Feature Request: Export and Import Sonos Playlists

  • 25 February 2013
  • 216 replies
  • 28930 views

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Like many users, we use Sonos in two different houses. We have two NAS's of music that I'm planning on keeping synchronized with RSYNC. What doesn't sync or cant get exported are Sonos Playlists. It would be great to be able to ad-hoc export them and then to import them as well. Using the UPnP interface, I've noted a Java program that can export playlists, but importing them is a bit troublesome. It would be great to have this feature.

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216 replies

Yes playlist export please!
And please use an iTunes compatible format so I can listed to the playlist on the go.
I have written a Python script that will backup and restore Sonos playlists. It is located at here. It uses the SoCo Python module to communicate with the speakers. It has been tested on GNU/Linux and MS-Windows.
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I have written a Python script that will backup and restore Sonos playlists.

In what way would it be possible for someone like me, who doesn't know the first thing about Python, to take advantage of your work?
Sonos, please develop a way to export, import and backup playlists to a local file - xml, csv or anything.
The file need not be compatible with any other player or device type.
You should be able to backup the playlist so you can recover if you had to reset the speaker.
You should be able to share your playlist with other people using SONOS speakers.

Users should not have to resort to using Python scripts or 3rd party sw like MediaMonkey to do this.

Come on, this is a must for any user.
It's clear why there is no export. Sonos want to keep you as locked in as possible.

A better way to do this though is to make sure they stay the best.

+1 for import/export
I have written a Python script that will backup and restore Sonos playlists. It is located at here. It uses the SoCo Python module to communicate with the speakers. It has been tested on GNU/Linux and MS-Windows.

I have added another parameter to your python script to export title, creator and album to the XSPF file. This exported playlists you can then add to Soundizz panel "Playlist file" and import to other music services like Deezer, Spotify etc. It is available here and I have started a pull request to merge it into spl.

Export all playlists:
spl.py -X -d
Export one playlist:
spl.py -x 90sRock -d
Sometimes you need to add one of your Sonos IPs with addtitonal parameter -I, example: "spl.py -X -d -I 192.168.1.38"
I have written a Python script that will backup and restore Sonos playlists. It is located at here. It uses the SoCo Python module to communicate with the speakers. It has been tested on GNU/Linux and MS-Windows.

I have added another parameter to your python script to export title, creator and album to the XSPF file. This exported playlists you can then add to Soundizz panel "Playlist file" and import to other music services like Deezer, Spotify etc. It is available here and I have started a pull request to merge it into spl.

Export all playlists:
spl.py -X -d
Export one playlist:
spl.py -x 90sRock -d
Sometimes you need to add one of your Sonos IPs with addtitonal parameter -I, example: "spl.py -X -d -I 192.168.1.38"


I've just built a tool to take the output of spl, and convert it into a Spotify playlist, which you can simply then copy/paste into the Spotify app.
Feedback welcome:

https://github.com/joffotron/xspf2spotify
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I've just built a tool to take the output of spl, and convert it into a Spotify playlist, which you can simply then copy/paste into the Spotify app
As I've written before: it's a bloody shame Sonos is unable to assist users in backing-up and editing their playlists. Apparently this is possible by using special tools. In what way would it be possible for someone like me, who doesn't know the first thing about Python, to take advantage of your work?
Playlist import/export is pretty fundamental functionality, I agree. It's also clear they'll never do it.

@beynym, to complicate things, my script was written in ruby.
If you're on OSX or Linux, then the instructions to use it are (kinda) simple: On a terminal do

gem install xspf2spotify
xspf2spotify you-playlist-file.xspf > spotify-playlist.txt
(and then copy and paste that into Spotify).

However you need to get the playlist exported to xspf format using the spl tool first.

... and on Windows getting Ruby and Python set up is a bit trickier too. So yeah, it kinda sucks.
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So yeah, it kinda sucks.
😞
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Import export playlists is a must have for me
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a good idea, and we've passed it to the development team as a suggestion, but we don't have any update to share on its status. As soon as there's news we'll let everyone know, but there isn't currently anything to share.
Hello Ryan S, it's almost been a year since your last note on the subject of being able to backup and/or edit Sonos playlists. Do you have any recent news to share, maybe?
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a good idea, and we've passed it to the development team as a suggestion, but we don't have any update to share on its status. As soon as there's news we'll let everyone know, but there isn't currently anything to share.
Hello Ryan S, it's almost been a year since your last note on the subject of being able to backup and/or edit Sonos playlists. Do you have any recent news to share, maybe?


