Import and export
Your songs are yours. SONGUIDE exports them as files, as printable sheets, or as a plain list, so you are never locked in. A whole setlist travels to other SONGUIDE users as one file.
Importing songs
Bringing songs in has its own guide. Adding songs covers ChordPro files, ZIP archives, SongSelect, moving from OpenSong or OnSong, and sharing a file into SONGUIDE from another app. A setlist someone shared with you is covered below under Importing a shared setlist.
Exporting songs
Songs, folders, and setlists all export through the same Export screen. You pick a format, then hand the file over:
| Platform | Options |
|---|---|
| iOS and Android | Share or save |
| Web | Download |
ChordPro
Every song exports as a standard ChordPro file named after the song, for example Amazing Grace (G).cho. A folder exports as a ZIP archive of its songs.
Exported files contain the song as it is, so they open in any ChordPro compatible app. Personal settings are never part of the file, so your capo setting is never shared.
A song also exports as a finished songsheet on a white page, ready to print or to hand to someone who does not use SONGUIDE. It carries the song header with the title, artist, and metadata, the same section boxes as in the app, and the chords sitting above the lyrics exactly where they sit on screen. A folder exports as one PDF holding all its songs, each starting on a new page.
Three options shape the sheet:
- Chords, Capo, or Lyrics only. Chords prints the chords as written. Capo prints them transposed for the capo and adds the capo to the header, and is offered only for a song that has one. Lyrics only leaves the chords out and keeps the sections, so the structure stays readable.
- Include comments. On by default. Turning it off leaves out the comments. Italic annotations inside a song stay either way. The option appears only when there is a comment to leave out.
- Page size. Folded away below the other two, offering A4 and US Letter. SONGUIDE preselects the size your country uses and remembers your choice for the next export.
A capo export names the file after the capo and the shapes you actually play, for example Holy Forever (G) - Capo 3 (E).pdf.
PDF export works offline. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is fetched, the whole sheet is built on your device.
Exporting setlists
The Setlist options screen has an Export Setlist row offering three formats.
SONGUIDE file
The default, made for sending a setlist to other SONGUIDE users. A .songuide file carries the whole setlist: the running order, the dividers with their text, every song as ChordPro, and your capo settings as a suggestion the recipient decides to apply or not. Opened in SONGUIDE, it becomes a complete setlist in one tap, see Importing a shared setlist. On iOS and Android, sharing the file also puts the outline into the message next to it, in apps that accept text with a file.
Renamed to .zip, the file opens as an ordinary archive of ChordPro files anywhere, so nobody without SONGUIDE is locked out.
The PDF opens with the running order, numbered songs with their key and the dividers listed in place, and continues with every song on its own pages in setlist order. When the chords print for a capo, the running order names each song's capo too. A song listed twice contributes one sheet.
ChordPro ZIP
For other chord apps. The ZIP holds one ChordPro file per song and nothing else: no running order, no dividers, no capos. A song listed twice contributes one file.
Importing a shared setlist
A .songuide file opens in SONGUIDE from wherever it arrived. On iOS and Android, tap it in a chat, in Mail, or in a file manager, or share it into SONGUIDE. On every platform, Import setlist file on the Add song screen and Import setlist in the setlist dropdown pick the file from your device.
Before anything lands, a review lists the setlist in running order and says what happens to every song and divider:
- Songs and dividers you already have are matched and reused, so nothing is duplicated. The same song in another key is transposed to the sender's key when none of your setlists plays it, and your capo moves with it so the chord shapes stay the same.
- Everything else arrives as a new copy in a new folder named after the setlist. New copies take the sender's capos unless you turn off Apply capos to new songs in the menu, and that choice is remembered.
- A song that differs from yours is marked for a look. Open its row to choose your version, a new copy, or the received version. Show differences lays the two out passage by passage, and you can take single sections or details such as the tempo or the artist from the received chart while keeping the rest of yours.
Preferred folder at the top decides which of your folders the matches come from first, and the presets Suggestions, New copies, and Your versions set every row at once. Nothing you already have changes unless the review says so.
On the Free plan the import is blocked before anything is written when the new copies would exceed your remaining space. Matching more songs to your library makes it fit.
The import lands in one step, and Undo import takes it back until you leave the screen: the setlist, folder, songs, and dividers it created are removed, and your own songs are restored.
A file made with a newer version of SONGUIDE than yours says so and offers to import the songs it contains as plain ChordPro files instead.
Copying a list as text
A setlist or a folder can also go to the clipboard as plain text, from the same Export screen. Handy for sending the running order to the band without sending any files:
1. Go Tell It On The Mountain (Ab)
Announcement
2. Joy To The World (D)
3. Amazing Grace (G)
A folder copies its songs unnumbered with the total in the first line, because a folder is a library rather than a running order. Both lists carry every song, including ones that have no chords or lyrics yet.