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How to enable SD card support for offline Google Play Music

Google Play Music for Android now supports SD cards for offline music on KitKat and some older devices.

Ed Rhee
Ed Rhee, a freelance writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an IT veteran turned stay-at-home-dad of two girls. He focuses on Android devices and applications while maintaining a review blog at techdadreview.com.
Ed Rhee
microSD card in Samsung Galaxy S III
Ed Rhee/CNET

Yesterday's update of Google Play Music for Android (v5.3.1316M) added external SD card support for offline music. Users who have an Android device with an SD card slot will now be able free up their device's internal storage by saving offline music files onto an external card.

The feature is only available on KitKat for now, with "experimental support on some older devices." If you have one of those devices, such as the Galaxy S4, here's how to change the offline storage location to your external card:

Go to Google Play Music's settings, then under Downloading, tap on "Storage location." Choose the external card as your new storage location.

Google Play Music move storage location to external
Screenshot by Ed Rhee/CNET

Immediately following your selection, any offline music files you had saved on your internal storage will be transferred to the external card. Any new music you download for offline use will also be saved to the card automatically. If you're curious, the files are located at Android\data\com.google.android.music/files/music folder.