Creating playlists on a Mac without using iTunes

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
#1

Thought this might be of benefit to others searching for a similar solution. I was disappointed to discover that Media Manager does not exist for Mac, so went about looking for a substitute playlist creator. I saw the post linking to the iTunes Applescript; however, my music sits on a separate server and I do not use iTunes to access it, so that was a non-starter.

I downloaded a number of applications that claimed to be able to create M3U playlist files with mixed success. I then realized that an application I already had installed on my Mac would do the trick: VLC. (http://www.videolan.org/)

Plug your Sansa Clip into the computer and open VLC. Open Finder and navigate to the Sansa Clip drive. Now you can drag and drop items from the Finder into the VLC media window. If you drag folders, you will need to double-click on them to populate the list with items within the folder. You can add and delete items at will. When you have the playlist as you like it, go to File, Save Playlist and save to the main MUSIC folder on the Sansa Clip.

Then, one last step because the Sansa uses backslashes and the Mac uses forward slashses to separate folders: in the Finder, find the M3U file you just created. Right-click and choose Open With -> TextEdit.app. Now do a Find and Replace (Command-Option F) and replace all / characters with \ characters.

Hope this helps…

Max

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#2

I should add one other thing: when you edit the file in TextEdit, you not only need to replace the forward slashes with back slashes, but you will also need to find and replace (with nothing) the introductory path information. For example:

/Volumes/SAN32/MUSIC/Aloe Blacc/Good Things/01 I Need A Dollar.mp3

Should read:

Aloe Blacc\Good Things\01 I Need A Dollar.mp3

Max

#3

AWESOME!!

Thanks…this is exactly what I have been looking for and it worked like a dream!!

Incredible!!

Thanks!

#4

Windows users shouldn’t bother. Use winamp, no editing needed if done correctly.

#5

Bummer…worked the first time around.  Now it doesn’s seem to be working.

#6

i just want to thank you so much! after several days of researching, i made the changes you suggested to my vlc playlist on the disk and voilà. i’m very very happy. ~laura :smiley:

#7

This doesn’t work for the Clip Jam (even if the files are all in the root folder).

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#8

The Jam requires m3u playlists. On Windows, here’s how.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14337/~/creating-m3u-playlists-for-the-clip-sport%2Fjam

If you’re in Apple’s walled garden, maybe this will help–don’t know.

http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/#Introduction

1 Like
#9

I have Rockbox on my Clip+ players. With Rockbox it is easy to make playlists on the player itself.

#10

The Jam, among its many other deficiencies, doesn’t take Rockbox.

#11

The Jam, among its other deficiencies, doesn’t take Rockbox.

#12

Here is one idea that involves the use of VLC player software for Mac.

Available at this web-link:   http://get.videolan.org/vlc/2.2.1/macosx/vlc-2.2.1.dmg

  1. On your device, create a sub-folder of music files under the MUSIC folder.

  2. Point VLC to that new music sub-folder on your device. Load the music files into the playlist window.

  3. Follow the instructions at this web-link and save a m3u playlist inside that music sub-folder on your device.

          http://www.stufinnis.co.uk/vlcplaylist.html

Maybe you could report back here and a few other SanDisk Form members will provide helpful advice?

#13

Even after all these years this trick works a treat.  Thanks

#14

There is a similar method using an OSX version of the popular software mp3tag. (uses an embedded version of WINE).

     https://www.mp3tag.de/en/mac-osx.html

  1. On your device, create a sub-folder of music files under the MUSIC folder.

  2. Point mp3tag to that new music sub-folder on your device. Load the music files into the playlist window.

  3. Save a m3u playlist inside that music sub-folder on your device.

       

#15

Another vote for MP3Tag

One thing I’ve discovered over the years is every music player uses the tags differently.

What is really important to one player/software means nothing to another one.

For instance: One player may think the Artist is the key. If you have an album named something like “2018’s 100 Greatest Hits” and it has 75 different artists…that software may well display 75 “albums” named “2018’s 100 Greatest Hits.” And most of them will have one song on them.

MP3Tag lets you really customize your music to your player/software. And not just one-at-the-time, you can highlight page after page and make them uniformly tagged.

What I have ended up doing is to create a “perfectly tagged” set of songs. And then I copy the music I want to listen to somewhere else (storage is so cheap,) and I re-tag the copies specifically for the player/software.

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