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where to store music files on external SD card

SOLVED!! I reformatted my SD card from the phone and then I hooked it up to my computer with the USB cable and I manually created a Music folder on the root of the SD card. I copied an album in there as a test and it was seen by the Samsung music player and the Google Music player! I then copied a few more albums over and those were also seen by both players. I'm not sure why it worked this time unless it's because private mode was enabled the last time I tried this.

I do have another question though. I purchased a couple songs through Google Play tonight and then selected the option to download them to my device. I noticed that it didn't put them in the Music folder on the root of the SD card. I looked in Card > Android > Data > com.google.android.music > files > music and there were a bunch of files in there with the format number.mp3 (ex 2.mp3, 3.mp3, etc). I'm guessing the songs I downloaded were placed in there? How do I know which ones they are if I want to export them onto my computer?
 
I had all my music already on my SD card in my S4. Put old card in new SF and music player saw it fine. HOWEVER... when trying to sync itunes with music on SD card with Doubletwist... I get a message from DT saying that Goggle, in it's infinite and self centered wisdom has eliminated the ability to sync with SD cards in 4.4. DT was forced to sync to internal storage (which I promptly deleted). What's that all about??
 
Music doesn't have to be in a particular directory. I have music all over the place, some on the SD card, some in local storage, Google music, Samsung link, Dropbox and manually move music. All my music apps see all of my music.

Occasionally I had a problem with my S3 where the music disappeared from Google music. I would restart the phone and it always came back.
 
New to Android but this is what I did. Inserted SD, unmounted and then mounted in the phone. Plugged into the computer, created folder in root directory of SD called Music. Copied all of my music into this folder (got notifications that some needed to be converted and just selected ok), opened the Play Music app and tapped the button for settings in top left corner, then settings, scrolled to the bottom where it says 'Storage location' and selected External. Once I did this the app saw all of my music.
 
New to Android but this is what I did. Inserted SD, unmounted and then mounted in the phone. Plugged into the computer, created folder in root directory of SD called Music. Copied all of my music into this folder (got notifications that some needed to be converted and just selected ok), opened the Play Music app and tapped the button for settings in top left corner, then settings, scrolled to the bottom where it says 'Storage location' and selected External. Once I did this the app saw all of my music.

I guess my next question is, how do you export music you have purchased through Google Play? Where do you find it to export it?
 
I guess my next question is, how do you export music you have purchased through Google Play? Where do you find it to export it?

I always download it from my PC and then copy it over to the SD card since that way you can give it a meaningful name and organize it in whatever way you want. Google Music likes to do its own thing probably to force you to use it.

Android does not care about directory names. Every time it starts up it will scan all directories that do *not* contain a file named .nomedia and pull a list of all music/videos it finds anywhere on the card. You should see an icon in the notification area with the status of the scan while this is going on.

This scan also happens each time you disconnect from a PC or unmount/remount the card from Settings. Some music download apps also trigger the scan after they download new music files to the card.

There's also a small app called ScanMedia in the Play Store that you can run to force a re-read of the SD card at any time if you find that its out of synch.
 
hello.

i had the exact same problem and was tearing my hair out for a week before finding a solution. hopefully this will work for someone.

my setup: new galaxy s5 - first android device i have ever had. new samsung microsd card 64 gigs intended for mp3 file storage only despite the fact that the phone seems to place directories and files on it for whatever reason. again, new to android.

all of the mp3s were from various sources. some downloaded, some from itunes, some from cd rips, some i made myself.

songs would play maybe once, then stop, or get choppy, then the phone would not play any file. nothing in this particular thread seemed to work. i thought it boiled down to the card being faulty. i then bought a 32 gig sandisk card and had the exact same problems.

here was my solution:

1. format the microsdcard on the phone
2. move mp3 files (that's the only reason i wanted the card) from my win7 machine using the adapter. i tried USB to the phone but it didn't work due to the steps i had to do below first.
3. in the music folder on the sd card select all files (these were all mp3s)
4. right click, select properties, uncheck readon-only and archive

finally i placed the card back into the phone and have had no problems since. i don't have the real explanation for why this worked but it simply did.

thanks all.
 
I am moving music files from the computer to my galaxy s5, and it wants to convert the mp3 files into wma files... Should I let it do that?
 
It's a Sandisk 32GB microsd card. I did have the phone format the card after I put it in. It created two directories on the card...one called Android and one called lostdir or something like that.

