How do I delete all the playlists at once to get rid of empty duplicate playlists?

[Brit]

I occasionally accidently knock my sim card (right next to the USB port) so that it disconnects, then reconnects ...and then Poweramp re-scans. (The sim contains all songs and playlists.) This has just happened for about the 5th time in the last month. When Poweramp re-scans all 67 of the playlists, they come in empty. I then re-can, And somehow I now have 193 playlists of which about 1/2 are empty duplicates. I can spend 1/2 hour, yet again, deleting all playlists individually and then re-scanning (which sometimes works). There must be an easier way to delete them all. This has gotten very tedious!! 

[flyingdutchman]

You can not delete all/some playlists in one go with Poweramp. However my app New Playlist Manager can!!

Perhaps a good idea to back your playlists up as m3u. These would remain intact.

[Brit]

I bought your app. How do I delete the playlists in Poweramp? There doesn't seem to be a way to delete them in one shot. It looks like I need to select each box of the 193 playlists (not easy to do!) and then delete?

[flyingdutchman]

Yes you would need to select the boxes. As this functionality is fairly new I will add the delete all option in the next release.

[flyingdutchman]

I have sent you a private message

[andrewilley]

To delete multiple playlists in Poweramp, first go to the Playlists view (where you can see all the playlist names) and press Menu. Then select 'Delete' and then tap on each one that you want to remove, before finally tapping on the middle choice at the bottom of the screen in order to delete the selected number of lists. You can use the left-hand button to toggle select all, and the right hand button cancels the operation.

Andre

[flyingdutchman]

Blow me!! Easy when you know how. Good to know.

[andrewilley]

I only found the multi-select facility a couple of years ago myself.

You can use it in a lot of places, Add to playlist, Enqueue, Delete, etc.

Andre

[Brit]

Great it works. However I re scanned and only one playlist returned. I rebooted the phone, and again the sd card was "rediscovered", so I re-scanned.  No more returned. Now how do i get them back (the good ones..not the empty ones?)

[andrewilley]

Well if you've deleted them, they are gone. That would be the expected result.

File-based Playlists when initially loaded show as empty until you open them and they then show the tracks (as long as those tracks exist in the current Library, so if it is still scanning you might need to wait a while before opening them)

Andre

[Brit]

Yes I wasn't sure if they were deleted from Poweramp, or from the phone itself. they were deleted from the phone. I just put them back on, saved on the laptop computer. 

 

[andrewilley]

Yes, deleting a file-based playlist removes it from the phone's storage.

Andre

[Brit]

The unwanted playlist files keep returning. Ho do I permanently delete them and start fresh with m3u files? Addtionally I import m3u files, but they often they come into my phone from the computer with fewer songs on them than are on them when on the desktop. How could this happen? I also bought the Playlist Manager, but don't have clue how to work it

[flyingdutchman]

Poweramp is very good at finding playlists, tracks etc. first make sure that pa only scans where your music is. Settings, Folders and library, music folders. Only select relevant ones. Next delete all playlists again. Then reboot and see which ones return. If the unwanted ones return then there are m3u files within your music files. Alternatively, use eexplorer and search for .m3u. Remove the ones you do not want.

[andrewilley]

Internal playlists are different from file-based ones. If you delete a track from an internal list, it will stay deleted. However if you make a temporary change to a file-based (M3U) playlist in Poweeramp (additions, re-ordering, or deletions) then only the local copying inside Poweramp's database will get changed, the file itself will still retain its original contents. Thus a rescan could pick up the file-based list again and revert it to its original layout.

Andre

[Brit]

My problem is that when I add a new playlist to my phone, I rescan to place it on Poweramp. This almost always adds more playlists- copies of the first ones (but usually with less songs on them). I searched my phone and I have 39 .m3u playlists. Upon a re-scan to find the 40th, I now have 78 playlists, all with different amounts of songs on them -with numbers after some playlists (and still no sign of the new playlist). The third time i rescan and I have 117 playlists (and still cannot find the new one I had just added)  I then try adding the new playlist again to my sd card on the phone, after deleting all playlists through Poweramp (I still can't figure out how to do it on Playlist manager) I then rescan. Then my new playlist appears and I now have the correct number of playlists... and see the new one. I need to do this rigmarole almost every time I add a new playlist now. There must be a simpler way? 

[andrewilley]

Try a Full Rescan rather than just a rescan if you get duplicates. 

Andre

[flyingdutchman]

Brit, you should now be able to delete all m3u playlists from the npm menu. The best approach is 1. Set the folders for Poweramp to scan. (Make sure you include playlist_manager) 2. reboot which will ensure pa rescans. 3. check the pa file based playlists. If you see them then you have m3u files within your music folders. 4. Find those m3u files and either delete them or move them to the playlist_manager folder. 5. Load npm and manage your m3u from here.