How to Sync Android to Windows Media Player (including playlists)

I apparently download a Samsung program named Samsung Kies. a version will be installed on your phone when your asked to upgrade to Android 2.2. I was told that I shouldn't have downloaded the PC version yet because its not in use yet by Sprint yet and only European carriers that have released the 2.2 update to their customers. Last I read online was that we all should have the update by the end of November. screen shot of Kies Picasa Web Albums - Jay Stone
Though I don't think this will be a fix for syncing Windows media play and our phones, just an easier way of dragging and dropping, which I think still sucks.

If you get desperate you could try one of the windows ports of rsync, which would address at least numbers 1 and 2.

If you go that direction let us know and we'll try to help.


#4 - Playlists appear to be copied into the Music app and stored in some inaccessible database. I longpress-delete them. It's annoying. There is an app out there that will delete orphaned playlists.

I sync my music to my HTC Evo through music player and the only headache I have is the playlists do not sync. I manually copy them to my device and they work though. I use Winamp Player

slaman said:

I do the same thing and it works with PlayerPro...

stock player simply doesn't work.

Click to expand...

Are you saying you can play a playlist from your computer in Music Playerpro? I've been looking for a way to do this for ages, can you please post the details?

slaman said:

Yes, I copy the .wpl files (WMP playlist files) to /playlists on the internal SD card and PlayerPro recognizes it after Media Scanner runs.

Click to expand...

That's awesome, thanks Slaman. After a bit of experimenting it seems m3u playlists work too, and they don't have to be in any particular folder (provided the media scanner can see them).

Do you have a trick to triggering the Media Scanner? I cleared all scanned media (including photos and video) by going to:

Settings > Manage Applications > Media Storage > Clear Data

Then restarted the phone and opened the gallery to rescan but I'm sure there's an easier way. I expect the scanner is triggered when you unplug a USB data connection?

Edit:
Found an option to 'Refresh mediastore':

Music Playerpro > Settings > Music library > Refresh mediastore

But it doesn't seem to update the playlists tab. Maybe it just takes ages?

I connect the samsung galaxy s to my pc via the wire usb and I co not detect any hardware. How can I connect my samsung to my pc and download my phones from my sims card?
mux1@psu.edu

how can I connect my samsung galaxy s to my pc-I wire connect it but I do not see it on my computer

mirnaphone said:

I connect the samsung galaxy s to my pc via the wire usb and I co not detect any hardware. How can I connect my samsung to my pc and download my phones from my sims card?
mux1@psu.edu

Click to expand...

Hi mirnaphone,

To transfer files to and from your computer, make sure your phone is set to the 'Disk Drive' connection type. You can do this from the notification bar (drag it down from the top of the screen) once your cable is connected, or you can change the default connection type in:

Settings > Connect to PC > Default connection type

It's likely your phone is set to 'USB charge only mode' which will not transfer any data to a connected computer.

If that doesn't work, try a different cable and a different computer to make sure they aren't at fault. Failing that, I'd check your manual and call customer support.

Transferring your contacts from your sim card is a bit more involved, I have an HTC phone which comes with sync software, if Samsung have something similar you can use this to either sync with an address book or download your contacts.

If not, you might like to try syncing your contacts with gmail and downloading them from there.

The only way I can get close is to literally copy my files from my PC to my micro SD. There's really no way to create good playlists from the PC and I have to do it from the EVO. You know, you'd think that someone would come up with software for Android/PC that would provide the same syncing capabilities that the Apple and Microsoft have done so well. I used to use a Zune and that was great. iTunes is popular because it works so well. When are the Android developers going to come up with a viable and convenient solution?

slaman said:

Yes, I copy the .wpl files (WMP playlist files) to /playlists on the internal SD card and PlayerPro recognizes it after Media Scanner runs.

The stock player won't recognize it.

Click to expand...

How does this work when the paths to the files in the .wpl file will be based on their location on your PC and not your phone (i.e. they will be something like C:\My Music\<artist_name>\<album_name>\<song_title>.mp3, which won't be a valid path on the phone)? Does Android and/or PlayerPro automatically modify the .wpl file to make the file paths point to the files on the phone?

I thought when you use the sync feature in windows media player it automatically makes those changes for you when it copies the .wpl file from the PC to the phone. If you manually copy the .wpl file over it seems like it wouldn't work once it was on the phone because all the file paths would be wrong.

Special K said:

How does this work when the paths to the files in the .wpl file will be based on their location on your PC and not your phone (i.e. they will be something like C:\My Music\<artist_name>\<album_name>\<song_title>.mp3, which won't be a valid path on the phone)? Does Android and/or PlayerPro automatically modify the .wpl file to make the file paths point to the files on the phone?

I thought when you use the sync feature in windows media player it automatically makes those changes for you when it copies the .wpl file from the PC to the phone. If you manually copy the .wpl file over it seems like it wouldn't work once it was on the phone because all the file paths would be wrong.

Click to expand...

Because WPL playlists dont work like that your thinking of M3U playlists. WPLs have Song title, Artist ect and a file hash. As long as the SAME file is in the phones media library it WILL work. I just sync the song with Windows Media 12 and dump the WPL in the playlist folder.

Use Meridian Player (best media player I've come across) to create a "playQ" playlist. this is an independent file as opposed to a database. there are a few steps involved but you can copy the "play Q" file (which has a .mpq extension) to your computer. this file can then be converted to a .m3u file fairly simply. Use Notepad++ to open the .mpq file.