Hey Beynym,

Thanks for asking. Unfortunately there isn't any news right now around this feature, but I'll knock on a few doors for you and remind the team there's still interest in this feature. As you know, we don't talk about what's being developed or slated for the future, but if there's any news around this which can be shared we'll be sure to let everyone know.
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Unfortunately there isn't any news right now around this feature, but I'll knock on a few doors for you and remind the team there's still interest in this feature.
I can (of course) only speak for myself and I have to say I'm sorry to find this feature on the back burner. I keep hoping, though.
Lost 3 of 4 yeard of collecting tracks with sonos playlists. Really hate them for this. Overthinking to sell the stuff. I know, they dont care.
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I know, they dont care.
It seems Sonos is putting their money on future developments as streaming music and voice control. That's all very fine by me, but I get the feeling the old contingent of customers is being left behind. And that's a shame.
I have 2 Sonos systems in 2 different locations. Music files are on a NAS in each location, which are cloud synced - the exact same music is in each location automatically. But I have no way to share/sync playlists. REALLY need this! Please give me some way to export/import or sync playlists across 2 separate Sonos systems!
I have sonos on 2 different locations A and B , i changed one device from A to the other location B, and unfortunately the playlists of B and alarms of B are gone when having added one single device in B coming from A .

There seems no way back to recover the playlists from location B in location B after having added one single Sonos device in location B coming from location A

This is not nice. A lot of effort has gone.
Please avoid this beheaviour of Sonos in the future releases.
Just looked into doing this after our Sonos office playlist got randomly wiped, along with the backups, some time ago. How hard is it to just save this information to a file the user has access to, instead of to the cloud? Even an excel file or .csv with Artist and Title information for each track would be enough, how has this not been added in THREE YEARS?

Pretty disappointed with Sonos overall, to be honest. Internet drops out, all the tracks vanish, and now this. I'm trying to improve a faulty product myself and they're stopping me. Might as well just buy a jukebox
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Just an idea.
As you can save anything you have access to to a playlist, do those saved items from a paid streaming service get watermarked so that a playlist can't be saved and copied onto a system (another speaker) that is not a subscriber to that service. Or conversely, could a "track" ( a url) be copied to a diferent system and bypass the subscription?
If so, then not being able to save and copy playlists must be as a result of licensing permissions - and the burgeoning complexity of subscribed services.
I can only express my disappointment with SONOS. Their attitude towards "few" of us, part of millions of loyal customers may be really insignificant, but we ask them (some even begged) to add a simple feature and after almost 4 years, they keep "LISTENING"!!
This denotes a shortsighted strategy and a prehistoric way of conducting their business. Sadly, we have to respect their approach, but just remember..... customer satisfaction and proactive response from the counterpart is what makes companies consistently grow, or to wake up after so much listening, and realize the market changes FAST. Remember a company named RIM (Research In Motion)? Blackberry rings a bell? They also "listened" for requests of their customers to open BBM app (Blackberry Messenger) and make it capable to communicate with other platforms. They had no reason to do it as their share was largely the biggest of the smartphone marker with 41% in 2010. Just take a look now where RIM stands. They have 1.2% of the marketshare. "PROFESSIONAL LISTENERS" decided to do something when the ballgame was in another park.
SONOS, keep sharpening your listening skills and sleeping tight.
Our requests will probably be received by some other company providing us a solution or even a better way to deal with this issue.

In the meantime, Thanks for listening!
I have several very long playlists from different music services. I want to cancel one of the services. Is there a way to quickly see a list of songs from each playlist and which service they are from? Or do I need to click through each song one by one?
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Due to the lack of Sonos responding on this subject, you'll have to do the selection manually. I agree, it's a shame.
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As beynym said, unfortunately there isn't an easy way to see which songs are coming from what service. We've talked a lot around the office about ways to make the service shuffle work out better but it remains a tricky subject. Thanks for the suggestions guys and I'll be sure to pass on your interest to the development team.
Most subscription streaming music services will only allow you to play their 'leased' audio files when:

(a) you are connected to their network service via wifi etc. or
(b) you have downloaded the tracks locally, to listen to them whilst off-line... (and remain subscribed).

This is the case for playing any song/album or playlist etc.

So would it not be useful to have a similar 'option' in the Sonos Controller on mobiles/tablets and PC's to download the songs in a stored playlist to play offline also?... And to carry those playlists and downloaded songs between the different controller 'home' locations.

I appreciate it probably sounds easier to say these things, rather than do them, but surely having a playlist stored locally on an 'eligible' Sonos controller would be a good option, providing access is restricted just to the authorised Sonos software and authorised music subscription service.

Would that not resolve one or two of the issues that are being raised here in this thread?