Repair audio playlists automatically with ListFix
ListFix is a free application that finds lost or missing entries in your playlists automatically. Tell it where you keep your media files, load the playlist you want to fix, and hit the “Find” button. The program will search your media library for the correct files and update the playlist accordingly. If a few files are not located, ListFix has another way of finding them, by scoring the files in your media library with a “similarity” test and offering a choice of the best potential matches, pre-selecting the matches it deems “best”.
Features: M3U/M3U8/PLS Support (Winamp, XMMS, Foobar2000, etc) * Find lost/missing playlist entries * Insert/Move/Delete/Replace/Append entries * Insert/Append Playlists * Sort the playlist by filename, status, and location * Randomize the list * Remove duplicates and/or missing tracks from the playlist * Copy all the songs of a list to a specified directory * Advanced search for renamed tracks * Launch an entry or the complete playlist in the system’s default media player * Support for URL & UNC path entries * Save playlists with absolute or relative path references * Batch repair * Batch find closest matches (for renamed files) * Batch repair Winamp Media Library playlists
ListFix requires the Java runtime environment and it may seem a little difficult to use, especially in the beginning. Certain shortcuts you may be familiar with, in ListFix are useless – simple shortcuts, such as Esc to close a dialog, Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4 to close a pane, etc. (Several such problems are solved in newer versions, as the author informs us – see his comment at the end of the page).
I can not but give it the highest rating, since ListFix does a tremendous job in locating the mp3s and fixing playlist entries. When problems are not heavy, e.g. if you just moved your library to a different disc, but keeping the same structure, ListFix will repair everything instantly. In rather difficult situations it will repair everything with the “Batch find of closest matches”. Even when this leaves some entries unsolved, ListFix gives you the final option of manually locating yourself the files on the disk. ListFix works even with huge playlists, although needing some time when using the “batch find closest matches” command. Pros and Cons estimated, ListFix is a great program you should download, if you have a large mp3 collection and many playlists, and you are not using comprehensive media management applications such as MusicBee.
Thanks for your write-up on listFix()! I’m the author and I just wanted to let you and your readers know that I just released version 2.1.0. It speeds up the “batch find closest matches” command significantly, improves memory usage, and addresses some of the usability concerns you mentioned in your article. You can now close tabs with Ctrl-W, drag multiple entries through the list, and cancel out of long running operations (although not yet via the Escape button, which after receiving multiple requests will be coming in 2.2.0). I hope you’ll give it a try!
Thanks for writing, and most of all, for offering this great program! Another serious improvement would be in the manual replacement of an entry that ListFix can not fix. We would save a lot of time if ListFix tried to open the Windows Explorer not at the root of the media library, but at the closest-to-the-track possible folder, whenever this can be guessed from the path of the problematic entry. E.g. if the entry c:\audio\rock\beatles\revolver\track1.mp3 is damaged only because there is no “track1” any more, but the real title of the song, ListFix should be able to open Explorer at the “Revolver” folder, not at the root as it currently does.
No problem at all! I’ve just incorporated your “closest-to-the-track as possible” idea for the replace operation’s default folder into the in-dev 2.2.0 version; I think you’ll like how it turned out.
My sincere thanks to firewyre. ListFix is a marvel.