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General discussion

How do I get my iTunes music on to my non-Apple phone?

Feb 6, 2015 9:40AM PST
Question:

How do I get my iTunes music on to my non-Apple phone?


I have a Samsung S3 cell phone and I use iTunes for my music. I'm not averse to moving to different music software. But I was "raised" on iTunes, I know what I'm doing with it and I simply want to know how to get my music from iTunes to my Samsung. I've tried using the suggested Samsung apps for this - like Easy Phone Sync. But they don't seem to work well for me. I've tried dragging and dropping [music files] into my Samsung Music Folder, but I must be doing something wrong because they don't show up. And I have a lot of different Playlists which are important to me. Just having the songs on my phone is not good enough. I need them organized. And dragging and dropping doesn't cut it for Playlists. How do [other people] who are hooked into iTunes, but have an Android phone, sync their music AND playlists? I've thought about calling the local community college and suggesting they offer a non-credit class on electronic music for those of us...a little past the age of 20...who need an eMusic 101 class on this topic. Thanks.

--Submitted by: Cathy B.

Discussion is locked

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Google music
Feb 13, 2015 9:36AM PST

If you set up the Google play music app to import your music, you can literally drag and drop from iTunes into google music, on your computer. Then it will upload your music to google and you can stream or download to the Google play music app on your android phone. Very easy and I've done it.

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This is what I did
Feb 13, 2015 12:41PM PST

Four months ago I finally broke down and bought a smart phone. (Blow me. I'm a Luddite.) I had about 110GB of music on my iPod Classic and in my iTunes software, about 80% of which was MP3. Google Play uploaded all of it, even the old radio programs I'd converted from cassette to MP3 from when I DJ'ed in the Navy. I can now listen to anything I have in iTunes on my Android phone. It's not difficult. If a 58 year old Luddite can do it, you can.

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I've tried several
Feb 15, 2015 11:41PM PST

stlmapper - Thanks for your service! I'm retired AF, slightly older than you but I am a PC tech and consider myself fairly tech savvy.

I just got my first smart phone a few months ago also and have tried several methods. I have over 24,000 tracks in iTunes, all AAC. I wanted to get my music and playlists to an external 64 Gb SD in my LG3.

I tried DoubleTwist first but found it required a lot of replacing/deleting of files on my PC and/or phone if things didn't go right. I was never able to get my entire library to show up in the player.

I next tried your method and had the same positive experience as you. I found that even though my files were .AAC on my PC they were converted to .MP3 by Google Music Manager. Since it's a cloud based service, it took a l-o-o-o-n-g time to upload my music to the service then download it to my phone for offline use. The problem I found after doing all this was that Google Play limits the size of playlists to 1,000 tracks. This obviously wasn't a problem for you but I have several playlists well over that limit so I continued my search. Since this is free, I would recommend it to anyone who is not concerned with the playlist limitation.

Since last week I have been using iSyncr along with RocketPlayer and, so far, so good. It transferred my music quickly via USB and kept all my playlists intact. You can use any music player but I like RocketPlayer because it allows me to select my music not only by playlist but also by album, artist, genre and even folder. Within these categories I can shuffle by song, artist or (my favorite) album. It also has a built in tag editor in case you want to add a note or fix missing/incorrect tag info.

There is a trial version but since it's limited to 1 playlist and 100 tracks, I wouldn't bother with it. The paid version has been more than worth the price to me. iSyncr and RocketPlayer have (so far, at least) been the answer I was looking for.

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I may have the answer
Feb 13, 2015 9:55AM PST

Several years ago my son bought me a used ipod. I started to notice it acting up so I decided to remove all the music to my pc. Apple told me they don't support third party software. I went to download.com and I got idump. This successfully removed everything to my pc (playlist included) It should be no issue to then reload to your current phone.

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Create play lists on the phone
Feb 13, 2015 9:58AM PST

I switched from the 4s to the Note 4 and felt the same pain in the initial transition. Unlike the iPhone, it is extremely simple to create a playlist on the phone.

After you drag you mp3's from your computer to the phone, click the tripple dots to add a playlist in the music app. Select the play list and press the plus button. Then add the music.


I think it is extremely easy, compared to iTunes!

The only issues I've encountered is that I don't know how to back up the playlist after it is created. So I recommend saving the songs in your primary playlist to the same folder.