Careful with that Sandisk 32gig card....I had one stop working completely on me and data was unrecoverable....second one I have is already starting to lose/corrupt my photos.......make sure your stuff is backed up to a cloud....
 
So strange to hear people having issues like this. I moved around 25 GB worth of music files (all mp3's) last night to my 32 gb Sandsik on my phone via the USB cable. No issues whatso ever.

Bear
 
I am moving music files from the computer to my galaxy s5, and it wants to convert the mp3 files into wma files... Should I let it do that?

No. Converting files will only lose them quality. The Samsung music player is pretty poor in general, I think I'm going to switch back to using Jukefox.
 
hmmmm, sorry for the confusion, there is something else going on

it supports subfolders below Music, for example this is an album's subfolder and it contains all the music files:

Local storage>SD card>Music>Irish Tour 1974

Same issue:

Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)SM-J320P

PNY 128GB ext sdcard

roughly 7gb mp3's never had any issue
viewing/playing across devices from windows 10 laptop, android Asus Memo Pad 8 running KK 4.4.2,
 
SOLVED!! I reformatted my SD card from the phone and then I hooked it up to my computer with the USB cable and I manually created a Music folder on the root of the SD card. I copied an album in there as a test and it was seen by the Samsung music player and the Google Music player! I then copied a few more albums over and those were also seen by both players. I'm not sure why it worked this time unless it's because private mode was enabled the last time I tried this.

I do have another question though. I purchased a couple songs through Google Play tonight and then selected the option to download them to my device. I noticed that it didn't put them in the Music folder on the root of the SD card. I looked in Card > Android > Data > com.google.android.music > files > music and there were a bunch of files in there with the format number.mp3 (ex 2.mp3, 3.mp3, etc). I'm guessing the songs I downloaded were placed in there? How do I know which ones they are if I want to export them onto my computer?

Axel, I do not believe that any music purchased on Google Play can be exported/burned or otherwise used on anything other than GP. As I have come to understand, GP uses some sort of indexed music database which will not allow your desired flexibility.

I am no authority here, just a user who has tried and faile like yourself.

Anyone else have knowledge or hack?

Good luck!!!
 
SOLVED!! I reformatted my SD card from the phone and then I hooked it up to my computer with the USB cable and I manually created a Music folder on the root of the SD card. I copied an album in there as a test and it was seen by the Samsung music player and the Google Music player! I then copied a few more albums over and those were also seen by both players. I'm not sure why it worked this time unless it's because private mode was enabled the last time I tried this.

I do have another question though. I purchased a couple songs through Google Play tonight and then selected the option to download them to my device. I noticed that it didn't put them in the Music folder on the root of the SD card. I looked in Card > Android > Data > com.google.android.music > files > music and there were a bunch of files in there with the format number.mp3 (ex 2.mp3, 3.mp3, etc). I'm guessing the songs I downloaded were placed in there? How do I know which ones they are if I want to export them onto my computer?

I have had this problem with my first Samsung phone... Galaxy J3 (2016)! 128gb sd card but gallery & music players refuse to find my 8gb music, 6gb of pics! Never had a phone not see stuff on sd card thats formatted properly and that phone uses?!!
I will be soooo glad when CM 12.1 is ported, but in meantime will try this!
Thanks,
Zach
 
Axel, I do not believe that any music purchased on Google Play can be exported/burned or otherwise used on anything other than GP. As I have come to understand, GP uses some sort of indexed music database which will not allow your desired flexibility.

I am no authority here, just a user who has tried and faile like yourself.

Anyone else have knowledge or hack?

Good luck!!!

Sounds like a job 4 an Xposed module! Pain in a** looking thru all of the repository, matchin one for ur os and all... but I even found one lets me sidestep EXCHANGE security policies, right thru knox, all that...... so?!!! GL
 
So what is the actually root directory of the external sd card? I'm trying to auto-download my podcasts to a specific folder on my micro sd card. It won't let me select a folder, but I have to manually type in the directory.

Can someone tell me what I'm supposed to put? Is it just /storage/sdcard? I've tried a bunch of things but it's telling me they're all invalid.

I can see the card fine when I plug my phone into the computer, but I don't know what the actual directory is.

Edit: nvm I found it using root explorer... it's /mnt/extSdCard/
 
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