How to Back Up & Restore Your Playlists and Favorites

You spent an evening getting everything just right — sources added, favorites starred, categories tidy, settings dialed in. Then the phone dies, the TV stick gets reset, or you upgrade hardware. The dread question: do I have to set all that up again?

You shouldn't have to. This guide covers the three layers of "your setup," what's worth backing up, and the fastest way to get a fresh device back to exactly where you were.

The honest framing: Tuneline stores your setup on your device. Backing up is about not losing your work — your sources, your favorites — when hardware changes. Nothing here is uploaded unless you explicitly choose sync.

What Actually Needs Backing Up

"My setup" is really three separate things, and they're not equally hard to recover:

The headline: your source URLs and your favorites are the irreplaceable part. Settings take two minutes to redo. So focus your backup effort on the first two.

The Easiest Backup: Cloud Sync

The least-effort, most-reliable backup isn't a file at all — it's cross-device sync. Sign in, and your favorites (and on the paid tier, more of your setup) live in your account, not just on the device. The benefits:

• A new phone or TV is a sign-in, not a setup — your favorites are already there.
• A factory reset stops being scary, because the important layer survives in your account.
• It doubles as continuous backup: every star you add is saved as you go.

If you only do one thing from this guide, turn on sync. It turns "restore" into "log in."

The Manual Backup: Keep Your Source URLs

Sync handles favorites; the other half is your sources. The single best habit here costs nothing:

Keep a copy of every source URL/login somewhere outside the app — a notes file, a password manager, an email to yourself.

Why this matters: a source is just a URL (and sometimes a login). If you have that text, re-adding it to any fresh device takes ten seconds. People lose hours not because the player failed, but because the only copy of the URL was inside the device that got wiped.

• For an M3U URL — save the full http(s)://… link.
• For a provider login — save the server URL, username, and password together.
• For a local .m3u file — keep the file itself in cloud storage (Drive/iCloud/Dropbox). That file is the backup. (See what is an M3U file.)

A password manager is ideal for this — it's encrypted, synced, and survives any single device.

Restoring a Fresh Device — The 5-Minute Routine

When you've got a new or reset device, here's the order that gets you running fastest:

1. Install Tuneline for the right platform (phone, TV, desktop).
2. Sign in. Your favorites and synced setup populate immediately.
3. Re-add your sources from your saved URLs/logins (or open your saved .m3u).
4. Spot-check settings — buffering, theme, parental PIN. Two minutes, tops.
5. Done. You're back to where you were.

Steps 2 and 3 are the whole game. If you did the prep (sync on + URLs saved), the rest is trivial.

Moving to a New Phone or TV

Migration is the same routine as a restore — you don't need the old device at all if your favorites are synced and your URLs are saved. But if you still have the old device, it's a good moment to:

• Confirm everything synced before you wipe the old one.
• Copy any source URLs you never wrote down off the old device first.
• Sign out on the old device if you're handing it on.

What You Can't Back Up (and Why That's Fine)

A couple of honest caveats so you're not surprised:

• Stream content isn't stored — only references to your sources. That's by design; the player doesn't hoard your media. Re-adding the source brings the content back live.
• Provider-side data lives with the provider. If your subscription expires or the provider changes a URL, no local backup can restore access — that's on the source, not the player. (Xtream login failing?)

FAQ

Does Tuneline back up my setup automatically?

Turn on cross-device sync and your favorites are continuously saved to your account — that's the automatic part. Save your source URLs separately (notes / password manager) and you're fully covered.

I'm not signed in — how do I move my favorites to a new device?

Without sync there's no automatic transfer, so the practical move is to sign in (which enables sync going forward) and re-add your sources from your saved URLs. Going forward, sync removes the manual step.

Where should I store my source URLs?

A password manager is best — encrypted and synced. A notes file in cloud storage works too. The key is that the copy lives outside any single device.

Will a factory reset lose everything?

It wipes the device's local copy. If sync is on and your URLs are saved elsewhere, the reset costs you about five minutes. If neither is true, you'll be rebuilding from memory — so do the prep now.

Bottom Line

• Your sources and favorites are the irreplaceable layer; settings are quick to redo.
• Turn on sync — it makes restore a sign-in.
• Save every source URL/login outside the app (password manager or cloud notes).
• A fresh device is then a 5-minute routine, not a lost evening.

Set it up once, never lose it. Download Tuneline and turn on sync — free to start, ad-free.

— Shamir