How to copy playlists to new phone

[jimo]

Just bought a new Galaxy S10 before my old, pathetic, S6 dies completely, and used Samsung's so-called "Smart switch" to transfer what it could from the old to the new.  While the music files seem to have transferred, the playlists did not.  I have scrupulously exported my playlists any time I make a change to any of them, after learning the hard way that playlists are not permanent until exported.  The old phone had a Playlists folder with lots of m3u8 files in it, so I naively assumed I could copy that folder to the new phone and that would be that.  And, indeed, there are now playlists showing when I select Playlists from the Library main menu, but only if I check the Playlists folder in the Settings->Library->Music Folders->Folders Selection->Internal storage sub-menu; otherwise I get the "Does not look like anything to me" message.  The playlists seem to function as expected when asked to play their songs.

The problem I experience is that I'm shown ALL the m3u8 files, as "xxx.m3u8", instead of just the name of the playlist itself in a single instance without the suffix.

On the old phone, the trick was to NOT check the Settings->...Playlists folder, just the folders, like Music, where songs could be found.  Otherwise I would be shown all those m3u8 files.  On the new phone, not checking the Playlists folder means no playlists at all.  I've tried a variety of import strategies to no avail.

What's the trick in the new environment?

Poweramp Full Version v3-build-830-play

Old: Samsung Galaxy S6, Android 7.0

New: Galaxy S10, Android 9

TIA, Jim

 

[andrewilley]

By unselecting the internal storage 'Playlists' folder via the MusicFolders menu, file-based playlists from that folder will not be scanned, that is the purpose of that menu and that has always been the case. Previously though you would have still been seeing the original (internal) playlists. If you had selected that folder on your old phone, you'd have seen every playlist duplicated (one internal, and one file-based backup).

If a playlist is based on an external file, then yes you'll see the full filename in the list of playlists (including the .M3U or .M3U8 extenders, which are part of the filename). That has always been the case in PA v3. On PA v2 it was slightly different in that they showed as two separate groups, one for internal and another for file-based playlists - but that of course made it harder to find your lists as you had to scroll through two areas.

There is a workaround if you find those extenders a real problem for some reason though. Once those external M3U8 playlists from your Playlists folder are all showing in PA, go through them in the Library > Playlists view and long-press on them one at a time. For each one, tap "+ Playlist" and make a new (internal) playlist with the same song contents. Once you have done them all, so you see two copies of each of your playlists, go into the Music Folders menu and deselect the internal storage Playlists folder. You may need to do a FULL Rescan, but afterwards the file-based versions won't be shown any more. 

Andre