# M3U8 Playlist export (UTF-8 encoded playlists)

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/m3u8-playlist-export-utf-8-encoded-playlists/7867
**Category:** Export
**Created:** [January 31, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/m3u8-playlist-export-utf-8-encoded-playlists/7867 "2009-01-31T16:57:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
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### Author: ![Moonbase](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/moonbase/32/207_2.png) [@Moonbase](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Moonbase)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/m3u8-playlist-export-utf-8-encoded-playlists/7867/1 "2009-01-31T16:57:22Z")

</div>

Mp3tag doesn’t (yet?) have built-in support for playlists with files that have Unicode filenames.

Unfortunately, the ».m3u« playlist format was an »ad-hoc« creation by Nullsoft (the former Winamp people) a long time ago, and there are no official specs. Nevertheless, the general consensus nowadays seems to be that M3U only supports the Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) character set while the (newer) ».m3u8« format supports UTF-8 encoding.

Many programs like Mp3tag will even silently try to convert UTF-encoded file paths to ISO-8859-1 (and fail), resulting in entries like:

```
#EXTINF:30,Alfred E. Moonbase - Test #08: HebRus / ????? / ???????
D:\Temp\Testdaten\MusicIP\Moonbase, Alfred E. - Test #08_ HebRus _ ????? _ ???????.mp3

```

(from my test case), which _should_ have been:

```
#EXTINF:30,Alfred E. Moonbase - Test #08: HebRus / עברית / Русский
D:\Temp\Testdaten\MusicIP\Moonbase, Alfred E. - Test #08_ HebRus _ עברית _ Русский.mp3

```

Programs like _iTunes, Winamp, foobar2000_ and the like also tend to differentiate between ».m3u« and ».m3u8« playlists and simply _skip_ any non-Latin-1 entries in ».m3u« files.

So for those of you who really _need_ playlists that support UTF-8 (Unicode) encoding (for instance if you use Unicode filenames like above), here are two exports that do exactly that:

**M3U8 Playlist, absolute file paths.mte**

```
$filename(m3u8,utf-8)#EXTM3U
$loop(%_counter%)#EXTINF:%_length_seconds%,%artist% - %title%
%_path%
$loopend()

```

**M3U8 Playlist, relative file paths.mte**

```
$filename(m3u8,utf-8)#EXTM3U
$loop(%_counter%)#EXTINF:%_length_seconds%,%artist% - %title%
%_filename_rel%
$loopend()

```

These need to be copied to the folder **%APPDATA%\Mp3tag\export\</b\> for Mp3tag to recognise. This is usually something like _C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\Mp3tag\export\</i\>._**

 

In Mp3tag, you can now sort and mark files however you wish, right-click on the selected items, select »Export…« and »M3U8 Playlist, absolute file paths« (or »M3U8 Playlist, relative file paths«). Then give the new playlist a name and save it. Presto!

The playlist will be saved as ".m3u8" format, with UTF-8 encoding.

Under _File -\> Options -\> Export_, you should probably select  
**[x] Write BOM**  
so programs like Mp3tag, Windows Editor and Winamp can easily detect the encoding.

At least on my system here, Mp3tag (v2.42c) can even _read_ ".m3u8" files back correctly.

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_[View the full topic](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/m3u8-playlist-export-utf-8-encoded-playlists/7867)._