[Q] Any way to play Google Drive MP3s in the background? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi -- I've got a bunch of MP3s in Google Drive, and I'd like to be able to play them on my Android. The problem is that when I play an MP3 on the phone, no matter what app I choose to use to play it (and I've tried a bunch!) the MP3 opens in such a way that if I then switch to another app, playback stops. In other words, the Google Drive MP3 won't play in the background.
Is there any way to make MP3s play from Google Drive in such a way that they WILL play in the background? I've found some awkward workaround to do this -- like downloading the MP3 from the Google Drive web app, or like pinning the MP3 in the Google Drive Android app and then using an Android file manager to find the file and copy it to a folder that the music player searches -- but I really wish there was a better way!!! Anyone know one?
Thanks,
Alan
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

For some bizarre reason, no - you can't do it. I'd strongly recommend getting Google Music. It'll hold up to 20,000 songs and you can stream or download to your phone with the Google Music player. That' just like a regular music player so it still runs in the background.

Thank you! Yeah, I use the Google Music player for my own stuff; the MP3s in Google Drive are in shared folders from organizations I work with. So, yes, I can copy those over to Google Music when I get to my PC, but I wish there was a better way to listen on my phone to something in Google Drive that I haven't yet moved over.
I wish there was a way to just make Google Drive open the full Google Music app to play these files rather than the little embedded version!
Alan

music drive
I've just installed an app called music drive which is dedicated to playing music off the Google drive, works for me, esp as I want to keep all music on the drive

prbennett said:
I've just installed an app called music drive which is dedicated to playing music off the Google drive, works for me, esp as I want to keep all music on the drive
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Thank you for the tip! I've been trying this, but it's really not working for me: it crashes constantly and has no search function, which makes dealing with all of the tracks in my Google Drive pretty impossible.

carrot34 said:
Thank you for the tip! I've been trying this, but it's really not working for me: it crashes constantly and has no search function, which makes dealing with all of the tracks in my Google Drive pretty impossible.
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Hi! Not sure if you still need a solution.. But I managed to link my Google Drive to a file manager called ES File Explorer and then used the built in music player to play the music off my Google Drive.

bhaveshn said:
Hi! Not sure if you still need a solution.. But I managed to link my Google Drive to a file manager called ES File Explorer and then used the built in music player to play the music off my Google Drive.
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Thanks! It's actually much easier to deal with this with the newer versions of the Google Play Music app: they automatically seem to turn up tracks downloaded by Google Drive.

Related

[Q] Download via Google Music... Listen via Music App?

I've downloaded a few albums from Google Music. Would like to play them with the built-in Music app, but Music doesn't see any of my downloaded music.
Root explorer showed me the music downloaded from Google Music was in :
\sdcard\Android\data\com.google.android.music\cache\music
I tried copying the music folder over to the external card sdcard2 (where I'd really LIKE to store my music), but the Music app still doesn't find it.
Most surprisingly, I can't find a setting for either Google Music or Music to specify a download or Music folder.
Any suggestions on how to accomplish this?
If you purchased the music from google music the music isn't actually on your device, it is in the cloud on google music servers. Only way to get stock htc music player to see that music is to download the music from google music and put it directly on your device.
Hope that helps.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
jim_0068 said:
If you purchased the music from google music the music isn't actually on your device, it is in the cloud on google music servers. Only way to get stock htc music player to see that music is to download the music from google music and put it directly on your device.
Hope that helps.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
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Yes.... that's what I'm trying to do. I downloaded Google Music from the cloud by "making music available offline", but the stock htc music player won't see it
Not true, R2does the developer from the dinc forum has a paid app that allows you to do it. Never tried it myself, but heard good things about it. There is also a Google music importer on the market that does the same thing. You have to download it as offline library, but other music apps will be able to play it.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
JeramyEggs said:
Not true, R2does the developer from the dinc forum has a paid app that allows you to do it. Never tried it myself, but heard good things about it. There is also a Google music importer on the market that does the same thing. You have to download it as offline library, but other music apps will be able to play it.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
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Thanks, found Google Music Importer on the market. I'll give it a try.

How do you store your music?

