[Q] Google Music saved to external SD card solution?

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Ok this is going to be a bit of thread necromancy, but another user, GMtom1 was helpful enought to find the thread, albeit for another phone, but this might be able to solve one of the problems people have been having with their phone and it not utilizing the external SD cards correctly. Or not, I'm hoping someone smarter than me can lend a hand.

And without further ado....

Originally Posted by FuzzyMeep Two

This is a fix i figured out piecing together other peoples attempts.

Use this as a script

mount -o bind sdcard2/android/data/com.​google.android.music sdcard/android/data/com.​google.android.music

Alternately you can change the first location to the location of your choosing as long as it resides on the external as card.

Ex.
Mount - o bind sdcard2/music sdcard/Android/data/com.​google.Android.music
will bind:

sdcard/Android/data/com.​google.Android.music (google's forced save location)
to
sdcard2/music


Go to google music (play music now) settings and clear any music that is currently saved to your device.

this only applies to music made available offline. If you do not clear it before running the script the music will exist on your internal sdcard but not be accessible.

open script manager and find the script you made

Select it and make sure to click set on boot and superuser

Run Your script.

That is it now your default save location for google music is bound to the location on the external sdcard. the device will see the location as its default but really be saving to the external sdcard.

You can check this by going to google music. Selecting "make available offline" and look at the free space. It should shoe the space available on your external sdcard.




TLR Version (noob version)

I was getting a lot of questions about the preliminary steps here (i.e. rooting, writing script, etc) so i decided to attach the noob version in case anyone needs verification on how to accomplish these steps.


HOW DO I ROOT?
So, Rooting gives you full access and control over your phone. instructions for how to root are device specific. so i would start by searching XDA for "YOUR DEVICE one click root"
ex. samsung galaxy s2 one one click root

some devices are easier to root than others. i cannot provide steps for your particular device, but through XDA, and google you CAN find everything you need.

some devices have one click root tools, some do not, so the rooting process is more in depth for those devices.

rooting instructions are so device specific i could not find a generic set of instructions, and don't want to mislead anyone by linking them to a set of instructions not ​compatible with their device.

There is a risk of bricking your device (making it inoperable) while rooting, although the risk is minimal... almost non existent if you carefully follow instructions. I have rooted 5 seperate devices without bricking any, and, in most cases even if bricked the device can still be restored.

there are additional benefits to rooting, such as overclocking
for example my Galaxy S2 normally runs at 1.5 GHZ, i have increased the speed to 1.8GHZ

(NOTE** Without XDA DEVELOPERS i would have rooted 0 devices, and probably bricked at least one, so thank you to all of you out there who have helped me, I hope this method will help some of you in return.)


NOW THAT YOU ARE ROOTED...

INSTALL SCRIPT MANAGER..
First, to install script manager just go to google market (Play Store) and search for script manager

INSTALL ES FILE EXPLORER..
To make a script go to google market (Play Store) and find ES File Explorer

WRITE SCRIPT..
Open es file explorer when install completes.
in es file explorer click the menu button, and select "new"
when prompted select "File"
name your file something you'll remember
Ex.MusicScript
Click your new file
when prompted select "Text"
type this EXACTLY how you see it
Mount - o bind sdcard2/music sdcard/Android/data/com.​​google.Android.music
press back and when prompted to save click yes

MAKE DESTINATION FOLDER..
now on es file explorer click "Favorites" (the star)
a new menu will pop up, at the top you willsee a picture of a phone with "/" underneath it click the phone
this will take you to the root directory
click the folder Sdcard2
click the menu button, and select "new"
when prompted select "Folder"
Name the folder music

Your script and destination music location are created

EXECUTE SCRIPT..
now open script manager
find your script which should be located in the directory /mnt/sdcard and the file name you chose earlier
select the script
open as script/executable
make sure script is selected not executable
click the buttons for "Su" and "Boot"
click save
Go to google music (play music now) settings and clear any music that is currently saved to your device.
this only applies to music made available offline. If you do not clear it before running the script the music will exist on your internal Sdcard but not be accessible.

now reboot the script will run at boot a prompt will appear asking for superuser rights, click yes and remember this selection (it may say something different than remember this selection whichever option resembles remember needs to be selected.)

YOU'RE DONE!!!

your music should now save to sdcard2/music but the device will still think it is saving to the default sdcard/Android/data/​com.​google.Android.music

You can check this by going to google music. Selecting "make available offline" and look at the free space. It should shoe the space available on your external sdcard.

So try your hardest to figure out how to root using google, and if your not confident enough to attempt it this fix may not be for you.

if you have tried everything you can and are still stuck message me back, including what device you have, and i will see if i can find a link to the rooting instructions for your particular device.

I assume no responsibility if you damage your device... These steps do work, and if followed will fix your music issues as well as introducing you to a world of additional benefits of being a rooted user.

This seems like a workable solution to me but like I said, anyone smarter out there?

I think it would be a lot easier just to change the mounts:

SDCard = External
SDcard2 = internal


I have been searching on a way to do that but I cant find anything...

I know it's been awhile since anyone has posted on this, but I was having this issue on CM10 and found a solution.

I changed the script to say: mount -o bind /external_sd/GoogleMusic/ /sdcard/Android/data/com.google.Android.music/

The issue I was having was the naming convention for the internal & external storage. Depending on the file explorer I used, the name for the external SD card varied from "ext_sd", "external_sd", "sdcard1". The name for the internal storage also varied between "sdcard" & "sdcard0".

Also, some of the threads I found that were discussing this problem had the "/mnt/" in front of the "ext_sd". When I tried that, it didn't work for me.

YMMV, but I thought I would share the solution that worked for me.

Originally Posted by omadhaun

I know it's been awhile since anyone has posted on this, but I was having this issue on CM10 and found a solution.

I changed the script to say: mount -o bind /external_sd/GoogleMusic/ /sdcard/Android/data/com.google.Android.music/

The issue I was having was the naming convention for the internal & external storage. Depending on the file explorer I used, the name for the external SD card varied from "ext_sd", "external_sd", "sdcard1". The name for the internal storage also varied between "sdcard" & "sdcard0".

Also, some of the threads I found that were discussing this problem had the "/mnt/" in front of the "ext_sd". When I tried that, it didn't work for me.

YMMV, but I thought I would share the solution that worked for me.

THANK YOU, I've been searching for something like this for weeks! I'm going to give this a shot tonight in hopes that I can free up my internal SD which is currently full! I hope this work and I'll keep you posted.