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Copying music onto an Android phone
Feb 13, 2015 10:02AM PST

Cathy,

Copying music files onto the phone is easy. I have a Galaxy S3 and I do the following:
1. Turn off the phone and take out the Micro-SD card where my phone stores camera pix, videos and also my music.
2. Insert the card into an adapter that plugs into a USB port on my computer. Plug it in and wait until the card shows up as an external drive. Works on a Mac as well as on a PC.
3. On the computer, find the folder where your music is kept. As long as your music is in .mp3 format, it will play on the Android phone.
4. Simply copy the music files you want from your computer to the SD card, just like if you were copying files from hard drive to another. You can copy whole folders, keeping your filing system intact.
5. Unmount the SD card from the computer, put it back in the phone, close the cover, turn the phone back on.
It will take a little bit for the phone to find and catalog the new media. But in the end you will have music library on your phone sortable by title, artist, album, genre etc. my problem is that my SD card is 64 gb, but my music library about 150 gb, so I have to be selective, which music I put on the phone.
6. Easy so far. Playlists will more tricky. I too have many playlists that have taken me years to assemble. I don't bother moving them to the phone, but I suppose it could be done. Playlists can be saved as .m3u files (simple text files that list sequentially the media files to be played). If these can be created on the Computer side, they could certainly be copied to the SD card, but the question is whether Android will know what to do with them. There may be a way to somehow make this work. Comment from another CNET user, please?

Good luck,
Radim

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More on this subject
Feb 14, 2015 8:37PM PST

Add a high-performance micro SD card to your phone (comes in 16, 32 GB and more, available at any electronics store), create a folder called "media" on it, buy a USB adapter (few bucks), insert the CD card into it, plug the adapter in your computer, and just copy the music files you like in that folder.

The important thing is to use a high performance CD card. Cheap ones will get corrupted. Before I found this out, my Galaxy S3 ate about 3 SD cards and I almost threw the phone away.

In general, I find putting music onto my Galaxy S3 a lot easier than putting music onto my iPhone. I don't use iTunes (I am iTunes-phobic). J River Media Center manages my iPod just fine, but will not do the same for an iPhone. This makes managing my iPhone music a pain in the rear.

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How does this help 'synch' in any way?
Feb 15, 2015 1:34AM PST

Of course they could just COPY to an SD card, but then they could just COPY to the phone. What they want to do is retain 1 media library and hve it synch across multile devices... just like what happens when you connect your ipad, iphone, ipod... you see the same stuff and DONT have to do anything, and it does it in two minutes.

Like I said earlier... I use WMP as an intermediate folder.

What I didn't say is it's one of the factors that made me give up my Android phone. If Google can't address a common, simple user need then why bother with it? That and my continual running out of appstorage despite an SD card being there and all of my dozen apps aimed at that. I didn't want to add this negativity but you apologists have pushed me to it. Me and the kids have gone iphone and it simply works. If Android now does something better I don't care cos they pushed me away and I aint looking to come back!

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There's an easy solution
Feb 13, 2015 10:22AM PST

I had to respond to this because I just switched to a Samsung Note Edge after owning an iPhone since its inception. I have about 6000 songs in iTunes and it was easy! All you have to do is install Google's download manager and it will upload all your iTunes songs to the Google Cloud - then they are available to play with Google Play Music on the phone. And you don't have to quit using iTunes (even though you should...) because the Download Manager will continually upload any new music. It's free up to 20,000 songs. All of the info is available here:

http://play.google.com/about/music/unlock/

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How to get itunes on another phone
Feb 13, 2015 10:33AM PST

What I did ws to make sure all the music in itunes is on my mc, then went into the file explorer and located itunes media and music. Then Incopied the music files, in their folders, to my hard drive. After connecting my samsung, i copied the music onto the microcard, this means i can take it to another phone also!

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iTunes to non-Apple phone
Feb 13, 2015 10:45AM PST

I use Linux/Ubuntu. Yeah, I know. I did this years ago with my iTunes song list when I changed from OS 10.3 Tiger to Ubuntu on my emac. There is a music file manipulatin software in the Ubuntu repositories called "Sound Converter". I was able to convert my Apple music files to mp3, or WAV, or FLACC, or whatever I wanted. These files can then be moved to your phone like any other files with a USB connection. Still listening to that music...

