MP3 songs playlist definition and linked programs information.
The File extension m3u is used by the following file type(s):
Default file extension for .m3u type: MP3 songs playlist files
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.
An .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 files can also include comments, prefaced by the “#” character. In extended M3U, “#” also introduces extended M3U directives.
One common use of the M3U files format is creating a playlist file that contains a single entry pointing to a stream on the Internet. The created files provide 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: audio/x-mpegurl, audio/x-scpls, uadio/scpls
Programs that open m3u files:
- ALLPlayer (Microsoft Windows)
- Apple iTunes for Mac (Apple OS X)
- Apple iTunes for Windows (Microsoft Windows)
- Cue Splitter
- KMPlayer
- MediaMonkey
- Microsoft Windows Media Player
- VLC media player
- VLC media player for Linux (Linux)
- VLC media player for Mac (Apple OS X)
- VUPlayer (Microsoft Windows)
- Winamp
- Zune