How to Store and Play Music on Windows/Android for Recent Apple Convert?

November 6, 2020 1:59 PM

For years, I've had a Macbook and used my trusty iPod classic to listen to music. I'm a recent convert to android/windows, and I need to figure out the easiest/best way to store and listen to my music on my computer/phone. Can you help me?

Computer: Lenovo Yoga Thinkpad
Phone: Samsung Galaxy s10+

What I need to know:

1. How should I store my mp3's on my computer (well, on an external hard drive) in an organized way? Is there a program (free or low-cost) that I need, or can I just use old-fashioned folders?

2. How can I play my mp3's on my phone? Is there a good app that will let me shuffle by genre, make playlists, and play by artist or album?

3. Everything else about this. (I'm assuming I will transfer the files from my windows computer onto my phone via usb cable, any issues to consider there? Anything else I am not thinking of but that you encountered if you did a similar switch?)

Thanks in advance for any help you can give!
(PS I'm not a fan of streaming media, so please no suggestions like 'just get spotify"... thanks!)

posted by carlypennylane to Technology (7 answers total)

1. You can just use folders
2. I used to use Google Play Music and when I found out it was going away I downloaded Musicolet (free) to replace it. I mostly just shuffle all my music but Musicolet lets you search for music by artist, album or genre and create playlists.
3. The nice thing about Android is that there really isn't anything else to worry about. Connect your phone via USB cable and move mp3's onto it just like moving things from one folder to another on your computer. It should be easy and trouble-free.
posted by Redstart at 2:12 PM on November 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

I just pulled gobs of data from miscellaneous old drives. Music is now in folders by major genre(Holiday, Classical, Kids, Show Tunes, Exercise), subfolders by artist. I need a 2nd backup, stuff breaks.
posted by theora55 at 5:07 PM on November 6, 2020

For (1) I've found foobar2000 to be a useful tool. If you organize your music in folders as Redstart suggests, foobar can do things like automatically copy files to the right folder based on the mp3 tags. The interface can look a bit wonky, but it's worth it if you're trying to keep a lot of files organized.

I'm struggling with (2) myself - I used to use Google Play Music and thought it was acceptable, but with it going away I haven't found something that quite fits my needs either.
posted by spenser at 5:16 PM on November 6, 2020

It's been a few years since I used it, but you might do well to look at doubletwist . Once upon a time, it was the best solution for 'I need something to move my old iTunes/ipod life onto Windows/Android'.
The Player app is simply a music player / collection replacement app; if you had a whole setup of playlists, etc arranged in iTunes, adding the Sync app (even if just for a one time operation) will transfer that stuff over to your new life in doubletwist.

If you were interested in 'streaming' your own media collection back to yourself, and/or digitizing your DVD collection as well; to make a roll-your-own Spotify/Netflix-like personal media collection server out of an old computer, I'd recommend Plex.

[edit window: I forgot, folders of music are fine, just transfer them to your phone by cable. But if you have a lot of music or your phone is already full, you might need to add micro-SD card storage to your phone. I which case you could just load it up like a usb and pop the card in.]
posted by bartleby at 7:22 PM on November 6, 2020

For what it's worth, until recently I was using Poweramp Music Player on my Galaxy S9+ and folders copied via Wifi (but of course a cable connection works too) from my file server to the 128 GB SD Card.

But I have recently switched to Cloud Player which lets me keep all my music on my phone in a single folder but tracks the Play Lists in Google Drive. I saw Cloud Player recommended on AskMeFi when Google Music went belly up.
posted by forthright at 8:41 PM on November 6, 2020

[the foobar2000 liker has logged on]

Foobar2000, for both desktop and mobile, will do what you need. On desktop, it can handle organizing your music into folders for you based on your music's existing tags. The mobile app is pretty simple but quite robust, definitely includes options to shuffle your tracks, make playlists, and browse/play by artist, album, genre, etc.

For getting the files onto the phone, I don't know if there are specific obstacles Samsung puts in the way, but my experience on stock Android was that you connect it via USB and make sure it is in the mode to accept file transfers, then just drag and drop your music over. The app can also spin up a local FTP server for transferring files over the network.

The only real issue I've encountered with foobar mobile is that it doesn't support Android Auto. If that's a concern, I've used Pulsar just for playing music in the car. Beyond that, it's just a question of adjusting to the learning curve of foobar, as it's a kind of esoteric program that is really meant to be customized by the user (although the default UI options have improved a lot over the years).

Feel free to mefi mail any questions!
posted by sinfony at 6:20 AM on November 7, 2020

I asked the same question earlier this year, and got some very good answers. Then pandemic happened, and I haven't yet transferred my music to my new phone. But I will.
posted by seasparrow at 7:16 AM on November 7, 2020