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[Dean Wyler]

Hi,  I'm trying to move my playlists from a Mac Mini to a Windows laptop. I moved all my music files from the Mac platform to the windows platform.  I could use specific instructions about how to preserve and move the playlists.  I've tried to use the 'export all playlists' feature using a thumb drive and also trying to move them across the network but the new version on the laptop doesn't seem to recognize them. I can see the files but I don't see the individual songs in the playlists. I have also read about moving playlists on this forum.  I could use specific and detailed instructions.  I may be a little confused about file types also.  M3U vs... other types.  

I've spent many months creating many playlists.  It would be a shame to lose them. It's the main reason I like JRiver.

Help will be appreciated.  I've spent quite a bit of time on this project.

[UncleMilt]

Hi,  I'm trying to move my playlists from a Mac Mini to a Windows laptop. I moved all my music files from the Mac platform to the windows platform.  I could use specific instructions about how to preserve and move the playlists.  I've tried to use the 'export all playlists' feature using a thumb drive and also trying to move them across the network but the new version on the laptop doesn't seem to recognize them. I can see the files but I don't see the individual songs in the playlists. I have also read about moving playlists on this forum.  I could use specific and detailed instructions.  I may be a little confused about file types also.  M3U vs... other types.   

I've spent many months creating many playlists.  It would be a shame to lose them. It's the main reason I like JRiver.

Help will be appreciated.  I've spent quite a bit of time on this project.

I have had some success importing playlists from one machine to another.  What appears to be most important in the import process is the track's file path. Drive designation and folder structure need to be same on both machines, or process result will not be satisfactory.  I have resorted editing playlist in text editor like Notepad to modify track paths prior to importing into MC.   If your tracks are on multiple drives, import process can fail or result in partial fill.

Forum Member - "Eight Dancing Monkeys" {really good man} helped me with an external utility - to take a playlist in txt format, use fields like Artist, Album, Name, and Track# and build MC playlist from candidates in my library - it works great regardless of path. Utility runs in Perl, but kicks ass.

[Dean Wyler]

Thanks Uncle Milt,
Bad news: The paths have indeed changed.  They are similar within the artists folder and album, etc. but the parent folders above that have changed.   It took a long time to bring the music over from mac to windows.   Geek squad at best buy did the deed on the move to speed it up a bit.

[UncleMilt]

Thanks Uncle Milt,
Bad news: The paths have indeed changed.  They are similar within the artists folder and album, etc. but the parent folders above that have changed.   It took a long time to bring the music over from mac to windows.   Geek squad at best buy did the deed on the move to speed it up a bit.

Potential fixes:

If parent folder changes to file path on new windows machine are minimal and uniform - search and replace functions in Notepad can make quick changes to the path for each playlist record (prior to importing) and playlist import will mostly succeed.

Perhaps, one may alter the location of media files on new windows machine (bulk move) - to a new parent folder structure - that matched parent structure of old mac machine.

[Dean Wyler]

   Hi all, Thanks for the help. Took me a while but I was finally able to get this worked out by putting all of the playlists into NotePad and doing universal changes to the files to make them match in Windows and then I exported the playlists to the music folder, did a scan and wham bam zoom everything worked again.  Everything is right with the world !!   

[blgentry]

Sorry I didn't see this before.  Two methods that should work if you ever need to do this again:

1.  Library backup and restore.  Back up the library on the Mac in MC.  Restore that backup file on MC in Windows.  All of your playlists, views, and media should show up.  But the paths will be wrong, as you already know.  So, you need to use RM&C on your newly restored library to transform the paths from the Mac paths to the Windows paths.  The Find and Replace Template at the bottom of the Rename, Move, and Copy tool (RM&C) is usually the right way to do this.  Once the paths are correct, everything should "just work" including all of your playlists.

2.  Export Playlist and Import Playlist should work.  You've already found out that using a find and replace (in a text editor) is the key to making this work.  I'm mentioning it here again because you talked about  playlist export type.  The right way to do this between MC systems is usually an MPL playlist.  This is MC's proprietary format that gets EVERYTHING including ratings, play counts, etc.  Use MPL when you can.

All this said, I'm not sure I've actually used either of these methods for playlists.  I'm not big on playlists.  Though I have used backup and restore a BUNCH to duplicate libraries across systems, including going from Mac to Linux.  I might have done Mac to Windows a long time ago, but my memory is fuzzy.

Good job on getting this done yourself!

Brian.