Apple Music Batch Playlist Export

I have a lot of iTunes... I mean Apple Music playlists that I'd like to export as .m3u. I wanted a way to have a select few playlists to export, not export every single playlist

Set Key Shortcut

The below script relies on a key shortcut ⌘E to the Export Playlist… in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts for the Music.app

Select Playlists by Name

create an applescript file nano playlist-export-automation.scpt

I manually set the playlistArray to an array of strings.

log "--- Start Playlist Export ---"

activate application "Music"
delay 1

tell application "Music"
	set playlistArray to {"bangersonly", "playlist2", "playlist3"}
	log "Selected Playlists"
	log playlistArray
	set allPlaylistArray to (get name of every playlist)
	log "All Playlists"
	log allPlaylistArray
	
	# Foreach playlist...
	repeat with currPlaylist in playlistArray
		
		if playlistArray contains currPlaylist then
			say currPlaylist
			tell application "Music"
				# Set the current playlist in the sidebar
				set the view of the front browser window to playlist (currPlaylist as string)
				delay 1
				
				# Start export
				tell application "System Events"
					keystroke "e" using command down # it's necessary to have set the shortcut CMD+E
					delay 2 # delay in seconds
					key code 36 # simulation return key
					delay 2
				end tell
				
			end tell
			
			delay 0.5
		end if
		
	end repeat
end tell

log "--- Playlist Export Complete ---"

First time you run this script, you be asked to allow Accessibility through settings. Allow this. System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Accessibility and flip the Script Editor toggle

Run the Script

you can run the script in the command line osascript ./playlist-export-automation.scpt or you could build and test the script directly in Apple's Script Editor app

Absolute Path to Relative Path

If you poke into one of those .m3u files, you see that the paths are absolute. You'll want to make those a relative path to your music file so that Jellyfin or other music software can find the files if you plan to move or copy your music library to a different machine

#! /bin/bash 

PLAYLIST_DIR="/Users/USERNAME/Downloads/playlists"
ABSOLUTE_PATH="/Volumes/DRIVE/MUSIC_DIRECTORY"

cd "${PLAYLIST_DIR}"
PLAYLISTS=(*.m3u)

for ((i=0; i<${#PLAYLISTS[@]}; i++))
  do
	echo "------- ${PLAYLISTS[$i]} ---------" 
  
	### s| LOOK FOR | REPLACE WITH | g=find all instances
	LC_ALL=C  sed -i    "s|${ABSOLUTE_PATH}|..|g" "${PLAYLIST_DIR}/${PLAYLISTS[$i]}"

	echo " SUCCESS! "
done

Replace USERNAME & DRIVE with paths that are unique to your machine. Also, this assumes /Volumes/DRIVE won't clash with any of your music's file structure i.e. artist, album or filename that may have /Volumes/DRIVE. If in your library the rock band Volumesmay have an album titled the same as your drive's name. Very unlikely, but if it did happen, it would replace that text and break the path.

Notice how I replace the absolute path with a ... This is because I nest the .m3u files in it's own playlist folder. Think of it as, the path to where the .m3u lives, it must go up one directory so it can see the ./iTunes Media/Music/... library.

Chat GPT Example

I asked ChatGPT how to check if a string is found in an array

set myArray to {"apple", "banana", "orange"}
set myString to "banana"

if myArray contains myString then
    return "The array contains the string."
else
    return "The array does not contain the string."
end if

improvements

a few improvements I may want to make in the future...

Delay

waiting x amount of seconds to run the next export seems like a fragile solution. If there was a way to confirm that the save was completed, or maybe the save dialogue box is closed to run the next export in the loop. Maybe this snippet will help

Save and Replace

If the playlist already exists, how do I confirm to save over the old file?

Credits

• if statement - AppleScript "if contain" - Stack Overflow
• AppleScript Application is not allowed to send keystrokes - Stack Overflow
• Waiting until a window exists in Applescript? - Ask Different (stackexchange.com)
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