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Converting Apple iTunes Music
Feb 13, 2015 12:08PM PST

You simply need to convert the Apple music file to an MP3 file. Open iTunes and right click on the song(s) you want to convert and you will get a drop down menu that has "Create MP3 version". After you have converted the music you want to put into your Samsung Galaxy you can copy and paste the MP3 music from iTunes to the memory card in your phone.

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Or..
Feb 14, 2015 12:04AM PST

You could set your imported files to .mp3 format by default under import settings too. The .aac was a better compression back then but you can set high quality mp3 version on all your imports by default, and like you said, convert purchases to ddm-free mp3 for export with a right click.
If you use Windows Media Player or another program you want to use, it may let you monitor the iTunes folder and synch from there too if your product is designed to synch with that. My mom imports things to iTunes as (mp3 versions by default when possible) and has Windows Media Player set to monitor the iTunes folder. Then she can synch her stuff with her iPod, Sansa or whatever using iTunes or Media Player. She doesn't like fussing with dragging and dropping from the actual folders, but if you have to, you can right click on the track and click "show in finder" on a Mac. I assume on Windows, iTunes will also let you go right to the file for drag and drop too, like a "show in explorer" option.

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At the risk of getting flamed...
Feb 13, 2015 9:35PM PST

I'm going to go out on a limb and offer up what some may feel is an unpopular
sentiment... F--- Apple AND ALL OF THEIR PROPRIETARY GARBAGE!!!

There, I said it, somebody had to so, it might as well be me.

You couldn't PAY me to use or own ANY Apple products ESPECIALLY iTunes.
As it is, it took them the longest time to relinquish control of DRM. Because,
like it or not, when someone BUYS something on iTunes, they should be able
to put it on multiple devices.

So in short, if I were you, I'd figure out a way to offload you music files from
you iTunes account and use either the native android music player, or download
one of the MANY third-party music player apps available in the Google Playstore
for FREE and NEVER LOOK BACK.

Just my .02 (Your mileage may vary)

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It's not about flaming
Feb 13, 2015 11:53PM PST

It's about the odd ignorance of people thinking they're "sticking it to the man".
Not worth argueing about. Please don't use any apple products and keep your smug attitude and don't let reality set in.
Someone like you cannot be educated in a short blog response, but if you had any sense of history you would remember they were the first ones that let you strip DRM by burning a CD. Even back when Windows and Real Networks were locked down, before Amazon ever sold an MP3 Apple let you burn a DRM free CD from their purchases.
That's why the lawsuit was lost. It was BS built on lies in the head you seem to be full of.
And if you can't figure out the simple clicks to make it a different format, I feel bad for you, but your attitude doesn't invite help. Plus since you don't use Apple products you don't know what you're talking about and don't need the help anyway. If you got something that works for you, please stick with it for all our sakes.

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I do hate the Apple ethos; but do appreciate the ease of use
Feb 14, 2015 1:00AM PST

That ease of use comes at the price of lock-in; and I hate that.

If you get beyond it though and forget about itunes as a purchasing tool.. it becomes a storage manager and that's all I use it for. All my media is on my NAS and we all just pull our own subset into our itunes in our profile. 200Gb music on NAS; becomes 12Gb current on my iphone and in-car SD. The kids have their own. You don't have to like Apple to see some benefits for yourself (well I don't anyway).

I even bought an AppleTV box just to get airplay. It works great... just a shame the scum locked it in but it's coming to a lot more amps now so maybe a lot more folk will benefit. Airplay printing... I dont use it much but it works great. Brother printer; networked and Airplay; simple and great user experience.

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Yeah, pluses and minuses to both approaches
Feb 14, 2015 1:08AM PST

As a developer, you're locked out of the phone a lot, and depending on your privacy concerns that can be a good thing.
I do wish more things were compatible but also I've tried many tech options throughout the years. I liked that old mp3 players played any format and I owned a lot before my first iPod. I didn't like importing to iTunes but all my reboot and skip problems went away. I figured maybe I had some bad tracks the other players were choking on. Still, well over 10 years never had a problem importing drm-free music to or exporting it from iTunes. It's definitely not the best interface though.

