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Export YouTube Playlist to M3U8

Paste a playlist link to download an M3U8 playlist file listing every video's YouTube link with its title and length, encoded as UTF-8.

What is a playlist to M3U8 exporter?

A playlist to M3U8 exporter saves a YouTube playlist as an M3U8 file: the same playlist format as M3U, but declared as UTF-8 text. The .m3u8 extension tells players to read titles as Unicode, so Hindi, Japanese, Arabic, Cyrillic and emoji show as written instead of as question marks.

Each video is listed with its length, channel, title and YouTube link. Despite the shared extension, this isn't an HLS video stream: it's a short list of links that a player like VLC opens and streams one by one. Choose M3U8 over M3U whenever any titles in the playlist use non-English characters.

How to export a YouTube playlist to M3U8

  1. 1.Paste the playlist link

    Paste the link of a playlist, especially one with titles in Hindi, Japanese or another script, and press Export.

  2. 2.M3U8 is already ticked

    Every entry carries the video's title, channel, length and link in UTF-8. Leaving out deleted and private videos keeps the queue playing without gaps.

  3. 3.Download

    Press Download and open the .m3u8 file in a player such as VLC.

Example: a title in Hindi

A 3-minute-30-second video with a Hindi title is written as:

Info line
#EXTINF:210,चैनल - गाना
Link line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
Encoding
UTF-8

Saved as plain .m3u, some players would show that title as ????; the .m3u8 extension keeps it readable.

M3U8 for titles in any language

M3U8 is the UTF-8 version of the M3U playlist format. The .m3u8 extension tells players to read the file as Unicode, so titles in Hindi, Japanese, Arabic, Cyrillic or with emoji show as written instead of as question marks.

Each video gets an #EXTINF line with its length in seconds and Channel - Title, followed by its YouTube link. This is a list of links, not an HLS video stream, even though streaming sites also use the .m3u8 extension.

Frequently asked questions

Is this an HLS stream?

No. HLS streams also use .m3u8, but this file is a plain playlist of YouTube watch links, not video segments.

Does it download the videos?

No. It contains links only, and the player streams each video from YouTube.

Should I pick M3U or M3U8?

Pick M3U8 if any titles use non-English characters or your player expects .m3u8. Otherwise either works; the content is the same.

Can I edit the M3U8 file by hand?

Yes. It's plain UTF-8 text, so any editor can reorder or delete videos. Keep each #EXTINF line directly above the link it describes.

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