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Open Source M3U Editor

A robust, cross-platform GUI application built with Python and PyQt6 for managing, editing, and organizing M3U/M3U8 playlists. Optimized for performance and security.

Features

🚀 Playlist Management

• Universal Loading: Load M3U/M3U8 files, download from URLs, or login via Xtream Codes API and Stalker Portal.
• Merge & Split: Merge multiple playlists with strategies (Append, Replace, Deduplicate) or split a playlist into separate files by Group.
• Export: Save with custom encoding or export metadata to CSV.
• History: Robust Undo/Redo system and action logging.
• Backup & Restore: Automatic ZIP-based backups before major operations; easy restore wizard.

🛠️ Editing & Organization

• Bulk Editing: Batch edit Groups, User-Agents, or specific attributes for selected channels.
• User-Agent Manager: Centralized management of User-Agents; apply to groups, selection, or all channels.
• Smart Grouping: Regex-based auto-categorization (Sports, Movies, News, etc.) with resolution and country detection.
• Channel Numbering: Wizard to renumber channels, sort by group, and apply prefixes.
• Find & Replace: Advanced search with Regular Expression support.
• Playlist Diff: Compare the current playlist with another file to identify added, removed, or modified channels.
• Deduplication:
  • Find Duplicates: Identify and highlight or batch delete duplicate URLs.
  • Smart Dedupe: Intelligent removal keeping the entry with the highest resolution or most metadata.
  • Fuzzy Finder: Detect duplicates based on name similarity (e.g., "BBC One" vs "BBC 1").
• Logo Tools:
  • Scraper: Find missing logos via Google Images.
  • Wizard: Match logos from a repository URL.
  • Local Logos: Browse and assign local image files to channels.
• Country Flags: Auto-detect country from channel names and append flags to group titles.
• Language Tools:
  • Quick Translate: Translate channel names to a target language.
  • Language Manager: Customize regex patterns for language detection.

📺 Playback & Preview

• Stream Preview: Live video preview with playback controls, aspect ratio, speed control, and audio/subtitle track selection.
• IPTV Player Mode: Dedicated full-screen interface with channel list, search, and Picture-in-Picture (PiP) support.
• Storyboard: Generate frame-by-frame visual storyboards of streams.
• Snapshot Gallery: View, manage, and export captured snapshots.
• Casting:
  • Chromecast/DLNA: Cast streams to devices on your network.
  • Cast Manager: Control volume, seek, stop, and manage a Cast Queue for continuous playback.
  • Remote Control: Dockable widget and Status Bar Mini-Player for quick cast control.
  • Mobile Casting: Generate QR codes to play streams on mobile devices via WiFi.
  • Sleep Timer: Automatically stop casting after a set duration.
• Network Scanner: Discover local UPnP/DLNA media devices.

🛡️ Diagnostics & Security

• Health Check: Validate streams via asynchronous HTTP HEAD/GET requests.
• Live Stream Monitor: Dashboard to continuously monitor the health of selected streams.
• Security Audit: Scan for SSL validity, suspicious content types, redirects, and reputation.
• Stream Diagnostics: Detailed technical analysis (Codec, Bitrate, Resolution) using ffprobe.
• Resolution & Latency: Detect stream resolution (SD, HD, 4K) and measure response time (TTFB).
• Auto-Repair: Attempt to fix broken streams (protocol swaps, redirect following).
• Broken Link Reporter: Generate text reports of invalid streams.

⚙️ Advanced Tools

• Transcode Wizard: Convert streams to MP4, MKV, or TS formats using ffmpeg.
• Scheduled Recording: Record live streams for a set duration.
• Network Speed Test: Integrated download speed test.
• Cloud Sync: Save and load playlists from local cloud folders (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive).
• EPG Integration: Load XMLTV EPGs (supports .gz/.xz), cache locally, and view program schedules.
• Task Scheduler: Automate backups, EPG updates, and playlist validation.
• Plugin System: Extend functionality with external Python scripts.
• Version Control: Track playlist changes with a local Git repository.

