1. What is an IPTV M3U playlist? M3U actually stands for “MP3 URL” and has been around since 1996 back in the day when MP3 libraries were the thing and everyone had thousands of songs, in order to create your own playlists you would use an MP3 player like Winamp or iTunes when you created a playlist you had the option to export an M3U playlist.
2. Free iptv m3u playlists for VLC Kodi Smart IPTV & all devices. Online Playlist Creator M3U, XSPF, WPL, PLS, AxBox. (all channels and url-address with the.

“How can I create an M3U playlist? Am I able to create M3U playlist ever to watch my favorite video streams? Please show me some detailed operation steps to create M3U playlist.”

An m3u playlist is a list of IPTV channels contained in an m3u file format and usually provided by an IPTV service provider. Users can use this playlist to watch their favorite channels online on their preferred devices like TV, computer, smartphones, and tablets. The m3u file can be used using a media player particularly VLC player.

Open your TXT playlist or create a new text document and open it. (Skip this step if what you’re having is a TXT playlist) In the New Text Document, type in exactly #EXTM3U in the first line as the M3U8 file header, and press “Enter” on your keyboard double times.

The m3u file contains a list of channels as well as connection information of each channel such as the name of the channel, channel ID, and direct channel address on the server. You could play back M3U playlist with VLC media player, PotPlayer, Windows Media Player, etc.

The media player processes the m3u file or URL and shows you the channel list. You can select a channel to watch. Once you select the channel, the player will send a request to the server and the server in return send packets that are converted into images on your device and you will be able to watch the channel live.

Then, how to create M3U playlist? The basic method to create an m3u playlist is to create a .txt file onto your computer, which you edit with Notepad (or your preferred text editor). In this file you will add, one by one, paths to songs, movies, channels, or video clips you want.

The m3u playlist is just a file that contains the index entries to each individual item in it, but it’s not a real audio/video file. Each file path should contain a 2-line description that points to the online source. The syntax of the source should look like this:

#EXTINF:-1, Pro Sport 2
http://185.65.30.452:1223/Tv4243

The number following the “#EXTINF” section is the audio length in seconds. If the audio is being streamed online and no length is set, then you will see -1. And the m3u URL is the relative path of m3u file.

You can drag& drop audio/video files from your computer into the m3u playlist, and then import it to your device using a preferred app or media player that supports m3u file format.

This guide would show you 4 different tools to help you create M3U playlist on your computer.

Part 1. How to Create M3U Playlist on VLC

The well-known VLC media player has many useful features. You could convert DVD, video & audio with VLC, merge videos with VLC, edit media files with VLC media player, as well as use VLC to play some rare files. You can also use VLC to create playlist in M3U, M3U8, XSPF, etc.

If you want to create an M3U playlist with VLC media player but have no idea how to do it? You could check the below steps:

1. Open VLC media player. If you haven't installed this program, visit the link and download the compatible version for your computer:
2. Click on 'View' on the toolbar and choose 'Playlist'. You can also press Ctrl+L to open the playlist window quickly.
3. Right-click on the playlist window, select 'add files…' or 'add folder…' and import audio files or a folder from your computer into VLC. Or you can drag and drop the target files or folder to the window. The drag-and-drop mode also applies to rearranging the orders of audio files.
4. When you play the M3U file with VLC next time, VLC will queue the audio files as you have arranged.
5. Select 'Media' on the upper-right corner or click the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Y, choose 'Save Playlist to File', specify the output path, rename the file and save the type as M3U playlist.
6. Finally, click on the 'Save' button to create M3U file.

The process will be finished at once. You can check the generated M3U files in the output folder you specified just now.

Part 2. How to Create M3U Playlist with Windows Media Player

If you are using Windows 7 or an older version, you can also use Windows Media Player to create M3U playlist. Windows Media Player 12 can also save M3U files instead the program's default format, WPL. Therefore, you only need to download and install Windows Media Player 12 on your computer and then try to make an M3U playlist with Windows Media Player.

After installing Windows Media Player on your computer, follow the below steps to learn how to create M3U playlist with Windows Media Player in detail:

1. Create a new folder on your PC and put all audio files into it.
2. Then drag the folder into the Unsaved List section of Windows Media Player.
3. You can drag each audio file up and down to shift the order.
4. Click on the drop-down menu and select 'Save list as…' to create M3U playlist.
5. Rename the file, and choose the output format as M3U.
6. After that, click on 'Save' to create M3U file. The default output path is My Music > Playlist. You can define a new output path as well.

Now you have successfully created M3U playlist with Windows Media Player. It won’t take you long to get the M3U playlist.

