M3U file: How to open? The best software for opening m3u files

M3U

MP3 songs playlist

File type: Settings, options, themes or skins file

Files with m3u extension can be usually found as playlists, typically for a group of .mp3 files or whole folders.

What is m3u file?

File type category:
Settings, options, themes or skins file

Date updated: July 13, 2025

M3U (Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator, MP3 URL) is a computer file format that stores multimedia playlists. It was originally implemented in Winamp, although it is now supported by many applications, including VLC media player, XMMS, foobar2000, JuK, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, iTunes, QuickTime Player, Yahoo! Music Engine, JetAudio, RokuLabs SoundBridge, Spider Player, and PlayStation Portable.

The m3u file is a metafile playlist that references mp3 files and provides additional metadata for the items in the playlist. Each song and its location has its own line. The locations can be either absolute or relative local pathnames (e.g., "C:\My Music\Chanson.mp3" or "Chanson.mp3") or they can be URLs. The file can also include comments, prefaced by the "#" character. In extended M3U, "#" also introduces extended M3U directives.

One common use of the M3U file format is creating a playlist file that contains a single entry pointing to a stream on the Internet. The created file provides easy access to that stream and can be used for things like downloading from a website or for emailing, or for Internet radio listening.

The unicode version of M3U format is M3U8 format, it can include UTF-8 unicode characters.

MIME types:
audio/x-mpegurl
audio/x-scpls
uadio/scpls

How to open m3u file?

Nowadays most media players should be able to handle .m3u files.

How to convert m3u file?

Generic M3U playlists may be converted to a media player specific format. This is done with loading the .m3u file and saving it to the new format in your media player.

Suggested software to open m3u file:

Associated software actions with the m3u file

Open

Software applications that can open m3u files:

Winamp (Microsoft Windows)

VLC media player (Microsoft Windows)

Playlist Manager (Microsoft Windows)

Microsoft Windows Media Player (Microsoft Windows)

KMPlayer (Microsoft Windows)

Apple iTunes for Windows (Microsoft Windows)

MediaMonkey (Microsoft Windows)

Helium Music Manager (Microsoft Windows)

Zune (Microsoft Windows)

Apple iTunes for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

VLC media player for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

VLC media player for Linux (Linux/Unix)

VLC media player for Android (Google Android)

Edit

Software applications that can edit m3u files:

Playlist Manager (Microsoft Windows)

Save

Software capable of saving m3u files:

VLC media player (Microsoft Windows)

Playlist Manager (Microsoft Windows)

VLC media player for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

VLC media player for Linux (Linux/Unix)

Play

Apps designed for playing m3u files:

Winamp (Microsoft Windows)

VLC media player (Microsoft Windows)

Microsoft Windows Media Player (Microsoft Windows)

KMPlayer (Microsoft Windows)

VUPlayer (Microsoft Windows)

ALLPlayer (Microsoft Windows)

Zune (Microsoft Windows)

Create

Software apps that create m3u files:

VLC media player (Microsoft Windows)

Playlist Manager (Microsoft Windows)

Cue Splitter (Microsoft Windows)

MediaMonkey (Microsoft Windows)

Helium Music Manager (Microsoft Windows)

VLC media player for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

VLC media player for Linux (Linux/Unix)

Import

Software apps that import m3u files:

Helium Music Manager (Microsoft Windows)

Export

Software apps that export m3u files:

Helium Music Manager (Microsoft Windows)

messages.fburn

messages.fburn_description:

MediaMonkey (Microsoft Windows)

Other actions

Software applications that handle other tasks involving m3u files:

MediaMonkey (Microsoft Windows)