M3U Playlist Cleaner & Deduplicator

This M3U playlist cleaner and deduplicator removes duplicate stream entries and broken lines with no URL, while preserving channel names, groups, and other #EXTINF metadata attached to each entry. Paste a playlist, clean it, and download the fixed file.

How to use it

Paste the full contents of an .m3u or .m3u8 file, click "Clean playlist", and review the before/after counts. The cleaned playlist appears below, ready to copy or download directly as a new .m3u file.

What gets removed

Entries whose stream URL exactly matches an earlier entry are dropped, keeping only the first occurrence and its metadata. Entries with a metadata line but no URL underneath — common after a bad export or manual edit — are dropped as broken. Everything else, including line order and #EXTINF attributes, is preserved exactly.

Why duplicates and broken entries accumulate

IPTV and media-center playlists are frequently merged from multiple sources or regenerated by scripts, both of which tend to introduce duplicate channel entries and orphaned metadata lines over time. A quick client-side pass keeps the playlist file small and avoids players showing the same channel twice.

M3U Playlist Cleaner & Deduplicator Pro

Pro version coming soon — batch validation via CSV upload, exportable results, API access, and an offline version. The free tool stays free.

Pro version coming soon

Batch validation via CSV upload, exportable results, API access, and an offline version are on the way. The free tool stays free.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a duplicate?

Two entries with the exact same stream URL, ignoring surrounding whitespace. The first occurrence is kept (along with its #EXTINF metadata), and any later entries pointing at the same URL are removed.

What counts as a "broken" entry?

An entry with no URL at all — for example a stray #EXTINF line with nothing after it, often left behind by a buggy playlist exporter. This tool cannot check whether a stream URL is actually reachable, since that would require contacting each URL from your browser.

Does it preserve #EXTINF metadata like channel names and groups?

Yes. Any metadata lines (#EXTINF, #EXTGRP, #EXTVLCOPT, and similar) directly above a URL are kept attached to that URL and stay in the output in their original order.

Is my playlist uploaded anywhere?

No. Parsing and deduplication happen entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server — useful since many M3U playlists point at private or paid IPTV streams.

Does this work with M3U8 files too?

Yes — M3U8 is the same format in UTF-8 encoding. Paste the contents in either case and the cleaner works identically.