Tutorial: Syncing Music & Playlists

[GreenLeaf]

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Syncing music to your G1 from your PC

• Mount your microSD card to your computer by doing one of the following:

• Attach your phone to your computer using a USB cable that came in the box. If you use this method, make sure the Home > Settings > Data > SD card & phone storage > Use for USB storage check box is selected.
On your computer, find the mounted USB drive and open it.

OR

• Remove the SD card and insert it into a card reader attached to your computer


• Now Create a folder by name "Music" inside the SD card.

• Create "alarms", "notifications", "ringtones" and "Playlist" folders inside the "music" folder....

Note: If you do not want a ringtone to appear in your music Library but you do want it to be available as a ringtone, then create the “ringtones”, “notifications”, or “alarms” folder outside your “music” folder.

• You can just drag the music files to your "Music" folder. Since most of you have 4/8 GB storage, you can store a lot of songs & that becomes a mess if those songs are not arranged by 'artist' or 'album' folders..... to do this, download a music player called MediaMonkey... (You can also use Winamp or any other music player of your choice...)

• When you connect the G1 with to your PC, MediaMonkey automatically detects it & an icon appears near the top.. there you can set the options to sync tracks to the 'Music' folder on your card....




Select Options > Device configuration







• Type in \Music\<Album Artist>\<Album>\<Title> into the Sync tracks to: box.

Select (Tick) "Copy Playlists"... Click on "Options"






Put the destination directory as \Music\Playlists\ ..... Click OK.


• Now let's load songs to G1.




• Select the songs you want to transfer... Right click...select Send to > Removable Disk (synchronize)..... And it'll sync those songs to your G1.

in the above eg., inside the 'Music' folder, MediaMonkey automatically creates 'Madonna' folder & then 'Confessions On A Dance Floor' and 'Hard Candy' folders & places tracks inside those folders.... So all your music will be arranged properly instead of just dumping all songs inside the "Music" folder (which also works but makes your collection a mess). It also transfers all the metadata, so you don't have to worry about losing 'album art'.

After the break... let's learn how to sync playlists created on the PC to your G1 which is slightly tricky!!

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[GreenLeaf]

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Syncing Playlists to G1

• Create a playlist of the songs in the MediaMonkey.





• Select the desired songs...right click.... Select Send to > .m3u playlist....





• Save the playlist to a "My Playlist" folder in your C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music folder.





• Now press 'Insert' button. MediaMonkey will ask you to "Select Folders to Add to the Library".... Now direct it to the "My Playlist" folder in your C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music. Click OK. MediaMonkey will now import the .m3u file.





• This will appear under the "Imported m3u playlist" column. Now right click on this & sync... MediaMonkey will now sync all those songs to your "Music" folder & will also create a corresponding .m3u file in the "Playlist" folder.

Note: If the tracks are already present in the "Music" folder, MediaMonkey will not create duplicate tracks. (MediaMonkey is smart ). It'll just place the .m3u file in the "Playlist" folder.

Voila!! you're done!!

Now unmount the phone's microSD storage from your desktop. Go back into the settings and deselect "Use for USB storage" and you can access the music & playlists on your G1...



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[GreenLeaf]

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All the tracks the you want to use for alarms, notifications, ringtones should be placed in their respective folders inside/outside the "Music" folder.

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[goalweiser]

Thanks. This could be a valuable tool if I get sick of manually doing it in iTunes.

I just like their interface so much. Anyway, thanks info. I'll probably be using it real soon.

[SparkyS]

Thank you This is neat!

[GreenLeaf]

corrected a few mistakes... i hope it works now... Anyone knows other ways of importing playlists to G1?

[legaleye3000]

Two things:

1. What about for a Mac?
2. I opened iTunes on my Mac and I see "export song list." However, it only gives the option to export in: Unicode text, Plain text, or XML. I don't see a .m3u option...

Any ideas?

[GreenLeaf]

Originally Posted by legaleye3000

Two things:

1. What about for a Mac?
2. I opened iTunes on my Mac and I see "export song list." However, it only gives the option to export in: Unicode text, Plain text, or XML. I don't see a .m3u option...

Any ideas?

Sorry! I don't know about Macs/iTunes.... If you have VM ware you can run MM inside it & can get it done...

Anyone got it working on Macs?

[legaleye3000]

I don't want to do it because i already have everything setup in my iTunes....

[Cricketman]

Originally Posted by legaleye3000

Two things:

1. What about for a Mac?
2. I opened iTunes on my Mac and I see "export song list." However, it only gives the option to export in: Unicode text, Plain text, or XML. I don't see a .m3u option...

Any ideas?

There's another thread for syncing with mac's. Use the search and you should get it pretty quickly.

Great tutorial man!

And I see someone likes Madonna