M3U STUDIO

M3U Playlist Comparison Tool

Upload and compare two M3U playlists side by side. Track changes, isolate new entries, and export detailed difference logs.

Track provider playlist updates

Use the first file as the reference and the second as the target. Both are parsed locally, then the tool compares normalized names and exact URL strings to produce additions, removals, URL changes, and limited metadata changes. It does not contact the URLs or determine whether either file is newer.

Identify additions, removals, and shifts

Green marks additions, red marks removals, yellow marks a URL change for the same normalized name, and cyan marks a name or group change for the same URL. The downloadable text report includes the displayed name, URL, and change details. Other attributes such as `tvg-logo` and `tvg-id` are not compared as metadata changes.

Interactive Tool Workspace

Matching edge cases

If a file contains duplicate names or duplicate URLs, later entries overwrite earlier ones in the comparison maps. A renamed channel with a changed URL may therefore appear as one removal and one addition. Query tokens in a URL count as part of the exact URL, and name matching ignores only surrounding whitespace and letter case.

A reliable comparison workflow

  1. Load the known reference as Playlist A.
  2. Load the candidate update as Playlist B.
  3. Review URL changes before additions and removals.
  4. Check important tvg-id and logo attributes manually because they are outside the metadata comparison.
  5. Download the report before resetting either file.

For line-level format details, see the #EXTINF reference.