Most users will want to use the web browser to accomplish this, but you can also turn to the command line to download the contents from the m3u as well. Once you have the URL from the m3u playlist, you can then download it locally. Simply drag the m3u file into TextEdit or open it with Quick Look, and you’ll see what’s in the m3u container, which is either a link to a file or a playlist. OS X makes this particularly simple with TextEdit, the bundled text app, or with Quick Look if you have text selection enabled. You can view the contents of any m3u with any general text editor. If the file is a playlist of local documents, it is not actionable in this way. Accordingly, that means you can only “convert” m3u files into local mp3 / m4a files if the container is a URL to audio. You can often download the m3u playlist audio files directly to a computer, this prevents having to stream the audio through the M3U container.

Converting / Downloading an MP3 / M4A from an M3U File That’s why downloading the audio content from the m3u container can be useful.

The downside to keeping the m3u file through iTunes directly is that it will stream every time the audio is accessed, meaning it won’t be available if internet connections are down or the server is out of reach. Once an m3u has been opened in iTunes, they will be categorized under the “Internet Songs” section of the library, even if the m3u is a podcast or not music. It may take a moment to start loading depending on the speed of the internet connection. ITunes usually knows what to do with an M3U file, so just open the m3u directly into iTunes to start the audio playback through streaming.

Convert mac to m3u