Changing m3u path directory to copy playlists
So I have just bought a new laptop and have hundreds of playlists on my old iTunes. I just worked out how to copy these to my new computer, or at least a reasonable way - (if anyone has a better solution please email me at
tristanalaba@gmail.com and also post it here)
It's a little time consuming but I'm stoked it's worked cos I was stressing about losing all my time and effort.
A quick note, I've got the same folder structure from both computers, but this folder is now in a different location (in fact the itunes file folder was on an external drive, its now on my HD)
This solution may work if you have different itunes librarys (different people/different copies of a CD) but it will require that they are labelled the same, so the artist name, album and song names are identical, otherwise its a lot of work rewriting and most likely not worth it in most cases
So in iTunes right-click your playlist and choose export, make sure its an .m3u
Open the m3u in text edit, for example the one i just worked it out on looks like so
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:471,Still Grey - Pendulum
/Users/tristanalaba/Music/Music collections/iTunes Music/Compilations/Hold Your Colour/14 Still Grey.mp3
#EXTINF:266,Something In The Air - Maya Jane Coles
/Users/tristanalaba/Music/Music collections/iTunes Music/Maya Jane Coles/Don't Put Me In Your Box/04 Something In The Air.mp3
#EXTINF:259,It Could Be Sweet - Portishead
/Users/tristanalaba/Music/Music collections/iTunes Music/Portishead/Dummy/04 It Could Be Sweet 1.mp3
#EXTINF:272,First born (Four Tet remix) - Crazy Bald Heads
/Users/tristanalaba/Music/Music collections/iTunes Music/Compilations/FABRICLIVE. 59/07 First born (Four Tet remix).mp3
#EXTINF:217,Lovely Bloodflow - Baths
/Users/tristanalaba/Music/Music collections/iTunes Music/Baths/Cerulean/02 Lovely Bloodflow.mp3
#EXTINF:83,Lonely Beer Bottle1 - Flying Lotus
/Users/tristanalaba/Music/Music collections/iTunes Music/Flying Lotus/July Heat/02 Lonely Beer Bottle1.mp3
you will see the line users/tristanalaba/Music/Music collections/iTunes Music/ up until the name of the artist, is the location of the itunes directory. This needs to be changed to redirect the file.
This line used to say Lacie/Music/iTunes Media/ then the artist name
To change this, find and replace all with the new location.
This will help people trying to change a mass of playlists, albeit a long and gruelling process that I'm going to undertake in the near future.
In regards to the original question, I haven't tried this yet but I'd suggest, if you have the files plus the m3u on a CD, when you open the m3u in itunes it should be blank but for the playlist title.
When you open the songs in itunes and they're copied to your itunes file directory, the playlist would still be blank. If you go through the process of redirecting the files through find all and replace then this should work perfectly, as because they are the same files that are named in the original file, its just the location that has changed.
Pretty sure that will work!
