How to Play a Radio Stream URL Online

Paste a stream link and it's added to your library in seconds — no directory, no approval, no app to install.

Most radio apps only let you play what's in their own catalogue. RadioPit takes the opposite approach: paste any internet radio stream URL — MP3, AAC, HLS (.m3u8), or SHOUTcast/Icecast — and it's added to your library and playing within seconds.

Steps

1. Open RadioPit. Click "Try demo stations" to play with it right away, or create a free account if you want your stations saved permanently.

2. Click the round + button in the station list, then switch to the Manual tab (the other two tabs search RadioPit's built-in directory instead of taking a URL directly).

3. Enter a name and paste the stream URL into the two fields, exactly as the station provides it.

   

4. Click "Add Station." It appears in your library immediately — click it to start playing.

Where do I find a stream URL?

A "stream URL" is a direct link to the audio, not the station's homepage. A few reliable ways to get one:

• Ask an AI. Before AI search, finding the link behind a station's web player meant opening the browser's developer tools and digging through the page's code. Now you can paste the station's page address into Google's AI Mode (or ChatGPT, Claude or any other AI assistant) and ask for the stream. For example: https://hearme.fm/radio/piano-trios/ give streaming url for radiopit.fm. Most of the time you get back a direct link ending in .mp3, .aac or .m3u8 — copy it and paste it into the Manual tab. AI answers can be wrong or out of date, so if the link doesn't play, ask again or use one of the methods below.
• Look for a "Listen live," "Direct link," or "Stream" link on the station's own website — right-click it and choose Copy Link Address rather than clicking it.
• If the station only offers a "Listen" button that opens a player, the manual way is to open the browser's developer tools (F12), watch the Network tab while the station plays, or check the page source, for a URL ending in a format like .mp3, .aac, .m3u8, or a query string with stream in it.
• An .m3u or .pls playlist link works too — RadioPit resolves it automatically and finds the real stream inside. See the M3U playlist guide for more on this.
• Don't want to hunt for a URL at all? Use the Search or Browse tabs instead — they search a directory of 40,000+ stations and fill in a working URL for you.

Why this works in a browser at all

Plenty of stations still serve plain http:// or skip the CORS headers a browser normally requires on an HTTPS page — which is why pasting a raw stream link into most web audio players fails silently. RadioPit routes playback through its own server-side proxy automatically, so this isn't something you need to configure — most reachable MP3, AAC, HLS and SHOUTcast/Icecast streams just work. The exceptions are streams that require their own authentication, or use a format the proxy doesn't handle. See supported formats and how the proxy works on the Features page for more detail.