🎨 UI & Customization

• Theme Editor: Customize application colors and save themes.
• Dark Mode: Built-in dark theme with platform-specific font rendering.
• Quick Access Toolbar: Pin your favorite actions for easy access.
• Global Search: Filter playlist by Name, Group, URL, or EPG ID.
• Language Column: Display and filter channels by detected language.
• Virtual List View: Efficient handling of large playlists (10k+ channels).
• Network Monitor: Real-time bandwidth usage display in the status bar.

Demo

Visual overview of the application features.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.x
• PyQt6
• FFmpeg/ffprobe: Required for Resolution Checker, Diagnostics, Transcoding, and Recording.
• pychromecast: Required for Casting features.
• VLC: Optional, for external playback.
• qrcode: Required for Mobile Casting (QR Code generation).
• deep-translator: Required for Quick Translate feature.

Build & Deployment

Desktop (Windows & macOS)

To create a standalone executable/application for your operating system:

1. Install the build requirements:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Run the build script:

   python build_app.py

3. Find your application in the dist/ folder.

Android & Google TV

While this application is built with Python and Qt (which supports Android), porting it to a mobile/TV interface requires additional steps:

1. Tooling: Use BeeWare (Briefcase) or PyQt-Deploy.
2. UI Adaptation: The current interface is optimized for mouse/keyboard. For TV usage, the UI would need to be adapted for D-Pad navigation.
3. Build: Once adapted, you can generate an APK using briefcase build android.

Installation

1. Clone the repository or download the source code.
2. Install the required dependencies:

pip install PyQt6 pychromecast qrcode[pil] deep-translator

Note: Depending on your OS, you might need additional codecs for the video preview to work with all stream types.

Usage

Getting Started

1. Launch: Run the application via the executable or python m3u_editor.py.
2. First Run: Follow the wizard to configure your VLC path and default EPG sources.

Menu & Feature Guide

File Menu

• New: Create a blank playlist.
• Load M3U File: Open a local .m3u or .m3u8 file.
• Load from URL: Download a playlist directly from a web link.
• Load from Xtream Codes: Login to an IPTV provider using Host, Username, and Password.
• Load from Stalker Portal: Login using a Portal URL and MAC Address.
• Merge Playlist: Import channels from another M3U file into the current one (Append, Replace, or Deduplicate).
• Cloud Sync: Save/Load playlists to a local folder synced with Google Drive/Dropbox.
• Save M3U: Save changes to the current file.
• Save with Encoding: Save with a specific character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, Latin-1).
• Restore Backup: Revert to a previous state from an auto-generated zip backup.
• Close File: Close the current playlist and clear the workspace.
• Export to CSV: Export the playlist metadata to a spreadsheet-compatible format.

Edit Menu

• Undo/Redo: Revert or re-apply changes.
• Find and Replace: Search for text in specific fields (Name, URL, Group) and replace it.
• Batch Rename (Regex): Use Regular Expressions to rename channels in bulk.
• Bulk Edit Attributes: Modify specific attributes (Group, Logo, EPG ID) for all selected channels at once.

View Menu

• Toggle Dark Mode: Switch between Light and Dark themes.
• Toggle Grid/List View: Switch the main view between a detailed table and a visual grid of icons.
• Theme Editor: Customize the application's color palette.
• TV Mode Interface: Switch to a high-contrast, large-font interface for TV usage.
• Theater Mode: Open the dedicated full-screen IPTV player.

