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IrfanView

Play MP3 Music Inside IrfanView

SUMMARY: Besides displaying and editing photos and other images, IrfanView can also double as an MP3 player.

Even though IrfanView is mainly an image viewer and editor, with the right plugins it can also double as an MP3 player! Plus, IrfanView supports MP3 playlists created from tools such as WinAmp.

1. First, download the IrfanView plugins. You can either install them all at once or just download iv_mmedia.zip.

2. Run the plugin setup program, or if you downloaded the ZIP file, open it and copy all the files including "Mp3.dll" to your Irfanview Plugins directory, usually "C:\Program Files\IrfanView\Plugins" or "C:\IrfanView\Plugins".

IrfanView multimedia plugins copied to IrfanView's "Plugins" folder

3. Restart IrfanView.

4. Click "File" - "Open".

5. Click the "Files of type" pull-down and select "MP3".

6. Select an MP3 file to load, either by browsing your hard drive or entering an Internet URL, and click "Open".

IrfanView opening an MP3 file for playback

7. A new "IrfanView - MP3 Player" window will appear as your music plays. You can adjust the volume, stop, play, jump forward, jump backward, or skip between tunes as desired. Or, click the "MP3 Tag" button to view MP3 tag information.

IrfanView playing a Blues Traveler MP3 downloaded from the Internet Archive's Audio Archive

Note that since a new window is open, you can continue to use IrfanView to view or edit image files while MP3 music plays. You'll need to move the MP3 Player window to the side as it will appear on top of the main IrfanView window.

8. If you wish to play many files, click the arrow pointing up and select multiple MP3 files. Or, you can open a M3U playlist such as those created by Winamp.

9. You can also create M3U playlists from the currently loaded list of files. These can be read by IrfanView and tools such as Winamp. Click the arrow pointing down and follow the prompts to create a M3U file.

10. Click the "Close" button when you are done playing MP3 music.

This tip was written for IrfanView 4.25 on a Windows XP system. Features, information, and screenshots for other versions and operating systems may differ.