I have always kept my music on a storage card to free up as much phone memory as possible. With the addition of space in Dropbox when you buy this phone, I am searching for the best system to implement for my phone. Ideally I would like to just place music files in Dropbox and have those files automatically saved on my SD card. This would give me instant access to my songs from my phone and computer and be a backup in case my computer crashes.
So I throw this out to you guys and ask how you best implement music on your phone keeping these three things in mind:
1. Download a song and listen from your computer or phone
2. Songs saved on memory card to free up space
3. All music is backed up in case your computer crashes.
ttown said:
I have always kept my music on a storage card to free up as much phone memory as possible. With the addition of space in Dropbox when you buy this phone, I am searching for the best system to implement for my phone. Ideally I would like to just place music files in Dropbox and have those files automatically saved on my SD card. This would give me instant access to my songs from my phone and computer and be a backup in case my computer crashes.
So I throw this out to you guys and ask how you best implement music on your phone keeping these three things in mind:
1. Download a song and listen from your computer or phone
2. Songs saved on memory card to free up space
3. All music is backed up in case your computer crashes.
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Google play is all i need.
njfoses said:
Google play is all i need.
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This. I'm in the process of ripping my 600+ CD collection to MP3. Google Play Music automatically finds the new stuff and uploads it. Then I can play songs on any device without having to carry a card or drive around, and have taken up no hard drive or SD card space. :thumbup:
Google Music in conjunction with an SD card.
I keep a small amount of music on my SD card, mostly just stuff that I'm likely to listen to at any given time.
I store EVERYTHING on Google Music; I currently have 4565 songs uploaded to the service. It requires no local storage of your own, as it is all in the cloud. You can use the app on your phone to stream that music over Wi-Fi or your mobile connection. You can also make music available offline, which essentially downloads it to your phone.
All you have to do is upload all of your music to the cloud, and you'll have access to it anywhere: any computer, any android phone or tablet. It would suit your needs nicely.
I listen to music on my phone primarily when I am on the plane. Google play wouldn't work for me.
If I could get the songs to download to my SD card when I hit favorite in Dropbox, my problem would be solved.
ttown said:
I listen to music on my phone primarily when I am on the plane. Google play wouldn't work for me.
If I could get the songs to download to my SD card when I hit favorite in Dropbox, my problem would be solved.
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Why not? If you make music available offline through Google Music, you don't need an internet connection to listen to it.
I rarely use streamimg. But if I do I prefer live365 over Pandora. I mostly download music from MP3 search and download ( not in the market , But here http://www.apktops.com/mp3-music-search-and-download-3-2.html
Download Mp3 Music Search and Download v3.2 apk
and I save on my 16gb SD card. and my music player is N7 ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.n7mobile.nplayer)
Google Music is the way to go. I make some available offline if I know I will be without data.
I know this is a little off topic but I wish Google would allow you to upload books into Google Books like you can with Music. I know they are afraid of ripped off books but let's be honest about it and with Google Music.
just curious, but when you do upload music to google play, is there any down scaling of audio quality? Like if i upload something in 320kbps, will it stay that quality?
I have most on google play and maybe 3-4 albums on my sdcard.
FunnySideUp said:
just curious, but when you do upload music to google play, is there any down scaling of audio quality? Like if i upload something in 320kbps, will it stay that quality?
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I haven't noticed any difference myself. All of the music you buy from there is 320kbps, so I assume they wouldn't downscale what you upload.
Because this is related to music, I was wondering how you guys download and organize your music in your computer
Sent from my LTEVO
I use subsonic. it gives me access to my 400gb of music on the go and I can download any of it to my phone at any time. subsonic uses your home computer as the cloud so a decent home connection and the computer always on is a must.
it also provides you your own website to access the songs from any computer browser
b18c_ej8 said:
This. I'm in the process of ripping my 600+ CD collection to MP3. Google Play Music automatically finds the new stuff and uploads it. Then I can play songs on any device without having to carry a card or drive around, and have taken up no hard drive or SD card space. :thumbup:
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yup love google music.
I run a subsonic server off a linux box at home for streaming the entire collection, and rotate albums on an SD card for stuff i listen to most often.
I have a little over 50,000 MP3's. I use Audiogalaxy and have found it to be the best at handling large collections. Google music is too restrictive and will not allow my large collection. I do keep about 300-500 songs on my phone at any given time of some of my favorites so I don't have to stream all the time. Audiogalaxy allows you to pin songs too but I have never taken advantage of that feature yet.
Google music allows 20k songs. Seriously, that's more than anyone needs...lol. I uploaded 6000 songs and best decision I've made. Runs on 10 different devices so my family has access if they need it.
Sent from my ClassicJewel
I use Google Play and Audiogalaxy. Both work great. I just can't wait until this 4G in San Antonio becomes more widespread. The constant buffering gets annoying sometimes.
Definitely Google Music. Let's be realistic here. We are all not going to listen to all the music we have, hell, sometimes I wonder why I have this song in my play list. At work I get no signal but I've cached the albums/songs I listen to the most and I'm set. When on the go I just stream it. Best. Decision. Ever.
I have it on my sd card. used to use Google Music...

Anyone know of a google play music app alternative?

I love the fact that I can upload my music from my pc to my play account to stream my library to my s3. BUT i dont love the play music app, it works well. But its very basic.
Anyone know of an app that either adds features, or replaces it but can still access my play library?
thanks
Google play music app is horrible. There is something, I forget the name, that will download GP music to device so you can use a real player -- Neutron, Poweramp, etc.
adamandkate said:
I love the fact that I can upload my music from my pc to my play account to stream my library to my s3. BUT i dont love the play music app, it works well. But its very basic.
Anyone know of an app that either adds features, or replaces it but can still access my play library?
thanks
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Google Play Music Option?

