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Songs

Chapel Screen includes a built-in catalogue of over 3,000 songs that you can use in your presentations and events. You can also add your own songs that are immediately available to all your teams, or submit songs for global availability to all Chapel Screen users.

Every song can be found, but a song that needs a licence is put on screen only in a team of a church on the paid plan: song search marks those songs, and on the free plan the songs that need no licence are yours to use. See Free and Paid Plans, and Inserting Bible Passages and Songs for how the editor adds a song and which team's plan applies.

Adding Songs

To add a song, go to Songs in the navigation bar and click Add Song. Fill in the title, lyrics, and any available metadata.

Songs you add are immediately available to you and all members of your teams. They appear in song search when creating quick slides during events, and can be inserted into presentations using the content picker.

New songs start as drafts. Drafts are visible to you and your team members but not to other users.

Importing Songs

If your church already has songs in files, import them instead of typing them in. Chapel Screen reads CCLI SongSelect downloads (.usr and .txt), ChordPro charts (.cho, .pro, .chopro) and OpenLyrics files (.xml, the format OpenLP exports).

  1. On the Songs page, click Import.
  2. Choose your files, or drop them on the dialog — up to 50 at a time.
  3. Check each song: its title, writer, copyright, CCLI song number, year and lyrics can all be changed before it is saved. Songs already in Chapel Screen that look like the same song are listed, so you can untick one you do not need twice.
  4. Click Import. The songs are added as drafts, ready to edit or submit like any other.

Chords and the CCLI licence lines are left out of the lyrics, and section headings such as “Verse 1” are not kept. When a file gives its chorus only once, the chorus is repeated after each verse, in italics; untick Repeat the chorus after each verse on a song to keep the file's own order. The copyright notice is kept exactly as the file gives it. A file that cannot be read is listed with the reason, and nothing from it is imported.

Song Metadata

Each song has the following fields:

  • Title (required) — the name of the song
  • Writer / Composer — the songwriter or composer name
  • Copyright — the copyright holder and year
  • CCLI Song Number — the number SongSelect shows for the song, if it has one. This is not your church's CCLI licence number, which is set in the team's Team settings.
  • Year — the year the song was written or published
  • Lyrics (required) — the full lyrics. Separate verses with a blank line.

Complete and accurate metadata is important. It helps other users find the right song, ensures proper attribution, and is required when submitting songs for global availability.

Submitting for All Users

If you would like your song to be available to all Chapel Screen users, you can submit it for review by a system administrator. From the Songs page, click the submit icon on a draft song.

Once submitted, your song enters a review queue. An administrator will review and either approve or decline it.

Once a song is approved, it becomes globally available and you will no longer be able to edit or delete it. Only system administrators can modify approved songs.

Submission Guidelines

When submitting songs for global availability, please follow these guidelines:

  • Use the original form — submit the song as written by the original author. Do not submit paraphrased, abridged, or significantly modified versions.
  • Include complete metadata — provide the correct writer or composer name, copyright holder, and CCLI song number where available. Incomplete or inaccurate metadata may result in the submission being declined.
  • Check for duplicates — when you enter a song title or CCLI song number, Chapel Screen will show you similar songs that already exist. Please check these before creating a duplicate.
  • Use proper formatting — separate verses with blank lines. Do not add verse labels (e.g. "Verse 1", "Chorus") unless they are part of the original lyrics.

Custom Versions

If you want to use a modified version of an existing song — with different arrangements, added verses, or adapted lyrics — you can create it as a custom version.

When adding a song, if Chapel Screen detects a similar song already in the catalogue, it will offer a Custom version button. Clicking this links your song to the original.

Custom versions work as follows:

  • Your custom version takes priority in search results for you and your teams.
  • The original catalogue version remains available to all other users.
  • Both versions are accessible — the original is not hidden, just deprioritised in your results.

Custom versions are meant for personal or team use. They should not be submitted for global approval since they differ from the original form.

Song Review (Administrators)

System administrators can access the Song Review page from a link on the Songs page. This page shows all submitted and approved user-contributed songs.

Administrators can:

  • Approve — make a submitted song globally available to all users
  • Revert — move an approved song back to submitted status
  • Edit — modify the title, metadata, or lyrics of any user-contributed song
  • Delete — remove a song entirely
  • Export — download all approved songs as a zip file of markdown files, formatted for inclusion in the static song catalogue

When exported songs are added to the static catalogue and deployed, they are automatically removed from the user-contributed database to avoid duplicates.