JSW1735 offers the correct and most elegant solution to creating a playlist on the sansa clip via WMP… I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out-even chatting with tech support. He is exactly correct about the instructions in the user manual and on line - they are WRONG. They all refer to creating a file on THE COMPUTER (not the sansa) which includes the M3U file AND the actual MP3 files.
THE INSTRUCTIONS FROM SANSA ARE WRONG!!!
Because the instructions were wrong - I was attempting all of the methods (other than renaming files or using different media players) to make the playlists work. All the time I couldn’t understand why I would have to save the mp3 files on the computer and then transfer them to the sansa. My sansa has the songs already!!
I followed JSW1735’s instructions and VOILA!!! Playlist created and visible and not empty on my sansa. So - just to reiterate.
here’s what I did - all thanks to JSW1735.
1. plugged in my Sansa (don’t know whether its MTP or MSC or whatever) My sansa has over a thousand songs in the music folder and no playlists.
2. went to “my computer” (I have Windows 7) and opened up my sansa to view the files
3. opened up my “Music” folder on the Sansa to see my songs.
4. opened up Windows Media Player (I have version 12)
5. made the WMP window smaller so it wouldn’t fill up the whole computer screen
6. now I am looking at the window showing my “music” folder songs on the left that I opened with explorer and on the right I am looking at WMP in a window.
7. I then dragged the songs from the “music” folder over to the right hand side of the WMP window under the tab “play” - NOT the “SYNC” tab (there are 3 tabs over there on the right: “Play”, “Burn”, and “Sync”)… It’s important to note that you don’t have to use the sync at all to do this - just the “play” tab. Under the play tab it says “Drag Items here to create a Playlist” So you Know you are dragging the songs from your music folder on the sansa to the correct place.
8. Once I was done dragging all the songs i wanted in my playlist (FROM MY SANSA MUSIC FOLDER) over to the playlist area on the Play tab in WMP - I clicked on the drop down arrow of the little box on the upper right hand corner of the “Play” tab that has the green checkmark on it. That drop down menu has a “save as” command in it. I saved the playlist as an M3U FILE. It is very important to save it as an M3U file I guess - so that the sansa can read it. Also you can sort the playlist as one of the commands on the dropdown list if you want. So - I saved it on my desktop as JSW1735 suggested.
9. I closed my WMP window leaving open my sansa window.
10. I dragged the playlist from my desktop ( it was titled “Tester List.m3u” ) over to the “Playlists” folder on my sansa. I disconnected my sansa from the computer - - the sansa refreshed and lo and behold - in the playlist menu under “Music” right after the 3 go lists my TESTER LISt was there. I clicked on it - and under it was the songs I had selected. It did NOT add MP3 files to my sansa. As JSW1735 said - it now knew where to look for the song in the sansa MUSIC folder.
in summary:
1. JSW1735 is in fact a genious.
2… The Sansa instructions are incorrect
3. You do not have to add mp3 files to your sansa just to create a playlist
4. You do not have to sync anything to WMP
5. You do not have to use the folders function on the sansa.
again - thankyou JSW1735. I was seriously considering trashing my sansa–