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Answer from cliffernee
Feb 13, 2015 10:22PM PST
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iSyncr
Feb 13, 2015 11:04PM PST

I have been using iSyncr for probably 5 years, you can use it connected via USB or sync over your home Wi-Fi. You can choose to sync your entire library or just the specific playlists that you want. I have never had a problem with playing mp3 or aac formats. You can sync movies, but I they have DRM, you can't play them on your phone. I have used iSyncr with my LG Revolution, Droid Bionic, Droid RAZR MAXX, and my Samsung Galaxy S4. It always works great. I can't remember what the difference is between the free and paid version is, but I did buy it. I tried doubletwist early on and it didn't work. iSyncr worked and I've stuck with it this whole time.

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Another iSyncr user
Feb 15, 2015 11:51PM PST

The only difference between the free and paid versions is that the free version, while fully functional, is limited to 1 playlist and 100 tracks. Go ahead and buy it. I also use the same developer's music player, RocketPlayer. If you have a large library you will definitely want to sync via USB.

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For a Samsung phone, try this link:
Feb 14, 2015 4:10AM PST
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Off topic but...
Feb 14, 2015 4:38AM PST

are you from Wales? Which part?
Dafydd.

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are you from Wales? Which part?
Feb 14, 2015 5:28PM PST

Yes, Dafydd. I live in South Wales, nr. Llantrisant. (And guess where I work?! LOL!!)

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Shwmai!
Feb 15, 2015 1:27AM PST

I live in a valleys town called Brynmawr. And I guess you work for the Royal Mint. Don't know if you just watched the rugby, but a narrow win by Wales. Nice to hear from a fellow "taff."
Dafydd.

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Amazon Music
Feb 14, 2015 8:18AM PST

DoubleTwist works pretty well but some of my iTunes were not DRM-free and the work around was to use the iMatch service to download DRM-free versions and DT would then be able to sync it over. Amazon Music, however, just checks to see if you have the track on the device it scans (not sure if that includes the iPhone) and then puts the same song in its format in the cloud and then let you either stream or download the music to the device of choice. I am new to Amazon Music so I may not have it right but this is my understanding.

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Thank you CNET users
Feb 15, 2015 2:10AM PST

I just like Cathy B. have switched phones and I want to thank all (non-negative) commenters here for the help.The Google Play Music importing my Itunes library is very helpful at least to make it reachable and at the very least it is a great starting point.Thanks and Cathy I hope you've found your solution.

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The two-step trick for this
Feb 15, 2015 10:36PM PST

First step is the most complicated.
Due to iTunes/Apple's older DRM crap, the first part is finding a good program to convert all the past-purchased stuff into generically useable files. This is something I know many still struggle with. I, thankfully have never used iTunes. I've purchased CD's and ripped them. Far more reliable and controllable. I choose the format, the quality, everything.

I'm still searching for a 'best' converter that will take out apple's old DRM for a friend, because she has past-purchased albums, which now even iTunes is saying she never purchased, which is rather a PITA. (

Suggestions welcome for this side of things.

Second step. Connect phone to pc with a usb->microusb cable and use windows to copy any files over to your 'music' directory... Done.. Very simple. I don't use any 'sync' per-se, because I've got so much music my phone won't handle it. I pick and choose albums or artists and will rotate it out every so often. Very easy, very simple.

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I have used the following program
Feb 16, 2015 2:02AM PST

Other than simply using commonly available python scripts, try TunesKit to remove DRM- especially if her libraries have become corrupt enough that iTunes Match doesn't help her situation/acknowledge prior purchases. YMMV.

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Maybe assuming too much and looking for problems.....
Feb 16, 2015 6:12AM PST

I have ZERO DRM stuff in my iTunes library; and it floats around 15Gb music depending what I put on it from my NAS. Not everybody uses iTunes as a means to get music... I've bought about 6 tracks in all probability, and have ripped all my CDs etc. That and downloaded versions of my Vinyl means it's simply a holding area for me.

I would suspect most folk do not buy all their music from iTunes. Most of the folk I know don't anyway. Simply a place to hold my current music. (and the ones I've bought have been put on my NAS without any issue)

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iSyncr
Feb 19, 2015 8:20AM PST

I haven't read all the way through the replies, but if someone hasn't already mentioned iSyncr, I personally think this is the best app I've found for transferring music. It's easy to set up and each time you add any new songs to your iTunes library, iSyncr will update your device as soon as you connect it to your computer again (you can also connect via wi-fi). It won't duplicate songs either. I also love that album art transfers right along with each track. Small note - iSyncr will not sync copy protected music or videos.