Can you transfer .mp3 to kindle fire?

Factual Questions
1

Gah.

Long story short. Can a Kindle Fire copy .mp3s from a Windows 7 machine.

My Mom is going blind. She has a Kindle Fire (Silk Operating system). And a windows 7 computer. She would like to be able to listen to audio books.

I was able to download library books to her Win 7 machine, and convert to .mp3. I’ve done this for myself and put them on a thumb drive for car trips. Easy Peasy.

I can connect to the Kindle Fire with a USB cable. I can see the Kindle Fire on the Windows machine. But I can’t copy the .mp3 audio onto the Fire. Can’t make a folder, can’t drop it into the folders available - books, audio or music folder. Nothing. Does not show up on the Kindle.

Is this not possible? From my online searches it should be. But not working. I can’t create a new folder/directory on the Fire. WTF? It’s just a computer. MP3’s are not not getting moved to it. Yes I’m pissed off.

Note: I won’t have access to my moms computers for another week or so. I live a 100 miles away. Shall I give up, and get another device for my mom for audio books?

2

The easiest thing would probably be to upload the .mp3 somewhere like a GDrive or dropbox, then download it from the Fire’s browser.

Second option: email it to her Fire. The Fire’s email address should be listed under the account menu, I think.

The .mp3 will end up in your Documents / Files folder on the Fire.

3

You should be able to connect the Fire to your computer (via USB) and access it just like an external drive: create new folders, drag and drop files, etc.

If you’re working with downloaded library books, there may be DRM issues that are preventing you from transferring those files.

Could you download the files directly from the library, perhaps via Overdrive?

How do you/she plan to play the mp3 files once you get them onto the Fire? If they’re in the Music directory, they should be playable as “music,” as long as there are no issues with track ordering, etc.; but it may work better to use a separate app (like Overdrive; or I like Music Folder Player for playing audiobooks and podcasts in mp3 format, but your mom might have trouble with something like that).

4

Got the files. Converted to .mp3 (using Overdrive). Hooked up to the Fire via USB. I can see the Fire from the Win7 laptop. I drag and drop/copy to the Fire. No mater what folder I put it in, the Fire does NOT see them.

These .mp3 play fine on the win7 machine.

A bit stumped

I would REALLY like a way to create a new folder on the Fire for this stuff, but there does not seem to be a way to do that. Does it need to be unlocked from Amazon somehow??

5

Do you see a folder on the Kindle called “Music”. mp3s go there and only there. (Unless you use a better app like the folder player one.)

Note: mp3s play in the order they are put in the directory. Organize first, then copy in order.

6

Yep, saw the Music folder. Nothing got transferred to it.

7

Pretty much, yes, but just as a point of clarification, Windows doesn’t see most Android devices (and that includes the Fire) as external drives. Instead it uses a file service called MTP (Media Transfer Protocol). Technically this means you’re accessing your tablet or phone through a file service and not a disk service – which is one reason that you don’t see the “eject external drive” icon. It uses a commit/rollback function on the Android device to clean up in case anything was interrupted. It also means you can’t perform certain disk-level functions through it, like formatting an SD card.

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That said, OP, I’m not completely clear on what you’ve been trying so far, but as I understand it you’ve been able to copy the MP3 files to the Fire but the Fire “can’t see them” and thus can’t play them.

I have a Fire HD 8 and I just noticed that I have a few music files that I put on there a while ago, probably only because I was playing around and testing something. Your problem I think is that the Fire doesn’t have a standard generic music player. There is an icon called “Music” which appears to be both a means of buying music from Amazon and probably a music player, so you might try that (I don’t want to go through what appears to be a registration/confirmation process with it – the whole thing seems to be geared to buying Amazon’s music and probably has limitations as a generic music player).

Failing that, there are lots of free music-player apps that you can download, just as there are lots of free media players. I happen to have VLC on there and it has a music-playing option, so I just tried that. It plays the MP3s just fine, and the MP3s are just sitting in a random folder on my SD card.

I just tried that as an experiment, but although VLC is great on a PC I totally do NOT recommend for the Fire – it seems to have audio volume and quality issues, at least on mine. There are lots of more suitable (mostly free) music and media players. Download a decent MP3 player app and you should be just fine.

8

As an experiment I’d try transferring an mp3 file or two of your own that you know are standard mp3 format and don’t have any DRM.

I’m not sure why you can’t create a new folder on the Fire. I’ve always been able to (using the “New Folder” option in Windows file explorer.

But it’s possible that installing the Overdrive app on the Fire would be a better way of getting library audiobooks to the Fire in the first place.

