# Playlist creation with japanese/special characters in filename/filepath

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/playlist-creation-with-japanese-special-characters-in-filename-filepath/69184
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 23, 2025, 8:37am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/playlist-creation-with-japanese-special-characters-in-filename-filepath/69184 "2025-07-23T08:37:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![gatosardina](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/34f0e0/32.png) [@gatosardina](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/gatosardina)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 8:37am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/playlist-creation-with-japanese-special-characters-in-filename-filepath/69184/1 "2025-07-23T08:37:31Z")

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Searched a bit and this kind of issue seems to pop up every now and then, related to different parts.

I have some music tracks with japanese characters in the filename/filepath, and when creating a playlist from within mp3tag the written file just replaces all japanese characters with question marks, i suppose its related to the file encoding when writing the file

I am using latest release v3.30

 ![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/3X/0/2/024537267a266178c09a0ef05916c7286ae423b4.png)  
 ![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/3X/b/b/bbb451a265af832fa528917d31125452dd09d12f.png)

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### Author: ![Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/florian/32/5759_2.png) [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 8:39am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/playlist-creation-with-japanese-special-characters-in-filename-filepath/69184/2 "2025-07-23T08:39:39Z")

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You'd need to save the file as `.m3u8` to use Unicode UTF-8 encoding which will preserve the Japanese characters.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![gatosardina](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/34f0e0/32.png) [@gatosardina](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/gatosardina)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 8:45am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/playlist-creation-with-japanese-special-characters-in-filename-filepath/69184/3 "2025-07-23T08:45:18Z")

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just quickly read on this (the m3u8 format as opposed to m3u), thanks

the mp3tag default playlist save dialog does not hint at the m3u8 format while the windows save dialog does indeed specify both formats, perhaps consider adding a small note in the mp3tag dialog?

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### Author: ![Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/florian/32/5759_2.png) [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 8:46am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/playlist-creation-with-japanese-special-characters-in-filename-filepath/69184/4 "2025-07-23T08:46:54Z")

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It's in the first sentence of the [Playlist documentation topic](https://docs.mp3tag.de/playlists/):

> Mp3tag supports `.m3u` playlists and `.m3u8` playlists (UTF-8 encoded, supports international characters in file names).

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### Author: ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2025, 8:46am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/playlist-creation-with-japanese-special-characters-in-filename-filepath/69184/5 "2025-08-22T08:46:55Z")

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