Part 3. How to Create M3U Playlist in iTunes

iTunes is not only an iOS data manager center that could help you sync iOS devices and play back/purchase media files, but also an M3U playlist creator that enables you to make M3U playlist easily. After you accumulate audio and video files in your iTunes library, you can sort them into playlists. For example, you arrange videos by the date you added them to the iTunes library, or you make a playlist of road trip songs. You can create an M3U file, which is a text file of a playlist or library that retains the way you have ordered your files.

You could then follow the below steps to learn how to make M3U playlist within iTunes on your computer:

Isn’t it easy to create M3U playlist with iTunes? Just take a try to see whether it’s easy or not.

Part 4. How to Create M3U Playlist for IPTV

Some people want to create M3U playlist for IPTV. Actually, you can use the above method to create your own m3u playlist for IPTV streaming. Alternatively, there are many sources where you can find pre-defined m3u playlists with TV channels and shows, like GitHub, for instance. Most playlists are free, but they sometimes expire after a while. But once you sync the list with your device, you have permanent access.

Then to stream IPTV, you need to use a multimedia player that supports the M3U file type. Depending on the device you’re using there are dedicated apps that you can find you Apple Store or Google Store, such as TV Streams, IPTV, or Smart IPTV. You could follow the below steps to stream M3U playlist

1. Drag and drop downloaded or your self-created IPTV VLC playlist to Media Library to save it there;
2. Click on the VLC IPTV playlist drop-down menu and choose a channel like 'ABC 7 WWSB' to start streaming.

You can not only create M3U playlists but also play the files with VLC, Windows Media Player, and iTunes. Please note that, if the M3U playlist points to the audio files on your local device, you can't play it on other devices since the media player can't find the file path.

However, if the M3U file points to a stream online, you can easily play and even share it when connected to WiFi or cellular network. Last but not least, M3U files are plain text files so it's impossible to convert M3U to a playable MP3 or MP4 media file. Of course, you can open an M3U file with Notepad and find the original path of the actual file, which should be like:

'#EXTINF:300,Nicki Minaj - Barbie Dreams-NA_mp4_Output_3.mp3
file:///D:/music/Nicki%20Minaj%20-%20Barbie%20Dreams-NA_mp4_Output_3.mp3'

In this example, file:///D:/music/ is the original location of the audio file. Once you find the audio file, you can convert it to any media format with a converter like Leawo Video Converter, a professional video converter that could help you convert video and audio files between hundreds of video and audio file formats for various media players and mobile devices.

“Is there a way to open an m3u playlist on android? I'm using Android 10. Trying to open an m3u playlist file directly from a http source. Dolphin browser just asks me to save the file. What is M3U file? Any ideas on how I can play M3U files on Android? Is there a market app for this? Please help me with this.”

What is M3U file? How to open and play M3U file on computer or Android devices? If you are coming across such kind of questions, this guide would be helpful to you. Here in this guide, we would like to show you what an M3U file is and detailed guide on how to open and play M3U file with the help of VLC media player on your computer and Android devices.

Part 1: What is an M3U File?

In the below content, we would like to make a brief introduction to you to help you understand what an M3U file is and how you can open M3U file on your computer.

What is an M3U file?

Let’s firstly answer this question and explain the detail of M3U file for you. An M3U file is an Audio Playlist file that stands for MP3 URL, and as such, isn't an actual audio file in and of itself. An M3U file just points to audio (and sometimes video) files so that a media player can queue them for playback. These text-based files can contain URLs and/or absolute or relative pathnames to the media files and/or folders. M3U files that are UTF-8 encoded are instead saved in the M3U8 file format.

How to open an M3U file?

Then, how to open and play M3U file on computer and Android devices? Though Winamp was one of the first programs to support them, other media players can open M3U files too, like Windows Media Player, iTunes, and Audacious.
VLC is the top free media player because of its support for a huge variety of audio and video formats. Plus, it supports not only the M3U format but also similar playlist file types you may run into, like M3U8, PLS, XSPF, WVX, CONF, ASX, IFO, CUE, and others.
Keep in mind that the M3U file itself is not a media file. So while the files that the M3U points to may open just fine in a different media player than those linked to above, it's possible that the program can't understand the playlist file, and therefore won't know what to do with it when you try to open it.
M3U files can, of course, be opened with any text editor like Notepad, Notepad++, Brackets, Komodo Edit, Visual Studio Code, etc., since the files are text-based.

Part 2: How to Play M3U Files with VLC

As mentioned above, VLC media player is one of the top free media player tools that could help you play back M3U file and other similar playlist files. You could use VLC media player to download and play M3U8 file on your computer, or even convert M3U8 file to MP4 file with VLC media player.

