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Documentation

Step-by-step guides for importing your library and getting the most out of Fretlist.

Import

How to migrate from SongbookPro to Fretlist

Move your entire SongbookPro library (songs, setlists, metadata) into Fretlist in minutes. Here's how.

How to migrate from OnSong to Fretlist

A step-by-step guide to exporting your songs and setlists from OnSong and importing them into Fretlist, with everything intact.

How to import songs from Ultimate Guitar into Fretlist

Open the song, press Cmd+A to select the whole page, copy, and paste into Fretlist's import box. That's it: no API, no scraping, no extra tool.

How to import songs from Chordie into Fretlist

Open the song on Chordie, switch to ChordPro view, press Cmd+A to copy, and paste into Fretlist's import box.

Import chord sheets from Word and LibreOffice

Drop .docx and .odt files onto the Import card and Fretlist reads the chord sheet out of them. One file or a folder of them, on their own or inside a ZIP.

How to import SongSelect chord charts into Fretlist

Use CCLI SongSelect chord charts in a chord chart app: download them as ChordPro, drop them into Fretlist, and transpose, set a capo and play them on any device.

Using the editor

Writing in the song editor

The song editor colors your chord sheet as you type and writes the brackets and braces for you. The Sections and Directives rail, the slash menu, Tab between fields, Expand, links in a song, and changing the key.

Chords over Lyrics

The default editor format. Chord names sit on a line above the words. What Fretlist renders and what it ignores: chords, sections, performance notes, diagrams, and tabs.

ChordPro

The inline editor format. Chords go in square brackets right where they fall in the lyric. What Fretlist renders: inline chords, section directives, notes, diagrams, tabs, and what it skips.

Chord grids

Chart a song as bars and chords, no lyrics. Write grids the simple chordsheet.com way or with the full ChordPro grid environment: split bars, repeats, endings, strums, and how the two forms convert.

Features

Getting the most out of Frets

Chord diagrams in your song sheets, section-aware diagrams in the Play Mode sidebar, and two ways to change a voicing: one updates the song, one works like a transpose when viewing or playing a song.

Show and hide parts of a song

Turn lyrics, chords, grids, tabs, and comments on or off. Hide the lyrics for a chords-only music view, or hide everything but the words. One setting for every song by default, synced across your devices, and it follows into Play Mode and print.

Performing with Play Mode

Play Mode is Fretlist's full-screen stage view: a big, distraction-free chord sheet that auto-scrolls in time with the song or fits the whole song on the screen in columns and pages, with a metronome, your notes, chord diagrams and a section list in a sidebar, setlist navigation, keyboard and foot-pedal shortcuts, and the screen kept awake.

Your instruments

Tell Fretlist what you play and in which tuning. Your instruments decide which chord diagrams get drawn and what new songs start as.

Follow Me: lead Play Mode from one device

Start Play Mode on your phone and the tablet on the stand opens the same song. Which device leads, how songs, sections and pages follow, what a follower can do on its own, and what happens when the leading device leaves.

Printing and exporting

The Print & Export window: a live page preview, one-click PDF, the browser print dialog, and editable exports (ChordPro, Word, plain text). Plus setlist running orders and chord-sheet booklets.

Building and playing setlists

Build a setlist for a gig: add and reorder songs, split the night into sets, time each set, add notes, set the key a song is played in, then play, print or share the whole thing.

Notes on your songs

Every kind of note in Fretlist: notes written into the song, your private My notes, and the note a song carries in a setlist. Where each one shows, how to tell the band's note from your own, how to place them in Play Mode, and how they print.

How to share songs and setlists

Share a song or a whole setlist by link, WhatsApp, or email. Recipients can view, transpose, play, and print it, and import it straight into their own Fretlist.

Organizing songs with folders

Group your songs into folders, move them individually or in bulk, and import directly into a folder. Drag-and-drop on desktop, long-press on mobile.

Tagging songs

Give a song as many tags as you like, such as acoustic, worship or learning, then filter and search your library by them. Rename or delete a tag across every song at once.

Version history, unsaved work and editing offline

Every save is a version you can go back to. Open Version history from a song's menu, see who changed what and when, restore any version. Unsaved work follows you to your other devices, and edits made offline sync when you are back online.

Connect an AI agent to your library

Let Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code or Cursor read and edit your songs and setlists through the Fretlist MCP server. What it can do, how to connect, and how to disconnect.