01. Delete all characters before the first instance of "localAudio id"
02. Replace all (" /><) with (\r\n) without the parenthasis. \r\n moves the text to the next line, make sure to select extended mode
03. replace all (LocalAudio id="/mnt/sdcard/Music/) with (D:\Music\) or wherever the music is
04. replace (&amp with (&) - there seems to be an error with the & symbol
05. delete "\Items><\PlayQ>" at the end

Here is a link to the original post from where I got the information. I did have a different experience then what is shown here, but very useful:

kundaistreet.blogspot.com/2010/12/export-android-created-playlists-to-pc.html

I created an account just to post this. Usually I just lurk, but I've wanted to dump my ipod for a long time and now that I found a way to turn my phone into an iPod, I wanted to let others know.

I was already using MediaMonkey with my iPod and when my iPod got lost/stolen (not sure where it went) I decided to really try to figure out a way to do it.

Coincidentally, the newest version of mediamonkey (version 4.x) will do exactly what I wanted to do. I've been using it for a couple days now and it has so far synced flawlessly both podcasts and music and supposedly it can sync all your playlists as well. I don't really use playlists though so I can't say for sure on the last one.

My only issue now, not mediamonkey's problem, is to figure out a way to get an android podcast player to update the "Play Counter" ID3 tag field so it can track which podcasts I've listened to already.

This is what I do:
First you will need to check the root of your phone for 2 folders. One names "Music" and the other "Playlist". If not there then just create them.

1. Sync WMP playlist with a flash drive or any way that will get you all of the songs on that playlist simple and fast.
2. Copy all those songs to the "Music" folder on the root of your SD card.
3. Select the Playlist on the side panel of WMP right clicking and select "open file location" and then copy that playlist file to the folder "Playlist" on your phones memory.

You're done. Your playlist should be synced in the same order as on WMP and should show up on the default player of Android. I use a flash drive to store music for my car and I sync it once in a while so then you could just copy all those songs once synced to the flash drive and the new songs will appear and just click "don't copy repeated files", what you will mainly need to redo again is copy the Playlist FILE from WMP.

Note: I have a Galaxy S and all this was done using the INTERNAL Memory and the DEFAULT Android Music Player. Not sure if it will work with external SD card but I don't see why not.

hi,
I also seem to have this same issue. I try to connect my android zeki tablet to my computer and it shows nothing. any ideas on how to sync my media music library to my tablet? and any idea on ways to get my computer to recognize where my tablet is?
thanks
nesa

kcinholas said:

This is what I do:
First you will need to check the root of your phone for 2 folders. One names "Music" and the other "Playlist". If not there then just create them.

1. Sync WMP playlist with a flash drive or any way that will get you all of the songs on that playlist simple and fast.
2. Copy all those songs to the "Music" folder on the root of your SD card.
3. Select the Playlist on the side panel of WMP right clicking and select "open file location" and then copy that playlist file to the folder "Playlist" on your phones memory.

You're done. Your playlist should be synced in the same order as on WMP and should show up on the default player of Android. I use a flash drive to store music for my car and I sync it once in a while so then you could just copy all those songs once synced to the flash drive and the new songs will appear and just click "don't copy repeated files", what you will mainly need to redo again is copy the Playlist FILE from WMP.

Note: I have a Galaxy S and all this was done using the INTERNAL Memory and the DEFAULT Android Music Player. Not sure if it will work with external SD card but I don't see why not.

Click to expand...

Wow!! I know this is a very old post, but I've boon looking for a way to do this for years and had concluded it was impossible. It was this simple. I had tried syncing the WPL through Windows Media Player (over USB), which did not work for me. That sync'd the songs, but not the Playlist. But the incredibly simple step of just dragging and dropping the WPL file(s) to the Playlists folder on the Android device immediately made the Playlist available and it worked with the songs (already sync'd via Windows Media Player).

So if anyone is still looking for a way to do this even on Android 11 in 2022, here are the steps:

1. Connect Android phone to PC via Bluetooth
2. Swipe down and scroll to the bottom of the notification area and set USB connection to "File Transfer" (as of Android 11, this name has changed with different Android versions). This is necessary so that your PC can see the file store on the phone, otherwise, it won't have access (some of the posts above asked about this).
3. In Windows Media Player click on Playlists on the left.
4. Right click on one of the Playlists and select "Open file location" This will pop open an Explorer window with your Playlist(s). Set this aside for later (Step #8) and go back to Windows Media Player.
5. Click on the Sync tab in the upper right
6. Drag the Playlist(s) in the main window over to the Sync area on the right (see screen show below)

7. Hit "Start Sync" right below the tabs and above the Playlist(s) to sync. For me, this only synced the Songs, NOT the playlist, but that's OK (thanks to kcinholas's post)
8. Click on the Windows Explorer window you opened in Step #4.
9. Open another Explorer window (Windows+E or from the Taskbar or Start). Navigate to your Android device (be sure it's still connected via USB and in File Transfer mode).
9. Open the Android device's main drive/volume, probably called "Internal shared storage" (not sure how this would work with an SD card, but I assume that can work and the process is similar)
10. You should see several folders at the home directly of the device, including Music and Playlists. Open Playlists.
11. Drag and drop any Playlists from the Windows source to the Android destination.

Summary:

1. Sync music from Windows to Android over USB via Windows Media Player. You can sync individual songs, albums, or artists, or by Playlist, but syncing a Playlist through Windows Media Player will only sync that playlist's songs, not the Playlist itself.

2. Copy (can't sync) the *.WPL Playlist from Windows to the Playlists folder on the Android device via Windows Explorer.

That's it!

Windows Media Player does smart syncing, so even if you have dozens of GB of music, adding a few new songs will still only take a few seconds.

Thank you, kcinholas!!