[Brett530]

This is probably a dumb question. How are playlist created when using the Music Collection hard drive? Do I copy them with the music or create them with iDrive? Is there a file format I follow? (for a 2017 340i)

[IAmATeaf]

You have to copy them when you transfer the files over, it should detect and copy the playlist over but the playlist has to be valid as it seems to check and if there’s an error or it can’t find a single file it won’t copy or even display the playlist. I asked this same question so do a search for my username as although I had no replies I updated the thread in case it helped others.

[IAmATeaf]

Found my post

https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1540055

[tympj]

Not even close to a dumb question. This process is confusing for sure but I've got it down to a somewhat understandable procedure for myself.

Import your music directly to idrive which automatically creates the playlist. Then rename the playlist to whatever you want. I strictly use mp3 files but others use flac.

On my 2014 idrive version, I have tried creating the playlist on the idrive and is not a easy process especially if you have 500,1000 songs or more. It can be done as you may have tried but not worth the effort. The idrive software was not designed for easy creation of playlists when you have that many songs from which to create a list. I always create my playlist on my laptop first then copy to idrive with usb flashdrive with mp3 files copied to the root then rename the playlist. Don't create a folder name first on the flashdrive or it won't import.

Any other questions, keep them coming.

[IAmATeaf]

I created my playlist using an m3u playlist creator. I then edit the file to remove any drive/path info. For me I had to put the m3u file in the root of the usb and there also had to be a single mp3 also in the root else the playlist wouldn’t get copied across. Apart from that you can do what you please so I have folders for each of the artists with songs within.

Updating is a pain as you can’t simply add more files to an existing pen drive and just copy over the new content so each import will go into a new folder even though the artist may already exist, so a pain and I tend not to do many updates and if I do I trash the stored contents and reimport everything from scratch.