Feature Request: Export and Import Sonos Playlists

Sonos users can take part in Beta testing and share their experiences from using software over different platforms. Here's a link to an example: http://www.sonos.com/mobile/newcontrollerapp Of course, most of the back-end work is done and dusted but it's an opportunity to have some input.

Bravo for taking things further than anyone else! The question I have is how many people would be comfortable editing even basic code like this?

As selzhanik mentioned, you CAN export sonos playlists. Mediamonkey is free and it can see your sonos playlists just as easily as it can see your music library. Just export them as m3u files to any folder on your computer that you like. You can even set mediamonkey to export them every night as a backup.
Agreed.  I'm certainly a geek who puts way too much time into organizing the back-end of my media collection.  And I would very much like to have this feature.  Editing the exported playlist is a "trivial" task for *me* and I would rather have it automated.  Especially considering I'll probably hit a snag in the future that I haven't anticipated.  For someone like my parents (who have a Sonos system too), I doubt they'd attempt this.

I will say though that given the way I seen that Sonos must be storing their playlists behind-the-scenes, and how the libraries are linked to the systems, I very much understand that this is not a trivial feature that Sonos would need to implement.  They've obviously implemented their own innovative playlist format that allows for collections on services like Amazon Cloud Player to be placed into the same playlists as files from a local file server or NAS.  That's no trivial thing, and there is no "standard" playlist format that they could export to that would cover all those options.

Still, I think Sonos should implement three options: 1) Backup Sonos Playlist -- Backs up the full playlist to a file, and should the system ever completely die... 2) Restore Sonos Playlist -- Restores a Sonos playlist from that proprietary file, which would only work if the replacement Sonos system were set up exactly the same way, with access to the same accounts; and finally 3) Export Sonos Playlist to m3u8 -- Exports all local-network-library entries to a valid .m3u8 file, which could be utilized by other media players on the same network as the Sonos or imported into other Sonos systems.

It's very possible they could decide to implement #1 and #2 as a "Backup / Restore Entire Sonos System Configuration" feature, that backed up all playlists and configuration options at once, which frankly would be much more useful to 50% of the people on this thread.  But that wouldn't cover the rest of us who want exported m3u8 files.

Yeah, not many.  Like I said in the other comment from you later in the thread, this is not a reason for Sonos to not implement the feature request, but instead something that some DIY / techie people can do in the mean time while we wait.

Yeah, I'm in the beta program...  I was hoping I could download some SDK and code up some of my own new features. 🙂

Agreed 100% - something should be done, and as you said in your other response, the way Sonos have knitted together other sources so effectively is impressive and probably at the route of the problem - that's a lot to back-up for a busy user profile. Full of admiration for your efforts - I work with a so-called 'geek', whose ability to think his way around exactly this type of project never fails to impress me (and on occasion, he gets me out of the sh*t 😉

As selzhanik mentioned, you CAN export sonos playlists. Mediamonkey is free and it can see your sonos playlists just as easily as it can see your music library. Just export them as m3u files to any folder on your computer that you like. You can even set mediamonkey to export them every night as a backup.
Good call Mr Selzhanik

😃 I'm not sure many similar businesses offer anything like the Beta programme and it's good fun to be part of; I'm about to buy my second Play 5 regardless - more music in more places and really looking forward to trying out some stereo pairing. Think I shall have to stick with with my good ole Spotify playlists until further notice...

Selzhanik,
thank you very much.
With your hint I am able to open the modified Playlist now.
With some exceptions (lines icluding ¿ ü ' ) every song can be played from my playlist now. I still work on it.
Long time ago i wrote short progs in visual basic. This may be a way to translate all ascii signs in one step?
Perhaps you have an Idea?
Frank

There has been a lot of discussion around this and as you have found out, there is no way of exporting playlists out of your Sonos system either to do what you want to do which is use those self same carefully crafted playlist on another device or back up you playlists in the event a Sonos failure or upgrade which wipes them from your bridge.
Some clever individuals out there have indicated that you can use Media monkey, http://www.mediamonkey.com/ to export your playlists from Sonos. I haven't tried this yet but I understand that you will need to do some work on the exported files to get the into a form which other devices can use. 
Search this forum for Media monkey to see what others have said.
Rob