VLC media player comes with an internal video downloader and converter that could play M3U playlist via downloading and converting. How can you play M3U files with VLC media player? Just check the below guide:

1. Download and install the latest version of VLC media player.
2. Open VLC media player.
3. Click on “MEDIA” option on the menu bar.
4. Click on “Open Network Stream” option on the drop-down menu.
5. On the 'Open Media' interface, open the 'Network' tab.
6. Paste the M3U playlist address you get from the Http Live Stream page into the blank bar.
7. Then, click the bottom “Play” button to start playing M3U file with VLC media player on your computer.

You could then freely play any M3U playlist file in this way with the help of VLC media player. Actually, you could try to download and even convert M3U playlist file to MP4 files for unlimited playback on your computer or mobile devices. To do this, you only need to continue from the above operation and then follow the below steps:

1. Instead clicking Play button mentioned above, click the inverted triangle button next to the 'Play' button at the bottom right corner.
2. Choose the 'Convert' option on the drop-down menu.
3. On the newly pop-up 'Convert' interface, in the 'Settings' part, choose MP4 profile as output format in the 'Profile' drop-down panel since MP4 is currently the most popular file format. If you need, you could click the wrench icon to adjust the video and audio parameters of output MP4 file.
4. Then, click the 'Browse' button in the 'Destination file' section to set a download directory.
5. After setting output directory, click the 'Start' button to download downloading M3U video and converting M3U video to MP4 files within VLC media player.

Then you will see the whole download process. When the downloading completes, you will get M3U8 videos downloaded and converted to MP4 file, saved in the folder you have set above.
VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. Actually, besides the most well-known media playback feature, VLC media player also has multiple hidden features, like editing, converting, etc.

Part 3: How to Play M3U Playlist on Android?

M3u File Creator

Then, how to play an M3U playlist file on Android? Is there a way to open and play an M3U playlist file on Android devices? Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Actually, as an open source platform, Android has gained quite a larger number of apps than that on iOS platform. Therefore, you could actually use M3U player apps to play back M3U playlist file on Android devices.

There are quite a few M2U player apps available for Android devices. You could simply search online for one. M3U IPTV Player is the top one we would like to recommend to you here.
M3U Player is an IPTV Player that can play any M3U file from network or local directory. M3U Player plays IPTV on phone, tablets, and android TV Box smoothly with native integrated player. This M3U player is capable of reconnecting automatically and streaming IPTV channels without any distortion and disconnection even with low internet speed. It supports all major formats of live streaming protocols. With this M3U IPTV player, you can play m3u8, ts, mms, 3gp, mp5, mpegts, rtmp, rtsp, mkv, flv and all other audio/video streams on your Android devices.
It’s quite simple and easy to play M3U playlist file on your Android devices with this M3U IPTV Player app. Follow the below steps to learn how to use it to play M3U playlist URL on Android TV, smartphones and tablets:

Free Iptv M3u Playlist Url

1. Download and install M3U IPTV Player on your Android smartphones, tablets and TV.
2. Launch this M3U IPTV Player app on your Android device.
3. On the main interface, you will be asked to select M3U file source. You could see 2 options: From Network and From Local Path.
4. If you choose to play M3U playlist file from network, just copy and paste the MEU playlist URL into the “From Network” box.
5. If you are going to play M3U playlist file from your local drive, just click the blue “Browse” button to browse and add local M3U playlist file into this M3U Player app.
6. Then, click the bottom “Play” button.
7. This M3U Player would then help you play back M3U playlist immediately.

The M3U playback performance highly depends on your Android mobile connection status and your Android device configuration.

Part 4: How to Play M3U Playlist File within iTunes?

iTunes is also often used to play M3U so you can simply import the M3U directly to iTunes. It is a popular way to start the audio playback through streaming media. It may take some time to start loading if the network connection is lagging. Next, let's go to how to play M3U file in iTunes.

Follow the below steps to learn how to play M3U playlist file in iTunes in detail:

Live Tv M3u Playlist Url

• Step 1: Open iTunes and click 'Open Stream' under the File.
• Step 2: Copy the downloaded M3U audio URL and paste it into the pop window.
• Step 3: Play the audio in the 'Internet Songs' section of library.

Once you open the M3U in iTunes, even if the M3U contains a podcast instead of music, they will be categorized in the 'Internet Songs' section.
However, if we directly save M3U files into iTunes, we must ensure that the network is unblocked, because once the network is disconnected or the server is out of reach, then it won't be available when we attempt to access the audio.