USB Stick to play music & add wallpapers etc

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cali65
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Cali65

Cali65

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I have managed my 16gb USB Cruzer recognised but the system finds no data on it & folders do not show. I have read that the folder & files have to be labelled in a certain way, I have formated it to Fat32 and I use a mac.
Can anyone help.......goal is to play music off it & add wallpapers etc.
My Galaxy S10+ which I use for Android Auto also has a MicroSD card installed in it, if that is another option.
 
I have had no problems with a PC and mp3 files. maybe try formatting on a PC and download files using it and see if that makes a difference.
 
For Wallpapers, see page 223 in the owner's manual.

For USB music, see pages 205 (USB ports,) 264-266 (playing a USB Flash Drive,) and page 290 (Compatible USB Flash Drives, etc.)

I have a 128GB SanDisk USB drive and have no issues with it reading the music from different folders on it.
 
Cali65 said:
I have managed my 16gb USB Cruzer recognised but the system finds no data on it & folders do not show. I have read that the folder & files have to be labelled in a certain way, I have formated it to Fat32 and I use a mac.
Can anyone help.......goal is to play music off it & add wallpapers etc.
My Galaxy S10+ which I use for Android Auto also has a MicroSD card installed in it, if that is another option.
Click to expand...
I experimented with 16, 32 (FAT32) and 64GB (NTFS) PC formats. Only the 64GB NTFS wouldn't work. Maybe it's an issue with Apple formatting?
 
David in TN said:
For Wallpapers, see page 223 in the owner's manual.

For USB music, see pages 205 (USB ports,) 264-266 (playing a USB Flash Drive,) and page 290 (Compatible USB Flash Drives, etc.)

I have a 128GB SanDisk USB drive and have no issues with it reading the music from different folders on it.
Click to expand...

Which format did you use on your 128GB drive? NTFS? I have not been able to have my 64GB to work.
 
I formatted to Fat32 using windows 10 on my Mac.......Parallels.
I thing it really has to do with the folder and files set up. How have you all set up music folders and files........starting with the 1st folder on the drive.
 
David in TN said:
For Wallpapers, see page 223 in the owner's manual.

For USB music, see pages 205 (USB ports,) 264-266 (playing a USB Flash Drive,) and page 290 (Compatible USB Flash Drives, etc.)

I have a 128GB SanDisk USB drive and have no issues with it reading the music from different folders on it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, will look those up.
 
I have a folder called MUSIC, under that each letter of the alphabet with "0" getting all the numbers and odd characters. Under A, for example, there are folders for individual artists: Aerosmith, Abba, Acoustic Alchemy, etc. In those folders I have songs by that artist. If there is only an individual song by the artist, then it just resides in the A folder.

Easier to navigate through the folders to find songs this way:
MUSIC\Q\QUEEN\Queen - Bohemian Rapsody

Scrolling through thousands of songs takes time, and the more you can break it down, the easier it is.

I don't have the drive with me right now or I'd look at see what format it is in. I think I'm just using whatever it came with. Don't recall reformatting.
 
Cali65 said:
I formatted to Fat32 using windows 10 on my Mac.......Parallels.
I thing it really has to do with the folder and files set up. How have you all set up music folders and files........starting with the 1st folder on the drive.
Click to expand...

Here is a screenshot of my folder tree on my 32 GB SanDisk. Quite simple.

upload_2019-3-29_18-31-33.webp
 
Mine is set formatted FAT 32 it is a 32 GB stick and I use a MAC. I have folders each folder is an album that contains one or more songs. I leave the stick plugged in and start the car just like doing a map update. Works great.
 
I jailbreak my unit with HondaHack, then install PowerAmp to play music from USB drive. PowerAmp is a much better music app which displays nice ID3 tags and artwork.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
A tip for mp3 files:

This may not be for everyone, but thought I would share it.

I have a TON of music/audio book files on my computer hard drive, ripped at highest quality. The problem is how to compress them so they fit on the USB drive to put in the car, and still have decent audio quality. I found a pretty painless way to do it: using Google Play music.

For years I have been using the free version of GPM. You can upload 50,000 of your own tracks to it ( for the time being anyway, after many years, they have announced they will be melding GPM with YouTube audio sometime in future, and no word on whether they will retain the feature to store your own music for free) very easily, by using their GPM Music Manager app. Select your file folders, hit upload, and it's done, with a really nice interface.

The beauty is that GPM automatically compresses your audio files a lot, but I can tell you it does a fantastic job, and it sounds *great* through the Clarity stereo. Once your GPM library is set up, it is very easy to download the kit and kaboodle back to a folder on your computer, and from there to your USB drive. The file folders are recognized by the Clarity - you can even use the voice command button on the steering wheel to call up by band name, or album name and it plays!

I have literally thousands of hours worth of music and audio books files on, IIRC, a 32 GB USB drive, and it is only halfway filled. That's probably ten times more content than I could have loaded with the full-rez audio files, and it was easy. Plus, if you are new to GPM - it's great. Your entire audio library available to you at any time anywhere in the world for streaming, or download, with zero commercials, for free.
 
I didn't get around to buying a new USB flashdrive but what I did do was install PowerAmp music player, which works with Android Auto, on my phone. I then added my music on my micro sd card (installed in my phone) and everything works really well. No special folder layout etc needed and I can choose albums, create playlist & favorites to play perfectly......no lagging & skipping tracks shows info immediately on android auto.
For now, this will suffice.......not sure if PowerAmp through Android Auto would recognize music on a USB flashdrive in the car, might try someday.
 
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