Import songs
1 Overview
The smartChord Songbook can import your existing songs — whether they live as text files on your phone, in your cloud storage, or as plain text and ChordPro on your computer. Once imported, songs are available offline and integrate with the entire smartChord toolbox: tuner, metronome, chord library, transpose, simplify, set lists and more.
{new_song} separatorFor the official documentation, see Import songs and the How to get new songs guide.
2 Open the Songbook
Song import lives inside the Songbook tool. Open smartChord and tap the Songbook tile in the toolbox.
The smartChord toolbox — tap “Songbook” to start
3 Open the Import Screen
From any song in the Songbook, open the Folder menu in the top bar and choose Open | manage. This brings you to the Songbook table of contents, from where you reach the import screen.
3.1 Folder Menu
- New — create a song or run an internet search
- Open | manage — open the table of contents to manage and import songs
- Save / Save as — persist the current song
- Share — send a song to other apps
Folder → Open | manage
Table of contents — tap the import icon to continue
4 Two Ways to Import
The Song import screen offers two clearly separated paths. Choose the one that matches where your song texts currently live:
4.1 Import files
- For plain text files (
.txt,.tab,.crd,.cho,.chopro,.chordpro,.sccrd) on your device or in the cloud - Cloud sources include Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and any provider exposed through the Android storage system
4.2 Import online
- For songs that live on your PC — for example as ChordPro text, copied from a website, or extracted from a PDF or Word document
- Sends the song through your local network from any browser to your phone
Choose between “Import files” and “Import online”
5 Import Files from Device or Cloud
Tap Import files on the Song import screen to open the file picker. From here you decide where to look, what to look for and which files to take.
5.1 Choose Source, Folder and File Types
- Android / Cloud — switch between local device storage and your cloud provider
- Folder — select the directory to scan (e.g.
/smartChord/songs). The Recursive option also walks sub-directories — not available for cloud sources - File types — restrict the search to specific extensions (cho, crd, chordpro, chopro, sccrd, tab)
- Filter text — optionally enter part of an artist or song title to narrow the result list
- Magnifying glass — start the search
Configure source, folder and file types, then start the search
5.2 Select Files
The matching files appear as a checklist. Pick individual songs or use the toolbar buttons at the bottom to select all or invert the selection.
Tick the songs you want to import — or take them all
6 Encoding and Overwrite Settings
Before you press Import, open the gear icon in the bottom toolbar to adjust how files are read and how name conflicts are handled.
6.1 Encoding
- UTF-8 — recommended for modern files and any text containing umlauts, accents or non-Latin characters
- ISO-8859-1 — the default for many older Western European text files
- US-ASCII — plain English texts without special characters
6.2 Overwrite
- When enabled, an existing Songbook entry with the same name is replaced by the imported file
- Leave it off to keep both versions
Pick the right encoding to avoid garbled umlauts and accents
7 Online Import from Your PC Browser
The online importer is ideal when your song texts live on your computer — for example as ChordPro snippets, copied from a website, or extracted from a PDF or Word document. It uses your local network to send songs from any browser to your phone.
7.1 Activate “Import online” on the Phone
On the Song import screen, tap Import online. smartChord then displays the IP address of your device and a short instruction list.
Tap “Import online” to switch to PC mode
Follow the four on-screen steps — the device IP is shown in the bottom bar
7.2 Open the Online Importer on Your PC
On your computer, open a browser and go to www.smartchord.de/song/import. The page is the s.mart Songbook Online Importer. Make sure your PC and phone are on the same Wi-Fi network.
7.3 Paste Your Songs
- Type or paste the device IP address (e.g.
192.168.1.100) into the field at the top - Paste one or more songs into the large text area
- To import multiple songs in one go, separate them with a line containing
{new_song} - If a song does not start with a ChordPro
{title:…}directive, the first line is used as the song name — the recommended convention is Artist – Song title - Press Import to send the content to your phone
The PC browser at www.smartchord.de/song/import — two songs separated by {new_song}
7.4 Finalize the Import on the Phone
Once you press Import in the browser, the Song import screen on your phone lists the received songs. Tick the ones you want, switch the encoding to UTF-8 (recommended for browser-pasted content) and press Import to add them to your Songbook.
Songs sent from the browser appear ready to import on the phone
8 Why ChordPro Is the Best Format
smartChord supports any plain text song, but ChordPro is the recommended format because it carries meta information alongside the lyrics and chords. Tags like the following are honoured during import:
{title: Bobby}— song title{artist: Johnossi}— artist or band{key: Em}— original key{capo: 2}— capo position{tempo: 120}— BPM{album: ...},{year: ...}— additional metadata
For details on how smartChord parses song text, see Song text format.
9 After the Import
Imported songs become regular Songbook entries and integrate with the rest of the toolbox:
- Edit chords, lyrics and metadata — see Edit songs
- Transpose to any key with one tap — see Transpose songs
- Simplify complex chord shapes for beginners — see Simplify songs
- Organize with categories, ratings and set lists — see Organize songs
- Play along with auto-scroll, players and looping — see Scrolling and Players
Our video leads you through the import process:
