📃The .M3U Extension

Learn about and understand the .M3U extension.

Understand what the .M3U extension is.

M3U (MP3 URL[1][2] or Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator[3] in full) is a computer file format for a multimedia playlist. One common use of the M3U file format is creating a single-entry playlist file pointing to a stream on the Internet. The created file provides easy access to that stream and is often used in downloads from a website, for emailing, and for listening to Internet radio.

Although originally designed for audio files, such as MP3, it is commonly used to point media players to audio and video sources, including online sources. M3U was originally developed by Fraunhofer for use with their Winplay3 software,[4] but numerous media players and software applications now support the format.

Source: Wikipedia - M3U

Simple explanation. (Self-written)

So, the .M3U format basically hosts a URL or multiple URLs of an audio stream or of mp3 files. You can extract this URL to play/stream the audio in MP3 format. It is as per Wikipedia, only a de-facto standard and does not have any formal specification.

Learn how to stream audio from .M3U files.

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