How to Create and Edit an M3U Playlist

M3U is a simple playlist format used to organize streaming links for TV channels, radio stations, and other online media. Many IPTV services provide their channels in M3U format, making it easy to load and manage them in apps like Kodi or IPTV players.

In this guide, you will learn how to create your own custom M3U playlist from an existing one and how to edit it to match your preferences.

First, you need to learn the structure of an M3U playlist

An M3U playlist is a plain-text file, which means you can open and edit it with any text editor.

An M3U playlist is composed of channel entries, and each entry is made of two lines:

1. An #EXTINF line that contains the channel’s metadata
2. The next line, which contains the stream URL

Here is an example of a channel entry from an M3U file:

#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="CNNUSA.us" tvg-country="US" tvg-language="English"
tvg-logo="https://i.imgur.com/Ivyl5SQ.gif" group-title="News", CNN USA (720p) [Geo-blocked]
https://turnerlive.warnermediacdn.com/hls/live/586495/cnngo/cnn_slate/VIDEO_0_3564000.m3u8

Here are the different tags:

• #EXTINF:-1 – marks the beginning of an extended M3U entry
• tvg-id – the unique channel ID. In our example: CNNUSA.us
• tvg-country – the channel’s country of origin. In our example: US
• tvg-language – the language of the channel. In our example: English
• tvg-logo – a URL pointing to the channel’s logo image. In our example: https://i.imgur.com/Ivyl5SQ.gif
• group-title – the category the channel belongs to. In our example: News
• Display name – the channel name shown in your IPTV app. In our example: CNN USA (720p) [Geo-blocked]
• Stream URL – the video stream address, which is the second line. In our example: https://turnerlive.warnermediacdn.com/hls/live/586495/cnngo/cnn_slate/VIDEO_0_3564000.m3u8

These tags do not affect video playback quality, but they control how the channel appears in your IPTV player.

Here is how to create your M3U playlist:

Many M3U playlists include hundreds or even thousands of channels.
If you only want a few of them, creating your own custom playlist is faster and cleaner than loading the entire list.

• Download the original M3U file you want to edit. If you want to download the sample file used in this tutorial, click here.
• Open the file with a text editor
• Create a new file named iptv.m3u
• Make sure the first line in your new file is: #EXTM3U
• In the original playlist, copy only the channels you need. Each channel has two lines: the #EXTINF line and the URL
• Paste those lines into your new iptv.m3u file and save it using UTF-8 encoding

Your new playlist will now load only the channels you selected.

Here is how to edit your M3U playlist:

• Change the country – edit the tvg-country tag
• Change the language – edit the tvg-language tag
• Change the logo – replace the URL in the tvg-logo tag
• Change the group (category) – modify the group-title tag
• Fix EPG matching – edit the tvg-id tag
• Rename the channel – edit the name after the comma in the #EXTINF line
• Update the stream URL – replace the channel’s URL
• Remove tags you don’t need – delete optional metadata lines entirely
• Delete unwanted channels – remove the entire entry from the playlist

You can use Kodi or IPTV app to load your playlists.

Now you can create and edit M3U playlists and enjoy your collection of channels.