Bash script to create .m3u playlist files for all mp3s in subdirectories

playlist.sh

#!/bin/bash
#
# bash script to create playlist files in music subdirectories
#
# Steve Carlson (stevengcarlson@gmail.com)

find . -type d |
while read subdir
do
  rm -f "$subdir"/*.m3u
  for filename in "$subdir"/*
  do
    if [ ${filename: -4} == ".mp3" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".flac" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".loss" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".aiff" ] || [ ${filename: -4} == ".aif" ]
    then
        echo "${filename##*/}" >> ./"$subdir"/"${subdir##*/}.m3u"
    fi
  done

done

@Tint1974

Please see updated gist. Best of luck.

Great!,

Quite clever boy. Very useful script... at least for me that have a headless notebook 32bits running Slax 7 for playing music mainly with SMplayer.

Thank you for sharing this. :-)

I have this error

playlist.sh: 13: playlist.sh: Bad substitution

Could you help me?

I have this error

playlist.sh: 13: playlist.sh: Bad substitution

Could you help me?

I had a similar error:

./playlist.sh: line 13: [: too many arguments

and so I applied the fixes for line 13 given by shellcheck.net, and it worked. I also applied the fix for line 8. Here's the whole script with fixes: https://gist.github.com/rmlrml/c8147c8a697d58bba2f252dd0fc3b0db

find . -type f \( -name '*.mp3' -o -name '*.flac' -o -name '*.loss' -o -name '*.aiff' -o -name '*.aif' \) -printf "%P\n" > playlist.m3u

or, to get a sorted m3u playlist alphabetically:

find . -type f \( -name '*.mp3' -o -name '*.flac' -o -name '*.loss' -o -name '*.aiff' -o -name '*.aif' \) -printf "%P\n" | sort > playlist.m3u

very simply method

find /home/user/music -type f -iname "*.ogg" > /home/user/Documents/playlist.m3u

then open xmms or similate classify in alpahabetic order if you want then save and here is a superb playlist

be careful put the entire paths

I am using a jellyfin server to play my media and it shows the newest playlists first.

I'm using this code, but I'm struggling to modify it, so that; if there is a pre-existing .m3u playlist that has previously been created by the scipt then it will skip that folder.

Thanks in advance

Ok - I re-read your code and hacked it like this

if [[ -f ./"$subdir"/"${subdir##/}.m3u" ]]
then
echo "File "$subdir"/.m3u already exists, skipping"
else
echo would build for $subdir
for filename in "$subdir"/*
do
if [ ${filename: -4} == ".mp3" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".flac" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".loss" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".aiff" ] || [ ${filename: -4} == ".aif" ]
then
echo "${filename##/}" >> ./"$subdir"/"${subdir##/}.m3u"
fi

Then final version of my hacked script is below

#!/bin/bash
#
# bash script to create playlist files in music subdirectories
#
# Steve Carlson (stevengcarlson@gmail.com)

find . -type d |
while read subdir
do

 if [[ -f ./"$subdir"/"${subdir##*/}.m3u" ]]
   then
      echo "File  "$subdir"/*.m3u already exists, skipping"
      else
	echo would build for $subdir
	for filename in "$subdir"/*
	do
	if [ ${filename: -4} == ".mp3" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".flac" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".loss" ] || [ ${filename: -5} == ".aiff" ] || [ ${filename: -4} == ".aif" ]
	then
	echo "${filename##*/}" >> ./"$subdir"/"${subdir##*/}.m3u"
	fi
done
   fi
done

Thanks.

Hello everyone, based on this script and this other I created a function that wraps the main code and expect as arguments a flag [-r/-s] and a directory allowing it to have 2 modes: (-r) create one playlist per subdirectory and (-s) create a single playlist that includes all subdirectories' songs. With this script I maintain my playlists easily.
You can check it here: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2513870

Hello everyone, based on this script and this other I created a function that wraps the main code and expect as arguments a flag [-r/-s] and a directory allowing it to have 2 modes: (-r) create one playlist per subdirectory and (-s) create a single playlist that includes all subdirectories' songs. With this script I maintain my playlists easily. You can check it here: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2513870

i try to use your scripts, but i get an error message because the script goes to Homes/username/ Music. I want to change it to search in my music library which is not in the Home/username/Music directory. How can i change the script to search in whatever folder i want?

Hello everyone, based on this script and this other I created a function that wraps the main code and expect as arguments a flag [-r/-s] and a directory allowing it to have 2 modes: (-r) create one playlist per subdirectory and (-s) create a single playlist that includes all subdirectories' songs. With this script I maintain my playlists easily. You can check it here: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2513870

i try to use your scripts, but i get an error message because the script goes to Homes/username/ Music. I want to change it to search in my music library which is not in the Home/username/Music directory. How can i change the script to search in whatever folder i want?

give this a try https://github.com/mattiasghodsian/PhinellyPort

Hello everyone, based on this script and this other I created a function that wraps the main code and expect as arguments a flag [-r/-s] and a directory allowing it to have 2 modes: (-r) create one playlist per subdirectory and (-s) create a single playlist that includes all subdirectories' songs. With this script I maintain my playlists easily. You can check it here: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2513870

i try to use your scripts, but i get an error message because the script goes to Homes/username/ Music. I want to change it to search in my music library which is not in the Home/username/Music directory. How can i change the script to search in whatever folder i want?

give this a try https://github.com/mattiasghodsian/PhinellyPort

Thanks, Mattias

In the coming weeks, I will update my music library, and then I will try your script.
i will come back to you when I try it.