Think of a WPL file not as a song itself, but as a map. It is a small text file that contains a list of references or paths to specific audio or video files on your computer. When you open a WPL file, you aren't opening a song; you are telling your media player, "Here is a specific list of songs I want you to play in this specific order."

A (Windows Media Player Playlist) is a proprietary playlist format developed by Microsoft for organizing music and video collections. Unlike MP3 or MP4 files, a WPL file does not contain actual audio or video data ; it is a small XML-based text file that stores the "recipes" for your media, including file paths, playback order, and metadata.

WPL stands for . It is a proprietary file format introduced by Microsoft as part of Windows Media Player 9 and later versions.