Playlists Location Preference: Internal or External? (formerly Duplicate Playlists)

[Jefferson Cownty]

Hello there,

I searched for existing Duplicate Playlists topics, but saw none matching both words.

I use an SD card for storing all my music on my phones. And for better or worse, I have also put playlists in the same umbrella music folder, under a dedicated playlist sub folder.

Pretty well all playlists became duplicated in the Playlists area of my previous phone. I am not sure why. One set had .m3u8 appended to the name, the other did not. I recently transferred to a new phone. I successfully put playlists there (import/export, I believe) in a subfolder of the SD card. When I looked at the PAmp UI Playlists, there was just one set of playlists. But it happened to be the set of playlists from the previous phone that was not the more up to date of the two sets. So, I did some Export/Import functions and managed to get the 2nd (more up to date) set of playlists from my old phone copied to the same SD card on the new phone, under a different Playlists subfolder. Not surprisingly, I then had 2 sets, ie, duplicate playlists on my new phone. So, I went into the SD card and deleted the 1st set of playlists I put on the SD card. I believe I then did a Rescan. I hoped that there would only be one set of playlists in "Playlists" as a result, but there were still 2. Both sets have .m3u8 appended to the Playlist name, but for some playlists the 2 sets have different numbers of songs, meaning one is more up to date than the other.

I am trying to educate myself so, I can manage this better. I read some of the other threads here, including an Admin explanation that there were two locations (maybe more) where Playlists could be stored. One was on an SD card (ie, an external location). 2nd was a system location, which I assume means internal to the Poweramp app. Is this understanding correct?

My goal is to get rid of the less up to date of the two sets of playlists, so that I don't need to worry about which one is more complete.. preferably by deleting the location that they are stored in (otherwise, I could delete playlists individually, but I have about 150 of them). I am hoping someone can tell me how to do this. And if I can also learn about how to best manage playlist storage locations for general reference and for future phone transfer of playlists, I would greatly appreciate that.

Best regards,

Jeff

[andrewilley]

58 minutes ago, Jefferson Cownty said:

I am trying to educate myself so, I can manage this better. I read some of the other threads here, including an Admin explanation that there were two locations (maybe more) where Playlists could be. One was on an SD card or an external location. 2nd was a system location, which I assume means internal to the Poweramp app. Is this understanding correct?

Yes, that's basically how it works.

Playlists that you have saved as files into your storage - for example as .M3U or .PLS files from a computer maybe - are detected during Poweramp's music scanning process (as long as the files have been saved into a location that's enabled for scanning anyway). When you make any changes to the contents of these playlists within Poweramp, the physical files will be updated so you always have a permanent file-based copy.

Playlists that you create within Poweramp itself - usually by using the +Playlist button in Category lists, but also ones that you've re-imported from old saved settings - are solely stored within the music database and have no physical presence elsewhere. Changes to these will only update the internal database copy, there is no file to refer back to.

So what has probably happened in your case is that file-based playlists on your SD Card have been read back into your new setup, and those will be the ones with .M3U8 extenders. Also you (or Android) have restored other internal version from a Settings Backup too, which will be the versions without the extenders.

If you simply move all the .M3U8 files on your SD Card to some different location, a backup location that is not within the permitted Music Folders location that Poweramp is allowed to scan, then the next Full Rescan will cause them to vanish from the Playlists Category, leaving you with just the internal database versions. If that's what you want, then job done.

If you'd prefer to continue working with the file-based versions instead, you will now be in a position where you can simply delete everything from the Playlists Library Category (which will only contain internal database playlists) thus leaving the Category completely empty. Then you can move all the .M3U8 files from the backup location back into a chosen music folder, and they will all be rescanned.

For more info, please see:

Andre

 

[Jefferson Cownty]

Thanks, Andre, for that information. I appreciate it.

I believe I understand most, possibly even all of that. And I re-read the "Creating and Playlists" Knowledge Base topic, which helps.

Assuming you use Poweramp, I am curious whether you keep your current playlists in the external or internal location. If you don't use Poweramp, based on your knowledge, which do you recommend?

It would seem that the advantages of each are:

Internal: New Playlists that you create within Poweramp itself - usually by using the +Playlist button in Category lists, are automatically added (whereas they are not added to external playlists Automatically).

External: External playlists (on an SD card) are NOT subject to loss if you uninstall the app or your phone dies (whereas Internal Playlists are).

To possibly save you some typing/explaining, I will write out the maintenance process that I think would be required for Internal vs External:

If I were to use an EXTERNAL SD card as the current complete playlist location, then I'm thinking it would make sense to:

1. Update that external playlist file by exporting internal playlists that are newly created with the +Playlist button, using the Export option in the three-dots menu from the Library=>Playlists view.

2. Do a Rescan / Full Rescan?

3. Delete the internal version of that newly created playlist, to avoid duplicates.

If I were to use the INTERNAL location as the current complete Playlists location, then I'm thinking it would make sense to:

1. Regularly export the whole internal collection of Playlists to an External location, as a backup. 

It would seem the main downside here would be if you were to lose your phone or whatever without having backed up in a while.

Does that make sense?!

Thank you!! 🙏☮

Jeff

PS: My parents are from Stockport/Manchester. Lots of great musical artists from Birmingham!!