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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.

TL;DR

Open the song on ultimate-guitar.com (chord version preferred, tabs work too), press ⌘A / Ctrl+A to select the complete website, copy, then click Ultimate Guitar under the Import card on the Fretlist Dashboard and paste. Fretlist strips UG's page chrome and pulls out title, artist, key, capo, tuning, and chord-above-lyrics structure automatically. No API, no scraping, no extension.

Just want clean ChordPro without signing up? Use the free Ultimate Guitar to ChordPro converter: same paste workflow, ChordPro output, download as .cho or save to your library.

Steps

  1. Open the song on ultimate-guitar.com. The chord version imports most cleanly, but tabs are supported too.
  2. Select the complete website and copy: ⌘A → ⌘C on Mac, Ctrl+A → Ctrl+C on Windows. Don't worry about selecting only the chord block. Fretlist handles the surrounding chrome.
  3. Paste into Fretlist: on the Dashboard, click Ultimate Guitar next to "paste from" in the Import card. Paste (⌘V / Ctrl+V) and click Import. Just getting started, with fewer than 5 songs? Then pick the Ultimate Guitar tile at the top of the Dashboard and paste into the box it opens.
  4. Review: Fretlist shows the parsed title, artist, key, capo, tuning, and chord sheet. Edit anything before saving.
  5. Save: the song is in your library, ready to transpose, add to a setlist, or open in Play Mode.

On your phone

The Ultimate Guitar app has a cleaner route than the website. It hands over the song itself: chords, lyrics and capo. It leaves out the title and artist, so Fretlist opens the song with the title field ready for you to fill in. Save waits until there is a title.

iPhone and iPad

  1. In the Ultimate Guitar app, open the song and tap the three dots at the top.
  2. Tap Share, then Open with…, then Copy.
  3. In Fretlist, tap Ultimate Guitar on the Dashboard (or Ultimate Guitar next to "paste from" in the Import card) and paste.

Android

This needs Fretlist installed as an app: in Chrome, tap the menu and then Add to home screen.

  1. In the Ultimate Guitar app, open the song and tap the three dots at the top.
  2. Tap Share, then Open with…, and pick Fretlist.
  3. Fretlist opens with the song. Check it and tap Import.

Fretlist shows up in the share sheet of other apps too, so you can send it a PDF or a text file from Files, WhatsApp or your email the same way. Nothing is imported until you tap Import.

Some chord apps scrape Ultimate Guitar to search and import on your behalf. Fretlist doesn't, for two reasons:

  • Legal. Ultimate Guitar's terms don't permit scraping or automated access, and the chord transcriptions are user-submitted content under their own copyright rules. The Cmd+A paste workflow keeps you in control of what you're copying, same as if you'd handwritten it from the page.
  • Reliability. UG redesigns their site regularly, and that breaks every scraper that depends on it. The browser already does the work; Fretlist just has to clean up the paste.

Need help?

Email hello@fretlist.com. Dear John reads every message.

Last updated: 6 October 2026Need help? hello@fretlist.com