see any good reason for iTunes to have rejected the other 199.

I feel another bug report coming on... 😕

tt2