Hi there, I have a lot of music downloaded into Google Play, but I was wondering if there was a way I could go into the settings with a computer to find the files and copy it from there, and put it into the music folder? Is there a way I could do that? So I could delete the google play app, I don't like that it will automatically edit the music on the phone if you did it on the computer.
Another reason is that I like the music widget, and I want that to appear for all my songs, not just in my phone. So I want to move all my music that is downloaded to google play music to my phone. Does that make sense? And is there a way to do so?
Google Music songs are stored online at "Google Music"
skdubg said:
Google Music songs are stored online at "Google Music"
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I know that, I downloaded it to my device so now it is stored on the phone memory in the app itself. Is there a way to transfer that into the music folder?
Easiest way is just to download it onto your computer then transfer across.
When you say you downloaded it to your device, did you do it through the app and select songs to keep for offline listening? If you did that, then the files saved aren't actually the music files. I'm not sure what they are, but they are only readable by Google Music.
What you can do (to build off of madflier's post) is go to the Music Manager on your desktop, and there will be a tab to download some or all of your music from Google Music onto your computer. You can then move the music into a folder on your phone and listen there.
ProfLayton said:
When you say you downloaded it to your device, did you do it through the app and select songs to keep for offline listening? If you did that, then the files saved aren't actually the music files. I'm not sure what they are, but they are only readable by Google Music.
What you can do (to build off of madflier's post) is go to the Music Manager on your desktop, and there will be a tab to download some or all of your music from Google Music onto your computer. You can then move the music into a folder on your phone and listen there.
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Thank you bro, I did it, and it worked perfectly!!!

Google Play Music.

I've started using Google Play Music as my media player. But when I buy something and "keep it on device" I can't find where its downloaded too. I've searched all through my phone. Sometimes I use the HTC music player nut I can't access anything I've bought from the Play store until I download it to my computer and copy it to my phones music folder. It's pretty frustrating. Does anyone else have this problem? Or know another work around? Thanks in advance
Diesel321 said:
I've started using Google Play Music as my media player. But when I buy something and "keep it on device" I can't find where its downloaded too. I've searched all through my phone. Sometimes I use the HTC music player nut I can't access anything I've bought from the Play store until I download it to my computer and copy it to my phones music folder. It's pretty frustrating. Does anyone else have this problem? Or know another work around? Thanks in advance
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GPM does keep the tracks on your device, but not is a format that can be accessed by other music players. It caches music in /data/data/com.google.android.music/file/music as mp3's with numeric filenames like 10.mp3, 11.mp3, etc. and the indexing of track Title/Album/Artist to the cached mp3's is stored in /data/data/com.google.android.music/databases/music.db
That's just plain stupid..... I paid for the music and should be able to move it to where I want on my own device. I love Google but they do some stupid things. Such as that and not letting you merge 2 separate Google accounts. Thanks a bunch though
Sent from my HTC One using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Yeah it's stupid. You're better off buying from Amazon.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4
Kinda stupid, I agree. However, if you're storing music on your phone, you might as well plug in your phone, and just copy the music over to the folders you want, which will preserve file titles/tags.
I actually like Play Music .... but this closed music management is terrible. You can not choose where your music is stored and you can't open your music with another app. As it has been said above, there is the possibility to read out the music.db. So I've written me an app, that copies my MP3 files from Play Music to the sdcard and extended them with the ID3 meta data such as title, artists, albums and coverart. Now I can play the music with every app and theoretically even share.
Of course the whole thing is only one solution for rooted phones. But it makes play music a little more comfortable.
I even found a way to save music from AllAccess, but I'm not going to publish this App Version in the foreseeable future because of legal problems.
I would also like to create help thread here in XDA, but unfortunately I must have 10 posts written , before I can create am own thread in the developer forum.
Here is a Link to to the Play Store: Unfortunately I can not post links yet. Search 'Play Music Exporter' on Google Play.
Arcus92 said:
I actually like Play Music .... but this closed music management is terrible. You can not choose where your music is stored and you can't open your music with another app. As it has been said above, there is the possibility to read out the music.db. So I've written me an app, that copies my MP3 files from Play Music to the sdcard and extended them with the ID3 meta data such as title, artists, albums and coverart. Now I can play the music with every app and theoretically even share.
Of course the whole thing is only one solution for rooted phones. But it makes play music a little more comfortable.
I even found a way to save music from AllAccess, but I'm not going to publish this App Version in the foreseeable future because of legal problems.
I would also like to create help thread here in XDA, but unfortunately I must have 10 posts written , before I can create am own thread in the developer forum.
Here is a Link to to the Play Store: Unfortunately I can not post links yet. Search 'Play Music Exporter' on Google Play.
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Great Idea thanks for sharing
here's the link ->> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.arcus.playmusicexporter

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