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

Detailed description

Software that open m3u file

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M3U file extension - MP3 songs playlist

What is m3u file? How to open m3u files?

File type specification:

Settings, options, themes or skins file type icon Settings, options, themes or skins file type

m3u file icon: m3u filetype icon

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

Updated: November 10, 2023

The default software associated to open m3u file:

Winamp icon

Winamp  Microsoft Windows software

Company or developer:
Radionomy

Winamp is a legendary media player and one of the first major ones. It was first released in 1997 with latest version from late 2013. It was originally developed by Nullsoft, but now the brand is owned by Radionomy.

Playlist Manager picture or screenshot

Playlist Manager  Microsoft Windows software

Company or developer:
Sprintbit Corporation

Sprintbit Playlist Manager is advanced playlist creator and manager with a lot of useful features for playlist editing management and playback

Help how to open:

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

How to convert:

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.

Find conversions from m3u file:

m3u to m3u8

m3u to pls

m3u to text

m3u to txt

m3u to wpl

m3u to xml

m3u to xspf

Find converter to m3u file type:

m3u8 to m3u

pla to m3u

text to m3u

txt to m3u

wpl to m3u

xml to m3u

xspf to m3u

File identification strings:

HEX code: 23 45 58 54 4D 33 55 0D 0A
ASCII code: #EXTM3U

List of software applications associated to the .m3u file extension

Recommended software programs are sorted by OS platform (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android etc.)
and possible program actions that can be done with the file: like open m3u file, edit m3u file, convert m3u file, view m3u file, play m3u file etc. (if exist software for corresponding action in File-Extensions.org's database).

Hint:
Click on the tab below to simply browse between the application actions, to quickly get a list of recommended software, which is able to perform the specified software action, such as opening, editing or converting m3u files.

Software that open m3u file - MP3 songs playlist

Programs supporting the exension m3u on the main platforms Windows, Mac, Linux or mobile. Click on the link to get more information about listed programs for open m3u file action.

Microsoft Windows:

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