Hello,
I listen to music very often, and having my collection on my phone is important to me. I used to use iTunes, and I’d like something similar to that but that works on a Fairphone. I switched from an iPhone to Fairphone earlier this year; I used the Google Play Music app and thought it was ok. But then it closed so I tried YouTube music, which I didn’t like because it is more geared towards streaming and has pop ups all the time trying to get me to subscribe. I’m looking for a music player where:
it’s only for music I own (I’m not interested in streaming at all)
I can easily move my music files from my laptop on to my Fairphone
I can have all my music and audiobooks in one place
syncing with my laptop is easy when I buy new music
I’m generally unfamiliar with Android so any help on this is very much appreciated!
Just connect your phone to your PC and copy your music to the Music directory on your internal storage or SD card. Any such offline player should find your music automatically.
I don’t listen to music very much, but when I do I use VLC. It works fine, is easy to use, hasn’t got any ads and is open source. It’s available on F-Droid as well as on the play store. You should be able to easily reorganise your files as well.
If you have a micro-SD card, you can put your music on it and easily copy files to your computer, or copy or via a cable, VLC should read them fine (actually, just what @TheLastProject said).
I use the sadly nonlibre AIMP. It plays any format I’ve thrown at it and it doesn’t try to do anything too clever. It doesn’t make playlists for you, it doesn’t index all the audio files on your phone - you have to make your own playlists, add all the albums and all that crap. It has a bookmarking function that’s very handy for audiobooks and podcasts and it runs very light.
When I want to add an album on my phone, I just push it through ADB:
adb push ./my-album /storage/emulated/0/albatros/
And then add it manually in AIMP - usually takes under a minute.
I use both VLC and AIMP (both previously suggested). I have no hard-and-fast “rule” about which I use for what, except if I want to watch any associated video, then it’s VLC (AIMP is audio-only, which is precisely what it says on the tin). As previously mentioned, AIMP doesn’t try to be “smart” and requires (usually very simple) manual setup, and (also previously mentioned) plays anything you throw at it.
If your music collection on your laptop is humongous (e.g. mine is 195 GBs), you might appreciate that VLC actually allows you to disable the automatic scan for media contents on your whole phone. It can consume significant time and energy if there are tons of media to scan through. It’s still possible to just navigate your existing folder structure using VLC then, too.
I’ve been using MediaMonkey for years now both on my PC and on Android. It allows for syncing between the devices easily. I have a fairly large music collection and these tools allow for easy access and management. Don’t think there is a Mac client however.
I’m a big fan of CloudPlayer which lets you sync your music using Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. Been using it for the last year as an on the go solution for myself (I use Roon at home). You’ll need to buy the premium version for cloud syncing but it’s definitely worth it if you have your music in any of those services.
Shuttle is great (and open source ) if you’re happy syncing files to your phone yourself.
) if you’re happy syncing files to your phone yourself.