9

I second the Overdrive (if that’s what her library subscribes to. Mine used to but switched to Cloud Library) suggestion. It’s a lot easier. I can easily browse for a book and download it. Considering that it’s not exactly legal to convert library audiobooks to a different format (no judgement, I’ve done it with audiobooks on CD from the library so I could listen to them on my phone), there could be DRM issues.

But I have never had trouble creating folders or manually copying files to Fire devices, and I’ve owned several, although I’ve usually used a Mac with the Android File Transfer app.

Nitpick 1:
Amazon hasn’t made a device called Kindle Fire since 2014. They’ve been called Fire Tablets since them, because people confused them with Kindles, which are e-readers using an e-ink display.

Nitpick 2:
Silk is a web browser, not an OS. Fire devices use a modified Android OS called Fire OS, current devices are based on Android 7.1

10

Thanks all. It will be at least 2 weeks before I have access to the Fire again. I’ll have to give it another go then. It’s very, very odd.

11

Excellent points. It helps a lot to use the right terms.

12

As it happens, I just did something similar this last weekend. I got my parents a Fire 10 and transferred several .mp3s over to it from a Win10 PC. No problems copying entire folders.

Some things I can confirm from that experience (it’s my first time using a Fire tablet):

  1. After transfer, I could see the files from the Fire using the ‘Docs’ app, which was the first thing I did after disconnecting the USB cable.
  2. The built-in ‘Music’ app works fine for playing offline .mp3s and I didn’t need to download any other apps (though I may do so for other reasons). I could build simple playlists or play individual files. The app also recognized the newly transferred files and had them under a ‘Recently Downloaded’ auto-playlist and defaulted to the ‘Music’ folder for finding files to play.
  3. The ‘Music’ tab on the ribbon across the top could also see these files, though that interface worked a bit differently.

From Amazon’s webpage, one thing that could be relevant is that, especially for older Windows OSes, you may need to download Windows Media Player 11 (freely available from Microsoft) to complete the file transfer. It may be worth seeing if your mom’s Win7 PC has WMP11 or if that needs to be done first.

13

I had an issue like this quite a while ago, because I hadn’t noticed a confirmation dialog—on plugging in over USB a notification displayed on my device. After I noticed this and chose the correct option (which was something like, ‘allow file transfer over USB’ the device showed up on the computer and everything has worked since as expected.

14

Well, I’m (the OP) back.

Finally working on this again. The original problem of transferring .mp3s seems to be a bad USB cable :smack: . I can now see all folders and navigate the Kindle Fire fine. And transfer .mp3s

I would like to place these .mp3s (audio books) into a new directory on the kindle.

Still problems though.

It has a books directory that I can see on the win7 machine, but when I put them there, they don’t show up on the Kindle Fire. That goes directly to the cloud it seems.

I would like this local on the device.

I CAN place them in DCIM. I can see them on the Kindle and hear them. But that’s a stupid place to put books. I can also see and hear them in the DOCS directory. Also a stupid place to put them.

I can find no where to create a short cut on the device to a directory (that I can’t create seem to create anyway). Google tells me to use the menu. It has no menu button or option that I can find.

Long and short.

  1. Can I, and how do I create a new directory on this Fire for these audio book .mp3s?

  2. Can I create a short cut to that directory on the home screen of the Fire? How do you do that?

This is a Fire HD 8.

15

You should be able to create new directories (aka Folders) using Window’s File Explorer.

As far as I know, you can only have “shortcuts” to apps, not directories. What app/software were you planning on using to play the mp3 files?

16

I thought so too, but win7 won’t let me do it. No option to do so shows up on win machine.

Ok. I think my problem is that I’m looking at this as I would a PC. I thought I would have some control of it.

I have copied the books to the ‘docs’ folder and they are playing fine through whatever application the device uses.

This will work for my mom. There is a ‘docs’ shortcut. She’s thrilled to be able to listen to books easily in bed (I know there are other options).

Still pisses me off that I have zero control of this thing.

17

Didn’t try this exact thing but I did create folders on the Win10 box and just copied entire folders over instead of individual files. Next time I have access to my parents’ fire, I’ll see if I can create new folders.

18

Thanks Bob, I am moving entire folders/directories. No problem there (now that I have a working USB cable).

I just wanted to create a folder/directory on the Kindle Fire and name it… Moms Books. And set up a short cut to it on the Home page. Win7 does not have that option to create new directories/folders. It’s just not there (not just greyed out).

I ended up putting them in the Documents directory on the Fire. There is already a link on the home page for that.

We have a Win 10 laptop and desktop at home. I don’t generally travel with the laptop if my Wife is not with me cause she likes using it at home.