[GUIDE] How to save Google Music to your SD

fergie716 · Sep 24, 2012

So I'm not sure if a guide like this exists but I looked and didn't see anything. This is a How-To on saving music you paid for on Google Play. I have a separate MP3 player and I also make CD's from time to time and I tried to figure out a way on how I could save my music I paid for on Google Play. Also, there are those situations when you have no data connection (jogging for example) and want to listen to the music you paid for but can't. This is how I did it....

Requirements:

ROOT Access

Google Music

Root Enabled File Explorer

Open Google Music and navigate to the music you paid for on Google Play and start playing the song. Pay special attention to the progress bar in Google Music, it should show how much your music is buffering. Once the song is buffered to 100% pause the song (or you can just play the entire song to ensure the song is downloaded completely)

So once the song is buffered to 100% or you listened to it completely open your root enabled File Explorer and navigate to /data/data/com.google.android.music folder (as pictured, at the top)

Open up the com.google.android.music folder and go to /cache/music/ (as pictured below)

Depeneding on how many songs you buffered you will have multiple .mp3 files there or just one. You want to copy those mp3 files and paste them onto your internal SD or external SD. I don't think the mp3's have the proper id3 (artist, song title, genre, etc) so you can find a program to do that either on your phone or PC

Hope this helps someone. Remember, let your song buffer to 100% or just listen to it completely before copying the mp3. I am working with a buddy of mine on making an app that will do this for you and make it easier to download entire albums. Stay tuned

dav3wash · Sep 24, 2012

Or you can check the box that says "keep on device"... then it will play offline too.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

The_Tech_Ninja · Sep 26, 2012

dav3wash said:
Or you can check the box that says "keep on device"... then it will play offline too.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

but if you flash and wipe that music is not there...

thanks OP!

ktrotter11 · Sep 27, 2012

Good idea but it becomes redundant because you'll end up with multiple duplicates eventually

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

hameedullah · Oct 4, 2012

I thought, it will be some kind of hack or an app that will make Google Music to cache the songs on SD card so they survive the wipe. But I am really sorry, this is not very useful.

spectremANDROID · Oct 4, 2012

hameedullah said:
I thought, it will be some kind of hack or an app that will make Google Music to cache the songs on SD card so they survive the wipe. But I am really sorry, this is not very useful.

Its useful information for some, not very useful for others. One of XDA's higher purposes is to educate. Being that I'm not a developer or a hacker and maybe not quite as generally clever or software knowledgeable as others of you, this is something that I didn't know. Now I know.

I'd say that I've been adequately educated for today and that XDA is fulfilling its objective.

Not an attack. Just a reminder.

suitifiable · Oct 4, 2012

459. bzestem

hameedullah said:
I thought, it will be some kind of hack or an app that will make Google Music to cache the songs on SD card so they survive the wipe. But I am really sorry, this is not very useful.

There are several uses for it, don't assume you're the only person who has an opinion about the validity of someone's info, it makes you sound like an bigger douche than you obviously already really are.

I know, that must be hard to believe, but someone had to tell you.

dexter93 · Oct 4, 2012

lol, this has been around for ages. I didnt know a guide had to be written for that, it seems pretty obvious imho.

Anyway, nice write up mate

stone_phalanges · Oct 4, 2012

Thanks!!! I'm not sure if this is just my phone (ATT GS3) but the music that I cache or save for offline listening also shows up in the SD card within the Android folder under com.google.music. You don't need root to see this folder.

To those worried about making duplicates it really doesn't. Cached music won't show up in another music player because Google music puts a .nomedia file in the folder to make sure it won't show up anywhere else (a **** move but hey otherwise it's great) if you want to keep using Google music you can clear the cache when you are done copying the files.

pulques · Oct 4, 2012

great idea

is great idea but i think than is redundant too as tell in some post on top, i use in the beguin than buy my phone :cyclops:

DerangedLoofah · Oct 4, 2012

I personally would love an app that transfers it over to my SD card. I like Google music since it auto syncs, I just wish someone could make an app to auto sync that music to the card. It's obviously not that simple though.

