# How to add a TV guide (EPG) to your IPTV

The EPG, the electronic programme guide, is what puts “now” and “next” beside every channel. Here is where it comes from, how to add one in Aina, and what to check when it shows nothing.

Updated 2026-10-02. By the Aina IPTV team. https://ainaiptv.com/guides/how-to-add-epg/

## Where a guide comes from

- **With an Xtream Codes login**, nothing to do: Aina fetches the guide from your provider’s panel by itself.
- **With an M3U playlist**, the first line of the playlist often names its guide (`url-tvg` or `x-tvg-url`), and Aina loads it without being asked.
- **Otherwise**, your provider gives a guide link of its own: an XMLTV file ending in `.xml`, or `.xml.gz` when it is compressed. Both work.

## Add a guide to an M3U playlist

1. **Start adding the playlist**: In Aina, choose M3U playlist on Add your subscription, or go to Settings, then Subscriptions, then Add a subscription.
2. **Paste the playlist link**: Into Playlist URL, as usual.
3. **Paste the guide link**: Into Guide URL (optional): the `.xml` or `.xml.gz` link from your provider.
4. **Connect**: The channels come first and the guide follows. A big guide can take a minute.

## How the guide finds your channels

An XMLTV guide lists programmes under channel ids, and a playlist gives each channel the id it should use in the guide (`tvg-id`). Aina matches the two. Where a channel has no id, or the guide does not use it, Aina tries the channel’s name, so a guide from a different source can still fill much of your line.

## Why the guide looks empty or wrong

- **The guide does not cover those channels.** A guide is published for a set of channels; ask your provider for the one made for your line.
- **The ids and names do not match.** Channels the guide calls something else stay empty. Your provider’s own guide matches best.
- **The guide has run out.** Guides cover a few days ahead. If a provider stops updating its guide, the schedule ends where the file does.
- **It is still loading.** A week of guide for a big provider can be hundreds of megabytes. Aina writes it to storage as it arrives and fills the schedule in when it is done.
- **The times are off.** A guide carries its own time zone for every programme, and Aina shows them in yours. If every programme is out by the same hours, the provider’s guide is wrong, and only the provider can fix it.

## What you get once it is in

Now and next under every channel, the [guide](https://ainaiptv.com/epg-tv-guide/) of what is on now and tonight with a programme search, a week per channel, and catch-up where your provider keeps an archive.

## Questions and answers

### What is XMLTV?

The file format almost every IPTV provider uses for its guide: a list of channels and of programmes with their start and end times, titles and descriptions.

### Is an .xml.gz guide different from an .xml one?

Only in being compressed, which makes it much smaller to download. Aina reads both.

### Do I need a guide link with an Xtream Codes login?

No. The guide comes from your provider’s panel by itself.

## Read next

- [TV guide (EPG)](https://ainaiptv.com/epg-tv-guide/)
- [How to add an M3U playlist](https://ainaiptv.com/guides/how-to-add-m3u-playlist/)
- [M3U playlist player](https://ainaiptv.com/m3u-player/)
- [IPTV glossary](https://ainaiptv.com/guides/iptv-glossary/)