Tools Menu

• Deduplication:
  • Find Duplicates: Locate exact URL duplicates.
  • Find Name Duplicates: Locate channels with the same name but different URLs.
  • Fuzzy Finder: Find similar names (e.g., "HD" vs "FHD").
  • Smart Dedupe: Auto-remove duplicates keeping the best quality entry.
• Organization:
  • Smart Grouping: Auto-categorize channels into Sports, Movies, etc.
  • Add Country Flags: Detect countries in names and prepend flags to groups.
  • Channel Numbering: Renumber channels or add prefixes.
  • Split Playlist: Save each group as a separate M3U file.
  • Favorites Manager: Reorder and rename favorite channels.
  • User-Agent Manager: Apply User-Agents to specific groups.
  • Language Manager: Customize language detection patterns.
• Logos:
  • Scrape Missing Logos: Search Google Images for missing icons.
  • Channel Logo Wizard: Match logos from a repository URL.
• Diagnostics:
  • Channel Statistics: View charts of group/resolution distribution.
  • Check Resolutions: Detect SD/HD/4K quality for streams.
  • Check Stream Latency: Measure response time.
  • Stream Diagnostics: Detailed FFprobe analysis of a stream.
  • Stream Bitrate Analyzer: Measure real-time bitrate.
  • Live Stream Monitor: Watch status of multiple streams.
  • Remove Invalid Streams: Delete streams that failed the Health Check.
  • Auto-Repair: Attempt to fix broken URLs (http/https swap).
• Network & Casting:
  • Network Stream Scanner: Find DLNA/UPnP devices.
  • Cast Manager: Control active casting sessions.
  • Network Speed Test: Test internet download speed.
• Utilities:
  • Quick Translate: Translate channel names.
  • Transcode Wizard: Convert streams to MP4/MKV.
  • Schedule Recording: Record streams at a set time.
  • Manage Recordings: View and cancel pending recording tasks.
  • Playlist Diff Tool: Compare two playlists.
  • Snapshot Gallery: View captured video frames.
  • Update EPG Data: Refresh XMLTV data.
  • Task Scheduler: Automate backups and checks.
  • Version History: View local Git commit history of playlist changes.
• Set Parental PIN: Lock channels or groups with a PIN code.
• Settings: Configure VLC path, FFmpeg path, and clear caches.

Plugins Menu

• Reload Plugins: Refresh the list of available scripts from the plugins/ folder.
• Open Plugins Folder: Open the directory where custom Python scripts are stored.
• (Loaded Plugins): Custom actions defined by external scripts.

Help Menu

• Check for Updates: Check for the latest version on GitHub.
• About: View application version and credits.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
New File	Ctrl+N
Save File	Ctrl+S
Close File	Ctrl+W
Undo	Ctrl+Z
Redo	Ctrl+Y
Find & Replace	Ctrl+F
Toggle View (Grid/List)	Ctrl+G
TV Mode	F10
Theater Mode	F11

Global Hotkeys (Background)

These shortcuts work even when the application is minimized or not in focus:

• Ctrl+Alt+P: Play/Pause active stream (Preview, Theater Mode, or Cast).
• Ctrl+Alt+M: Mute/Unmute audio.
• Ctrl+Alt+H: Show/Hide the application window.

Quick Actions

• Right-Click: Access context menus for playing, editing, or locking channels.
• Drag & Drop: Move rows to reorder channels (in Table View).
• Double-Click: Edit a cell directly or play a stream (depending on column).

CLI Usage

You can also launch the editor with a file directly:

python m3u_editor.py "path/to/playlist.m3u"

Security & Privacy

This application prioritizes your security:

• SSL Validation: Flags insecure HTTP streams.
• Content Verification: Ensures streams are genuine media and not malicious scripts.
• Local Processing: Your playlist data stays on your machine.

Roadmap

• Cloud Sync: Integration with Google Drive/Dropbox for syncing playlists across devices.
• Advanced EPG: Support for multiple EPG sources per playlist and manual channel mapping.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Disclaimer

This software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind. Users are responsible for ensuring they have the legal right to access the streams they use.

Author

Created and maintained Reach me for more development opportunities.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

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Built with ❤️ using Python and PyQt6.

© 2026 Open Source M3U Editor