How do you move your music from rekordbox to Serato?

What moves on its own, and what doesn't

The difference comes down to where each kind of data is stored. Anything written into the audio files travels with them. Anything stored in rekordbox’s own database stays behind.

• Music files: move. They are ordinary MP3, AIFF, WAV, FLAC or M4A files on your drive. Serato plays all of them.
• Title, artist, album, genre, comments: move. These are tags inside the files, and Serato reads them on import.
• BPM and key: re-analyzed. Serato works out BPM, key and beatgrids with its own analysis rather than reading rekordbox’s. See getting accurate BPM and key in Serato.
• Playlists: rebuilt. Serato cannot open rekordbox playlists, but an exported playlist file is enough to rebuild each one as a crate.
• Hot cues, memory cues, loops, beatgrids: stay in rekordbox. rekordbox stores them in its library database, so Serato never sees them. They need a converter, or you set them again.
• Play history and play counts: stay in rekordbox.

We checked Serato DJ Pro 4.0.10, the current version as of this guide: it has no option to import a rekordbox library or rekordbox XML, and Serato’s help center has no article on doing it. Serato DJ 5.0, in public beta since September 2026, adds M3U and M3U8 playlist import, which makes rebuilding playlists easier on that version (see below). It still does not read rekordbox’s cues or beatgrids.

Adding your music to Serato

Drag folders, not single tracks, so nothing is missed. Serato builds a _Serato_ folder at the top of each drive you add music from, holding that drive’s part of your library; what is in the _Serato_ folder explains the layout. If your music is on an external drive, read running a Serato library from an external drive before you start, because an NTFS or read-only drive stops Serato saving anything.

Moving between apps is a good moment to clear out the duplicates that built up over the years in rekordbox, before they turn into duplicate crate entries in Serato. See removing duplicate tracks in Serato.

Rebuilding playlists as crates

For a few playlists, building crates by hand in Serato is fine: make a crate, then drag tracks into it from your library. For dozens, export each playlist from rekordbox and let software do the matching.

On the Serato DJ 5.0 beta you can import a rekordbox M3U8 export directly, because Serato 5 reads M3U and M3U8 playlists. That works best when the file paths in the export still point at the same files on the same Mac. If you are on Serato DJ Pro 4, or the paths have changed because the music moved, you need to match on artist and title instead.

Crate Cleaner’s Import List reads M3U8, CSV and plain-text exports, including rekordbox’s. With an M3U8 it matches by file path first, which is exact when the files have not moved, and falls back to artist, title and length when they have. You see what matched, what needs a look and what you don’t own, and then it writes the result as a Serato crate. Matching is free; writing the crate into Serato needs the Studio plan. The same steps are in importing a tracklist or M3U into Serato as a crate.

Cue points and beatgrids

This is the one part with no free shortcut. To bring rekordbox’s hot cues, memory cues and loops into Serato, a converter has to read them out of rekordbox and write them into the files the way Serato expects. rekordbox can export its whole collection, cues included, from File, Export Collection in xml format, and converters such as Lexicon and MIXO work from that file. Our roundup of Lexicon alternatives compares the options.

Beatgrids rarely survive a conversion perfectly, because each app places its grid slightly differently. Most DJs let Serato analyze fresh and then fix the handful of tracks that drift; editing beatgrids in Serato shows how.

If your rekordbox cues were mostly the usual mix-in points, it can be quicker to start over. Auto Cue in Crate Cleaner sets hot cues across your library from templates, such as an intro ladder (the start, then four and eight bars in) or a club layout with drops and breakdowns, and writes them into the files so Serato shows them. It is part of the Studio plan; setting hot cues automatically in Serato compares the ways to do it.

Using both apps for a while

Nothing stops you running rekordbox and Serato side by side on the same files while you switch. Both apps read the same music, and Serato’s cue data lives in the files’ tags while rekordbox’s lives in its database, so neither overwrites the other. Going the other way later is covered in exporting Serato crates to rekordbox.

Once Serato has your music, a scan shows what came across badly: tracks Serato cannot find, files that will not play, and duplicates. Crate Cleaner’s scan is read-only and free on your real library.

Try Crate Cleaner free →

FAQ

Can Serato import a rekordbox library? Not the library itself. Serato DJ Pro has no rekordbox library or rekordbox XML import. Serato DJ 5.0, in public beta since September 2026, can import M3U and M3U8 playlists, so rekordbox playlist exports come straight in on that version. Cues and beatgrids still do not.

Will my rekordbox hot cues show up in Serato? Not on their own. rekordbox stores cues in its own database, not in the music files. A paid converter can move them, or you can set new cues in Serato.

Do I need to copy my music to a new folder? No. Point Serato at the same folders rekordbox uses. Both apps can read the same files without getting in each other's way.

Will Serato change my files? Serato writes its own analysis, cues and crate data into the files' tags and into its _Serato_ folders. It does not change the audio, and rekordbox ignores those tags.

What's the fastest way to rebuild dozens of playlists? Export each playlist from rekordbox as M3U8 and import the files into a tool that matches them against your library and writes Serato crates, such as Crate Cleaner's Import List.