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The Universal Playlist Format (UPF)

JSON-based format for portable music and video playlists

Visit The Universal Playlist Format (UPF)

The Universal Playlist Format (UPF) is a JSON-based data format for music, video, and other types of playlists, designed to be more flexible and complete than existing formats. A Universal Playlist (UPL) file, using the .upl extension, stores multiple identifiers for each track so that players and library management software can resolve entries even when files are moved, playlists are shared, or songs are matched across services.

Each UPL file can contain one or more playlists, with entries carrying fields such as artist, title, album, duration, and start and end positions for compilations. The ids mapping supports file paths, cryptographic hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, SHA-3), MusicBrainz Track and Recording IDs, AcoustID and AcoustID/Chromaprint fingerprints, and URIs. Clients are expected to resolve identifiers from most specific to least specific, and unknown identifier types are preserved rather than stripped.

The specification is intended for music players, library managers, tag editors, and other software that reads or writes UPL files. The format is at version UPL1, with the specification listed as pre-alpha.

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