Google Music is pretty awesome – as an integrated service on Android, it’s hard to beat. But there’s just one issue with music stored on Google’s servers, whether it’s purchased from the Android Market or uploaded from your collection: it’s only accessible from Android using the official Google Music app. With developer R2DoesInc’s Cloud Music Sniper, that’s no longer the case: this Market app allows any application to access locally stored songs from Google Music, so long as they’ve been downloaded to your phone/tablet’s internal storage or SD card.

The app is surprisingly simple: just load it up, and it starts saving and “sniping” songs saved from Google Music. All it’s really doing is moving some local files around and tagging them for third-party app access. (Sadly, the app can’t “snipe” your music directly off of Google’s servers – you have to download local copies through the Google Music app.) It’ll preserve the song information (title/artist/album, et cetera) assuming that it’s there. And the best part: it doesn’t need root. Any device that has access to Google Music should be able to run the app.

Cloud Music Sniper costs $1.99 in the Android Market – a fair price considering the functionality you gain. Anyone who’s a fan of music apps like PowerAMP, WinAMP or DoubleTwist (or just doesn’t like the rather spartan Google Music app) should find a lot of utility here. Hopefully this functionality will be included in a future Google Music update, but we kind of doubt it. If you’re adamant about saving a couple of bucks, remember that you can download your music on a desktop computer and transfer it to your phone the old-fashioned way.

[via RootzWiki]

7 COMMENTS

    • Music Importer is NOT Music Sniper… They are two similar, but different competing apps.
      Google Music Importer and Google Music Sniper both got pulled from the market because they had “Google Music” in there name.

      Both apps have been revised and renamed.
      Google Music Importer is now Offline Music Importer…refering to the offline music within Google Music

      Google Music Sniper is now Cloud Music Sniper…referring to your music being in the cloud.

      I’ve used both and feel that the Offline Music Importer app is better. It supports more ID3 tags, properly names the files a folders better. The best feature is the background importing. The devs nailed the use case perfectly IMO…and the ratings and comments seem to indicate that too.

      • not to mention that “Cloud Music Sniper” is extremely misleading in it’s name…. All of the music in my Google Play Music account consists of music that was uploaded or matched from my personal music collection. The name “Cloud Music Sniper” gives the impression that somehow my music IN THE CLOUD will be able to play on 3rd party players. If I was only concerned about the music I have ‘pinned’ to the device – well, I wouldn’t be worried about Google Music support, as I’d just use winamp or another wireless sync player to store the files on my sdcard. It sorta frustrates me to see a program with such a name, hear that it gives support for Google Music to 3rd party apps, just to find out it is only the ‘offline’ available files. Yes, I know they are not typically found by most players despite being stored locally, but I’m also tired of people bitching that music pinned for offline playback is not the same as their music being added to a media folder, nicely organized by name with all the proper ID3 tags… yet they will happily use iTunes and an ipod – like they never realized that each time apple upgraded the model, the quality was in many times DOWNGRADED – yet the database file to translate scrambled jibberish that indicated an mp3 file was always changed along with the firmware to prevent backwards compatible use with docking stations and for any 3rd party firmware (rockbox anyone? …wow was i pissed when the high capacity ‘classic’ models came out & FINALLY I could fit a good amount of flac files on a portable player…just to discover Apple opted for a low end DAC chip, used new encryption for the iTunes DB so I couldn’t even use winamp/foobar to add music – and locked the firmware so hard that it wasn’t even considered worth attempting port rockbox onto…) Sorry for that tangent… cloud streaming is different, and with you music library not only containing what you personally updload, but online purchased albums, and now the entire music catalog for monthly subscribers — its not quite ok for them to allow a simple ‘download to phone as mp3’ option when subscribers have unlimited acess…. Altho, it is quite awesome they can still pin any song from the music catalog for offline playback – which is quite the reason these music importers may be shut down soon…. Which is fine by me, as that only puts more urgency on an API so that other music apps CAN play my music in the Google cloud!

        As for which one is better…. DEFINATELY Offline Music Importer —- why? simply because the name is not misleading at all, and is straight forward not implying any sort of interaction with music ON THE CLOUD, only the ‘pinned for offline playback’ music. And it makes me so mad to read the way Cloud Music Sniper words their description, as I actually downloaded it, thinking ‘hey! now all my Google Music in the cloud can be accessed by another player!!!!’ …. WRONG

  1. Just a warning, Google removed a superior app called Google Music Importer from the market. If you buy this app, realize it will probably suffer the same fate.

  2. Upload my music files to Google Music???
    Why the heck would I want to upload music to the cloud?
    I rather use services offering music from the cloud!

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