Can't access music on an Android phone from PC.

2018-08-21 19:24:35

Since dedicated digital audio players seem to be going extinct, I'm trying to transition from my old MP3 player to using my phone as my primary portable music player. I've been holding off for years because I couldn't find a decent jukebox program for Android, but since foobar2000 mobile has been released, I've been transferring to it. I've been using foobar2000 desktop for years, and all my music has been optimized for it, so this has been a fairly painless process.

However, one thing I loved with my old MP3 player is that, when I sit at my desk, I can plug my MP3 player in to my PC and still have all my music at my fingertips through foobar2000 desktop. This is great because I only have to maintain a single collection of music where ever I go. Unfortunately, a problem has arisen now that I've switched to my Android phone. My old MP3 player used MSC which gave foobar2000 desktop full read/write access to all the files, but my phone uses MTP which is far more limited.

My question is, is there anything I can do, either to my Android phone, Windows, or foobar2000 that will give foobar2000 desktop full access to all the music files on my phone (play the music, alter the meta tags, change album art, etc.) or is this just another one of the constraints of using Android?

Thanks!

Re: Can't access music on an Android phone from PC.

Reply #1 – 2018-08-21 21:13:28

Sorry, I just realized this should have been posted in the General forum, could a moderator please move this. Thanks!

Re: Can't access music on an Android phone from PC.

Reply #2 – 2018-08-22 09:40:47

I think MTP means your music is simply inaccessible for desktop foobar. Any searches done on my own in the past showed that MTP is a system level limitation when accessing device content. But maybe someone can update me here...

Re: Can't access music on an Android phone from PC.

Reply #3 – 2018-08-24 16:06:12

Thanks for the post EpicForever.

From what I've read, instead of direct access to the file system, MTP requires an OS to makes requests to the device asking it to read, write, etc. This has the benefit of allowing a device to use its own file system without having to make a partition that an OS can read directly like NTFS for Windows.

So, Windows is definitely able to make those requests, but, does only Windows get to make these requests, or can any program running on Windows make a request as well? And, if so, how do I configure my system to allow it?

Re: Can't access music on an Android phone from PC.

Reply #4 – 2018-08-24 17:04:06

You can try something from this: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/22979/drive-letter-for-mtp-connection-under-windows

Re: Can't access music on an Android phone from PC.

Reply #5 – 2018-11-07 21:39:48

Maybe it's just organization of files: I have the master library on the PC, and I copy to the phone what I need. So everything is on the PC. Likewise with updates: I do them on the PC and copy them to the phone.
BTW: May first 32GB µSD started to go crazy soon, and I did not have a chance to save the files there; recently an USB stick corrupted (reason unknown) almost 50% of the files. That's why I keep the originals on the PC (actually on a RAID even)...
If I need to play from the Phone to the PC, I also have a cable with two 3.5mm audio plugs, so the headphone output of the phone can be connected to the line in of the PC, and with the proper software you can output it on the PC's audio.