Speedin07si · Oct 4, 2012

You can also go to Google play on a desktop/laptop, log in and find your paid for music. It'll allow your to download the music to your computer. Then transfer files from computer to phone. Or burn to cd' s or other mp3 players.

Sent from Pluto.

elmerohueso · Oct 4, 2012

hameedullah said:
I thought, it will be some kind of hack or an app that will make Google Music to cache the songs on SD card so they survive the wipe. But I am really sorry, this is not very useful.

If you restore Play Music from Titanium or Clockwork backup after a wipe, but before connecting to a network, it won't need to re-download your pinned music (assuming you didn't wipe your /sdcard partition)..
I've done this a few times.

---------- Post added at 01:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:32 PM ----------

DerangedLoofah said:
I personally would love an app that transfers it over to my SD card. I like Google music since it auto syncs, I just wish someone could make an app to auto sync that music to the card. It's obviously not that simple though.

Use Directory Bind to map your /sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.music to a folder on your SD card. I've been doing this for a while. Or you can use swapSD.

Kir3 · Oct 4, 2012

Nice guide for guys that don't know this. I knew this before, but music is lacking Metadata (Artist, Title, Album....) If you make an app, make it so it can get he metadata from google play music and put it in the mp3

Speedin07si · Oct 4, 2012

Speedin07si said:
You can also go to Google play on a desktop/laptop, log in and find your paid for music. It'll allow your to download the music to your computer. Then transfer files from computer to phone. Or burn to cd' s or other mp3 players.

Sent from Pluto.

This method works.

That's from the new Three Days Grace album Transit of Venus. I bought through Google play.

I've made 2 cds of this and tranfered it to my sd card and my wife's sd card.

Sent from Pluto.

kpjimmy · Oct 4, 2012

I bought the Music importer app a year ago when it was called google music importer. Google took the app down and recent months, the app is back. The free version can import up to 50 songs from google music, but the paid version (on one device) can import as many as you want.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/...SwxLDEsImNvbS5zYXBpZW4ubXVzaWMuaW1wb3J0ZXIiXQ..

I use it all the time when I buy mp3s from Amazon or wherever.

ikmattie · Oct 9, 2012

I've used Cloud Music Sniper for this matter, also saves metadata to your MP3's...

I've used this because i want my Google play Music files to be played via DLNA on my home cinema, this is nog possible with the native Google app

rferrett · Oct 28, 2012

Hmmm I am having real problems with this. It seems that on my S3 on Jellybean the Music app is not saving the cache to

sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.music/cache/music

And I cannot for the life of me find where the files are being stored. They are on the phone somewhere taking up space but I cannot find them. Neither ES nor Astro can see the files anywhere.

It is really, really annoying me. I almost threw my phone at the wall in frustration. Where on earth could JB be hiding the files?

doumer · Nov 16, 2012

elmerohueso said:
If you restore Play Music from Titanium or Clockwork backup after a wipe, but before connecting to a network, it won't need to re-download your pinned music (assuming you didn't wipe your /sdcard partition)..
I've done this a few times.

is this still true? also for phones without sd-slot? heared that in this case google music may store the pinned music as cache somewhere else and not on the sdcard partition, so they might also got wiped.
would love to know, if it is still possible to restore an TB backup of music after an full wipe and wont have the pinned music lost, becaus redownloading every wipe would be a pain in the ass and would make the cloud service of google music unusuable to me (downloading 15gb every wipe isn't really the way to go).

samo615 · Jan 4, 2013

I think what most of the people in this thread are looking for, including myself, is a way to have Google Music "automatically" save cached music to the SD Card. This is a definite problem with the Galaxy Nexus (possibly because the SD Card is built in). As a result of caching locally, Titanium and nandroid backups are bloated. Manually moving cache to SD and back to device is a pain if even possible and retagging all of your google songs for local cache again is not so fun.

If anyone has a good solution for for automatically saving Google Music cache to the SD Card, please post. Please, no manual work arounds like 'just copy mp3's directly to SD Card' or 'write a script to copy files'. I believe everyone is searching for a hack to the Google Music app to change the cache storage location to redirect to the location of your choice.

[GUIDE] How to save Google Music to your SD

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