How do I port my iTunes Library to my Android Phone? (Need Answer Fast-ish)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have my music in iTunes (for Windows) on my laptop. I have a 4th Generation iPod Nano (16 GB) for carrying my songs/podcasts/audio-books around. I use it a lot plugged into the media slot of my car and for travel domestically and internationally.

I have both purchased songs and ripped songs in my iTunes library (quite a lot of ripped songs).

Until today. I unplugged my iPod from my car and plugged it into my laptop to update with some new songs in my Library. No response, no indication that my iPod was recognized by my laptop. No response from the iPod to any clicks on its controls (plugged in or unplugged). The battery has been slowly losing its life, so it’s not like its totally out of the blue.

TLDR; “It’s bleeding demised!”

Bottom line for the text below: 1) What should I install on my Android phone to import my iTunes Library into? 2) How do I export from my iTunes Library into my phone (step by step)?

I can live without it in my car for a while (I have Sirius XM), but I’ll be traveling in early September and I count on my iPod and noise cancelling earphones on the plane.

I’d like to port my entire library into my Galaxy S24. I am so used to the iTunes interface, that I’d like something at least as intuitive. Nothing is off the board, but I certainly want to be able to organize my songs (including retaining albums and their song order without manual editing) and sort them in a variety of ways, build playlists, and import new songs. I kind of like sitting at my computer and finding songs (here, YouTube, etc.) and importing them and curating things on a nice big monitor.

I know Apple Music is available for Android and might be the most familiar GUI, but I don’t know how friendly it will be to ripped songs and how well it will work when my phone has no network connection.

If not Apple Music, what about something like the streaming services (Spotify, YouTube, etc.)? Do they allow private libraries of songs to fit along with their own offerings? (But whatever solution has work after the order to put all devices in airp0lane mode)

Are there Music apps that are good at managing a song library, have intuitive control, and are friendly for importing music from a variety of sources?

I’m open to trying new stuff, but I have never liked spending much time on my music outside of listening to it. I tend to learn new GUIs quickly, but I also am someone who has experienced his share of bad UX, which no combination of colors, fonts and quirky buttons ever ameliorates.

For anyone who read this all the way. Here’s a cookie.
:cookie:

2

Are you married to iTunes on the PC? If not, I would recommend converting from iTunes to MediaMonkey. This software also has an Android app, so syncing PC to Phone is relatively painless, which includes copying the music and playlists to your phone. (Disclaimer: I haven’t used it, but I have two good friends who do, and they swear by it.)

If you want to stay with iTunes on the PC, then you’ll need to find an Android music app that you like, and manually copy the music from PC to phone. You’ll also need to export your playlists from iTunes, copy them to your phone, and import them into your music app. This is what I did//do.

I use Musicolet as my Android music player. Once I copied the music from the iTunes folder structure to my phone, the app found the music, including albums. I imported the playlists, and it’s working fine. However, if I ever create a new playlist on iTunes, or add new music, it’s a manual process to update everything on my Samsung phone. I don’t import music on my phone, nor do I create new playlists there. I do everything on my Windows PC and manually update my Android phone.

There are a large number of (free) music players for the Android. I tried several, and Musicolet was my choice. You may find something else that you like better.

I don’t use any music streaming service (except for Sirius), so I can’t speak to your questions regarding those apps.

ETA: Here’s a link for MediaMonkey: https://www.mediamonkey.com/

3

Thanks. So i currently use itunes on windows to update and manage my media and then periodically connect my ipod to my laptop and update my portable music, etc.

Instead, I’d use MediaMonkey to update and manage my media and then periodically connect my phone to my laptop and update my portable music, etc. In Musicolet.

Which raises the question of how minimal can i make this process? Itunes and ipod are automatic updates and i dont expect that, but don’t want to spend a lot of time redoing configurations and list

4

No, you would install MediaMonkey on your phone as well. Then when you connect your phone to the PC, syncing and updating would be automated.

Not sure what you mean here.

5

So…MediaMonkey on my PC and MediaMonkey on my phone. Auto-sync (PC to phone, or both ways?) when I connect my phone to my PC. Would I be able to control what syncs/updates? For example, if I have movies in MediaMonkey on my PC, I don’t want them on my phone.

Then would I manually export media from MediaMonkey on my phone to Musicolet or would Musicolet just use the files/folders in MediaMonkey to act as the player of music/podcasts, etc.?

How would MediMonkey interact with iTunes? I assume there is a straightforward process for exporting everything from iTunes into MediaMonkey, but once that’s done I may want to keep buying media in the Store and maybe even ripping CDs (I see that MediaMonkey rips CDs, but iTunes has done a good job of ripping CDs, adding cover art, keeping tracks in the right order with a decent amount of metadata so until I get a good feel for how well MediMonkey does this, I’d keep it as an option). So updating new iTunes content may an an ongoing item.

As far as redoing, I just worry about interfaces and import/export that requires a lot of management each time.

6

If you install MediaMonkey on both platforms, it is the music app on both platforms, including the music player.

If I were you, I’d install MediaMonkey on your PC and see what the interface looks like. Can it find your music okay? Can it import your playlists? Etc., etc. If you like it, then install it on your phone and do the copy/sync from computer to phone.

If you don’t like it, then I would suggest you search for other options, or do the manual procedures as I outlined above. MediaMonkey looks like the easiest and most straightforward method, IMO.

7

I used to use MediaMonkey to sync music from my PC to my Android phone. I stopped using it for reasons that I don’t clearly remember, so I can’t disrecommend it for any specific reason. Currently I just keep all my music in Google Drive, and use CloudBeats on my phone to play directly from Drive. CloudBeats is a pretty minimalistic app, but that’s exactly what I wanted. Easy to find music by artist or album, and no suggestions for other music I might like and crap like that.

8

Thanks. Does this support playlists?

9

Yes, CloudBeats supports playlists. If you want to try it, I’d suggest you upload a few songs to Google Drive, install CloudBeats on your phone and try it out. The only downside is if you have a large music collection you may need to pay for extra Google Drive storage. I’m paying $20 per year for 100 GB of storage, which for me is a completely trivial cost.

10

I don’t have much to add other than I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to figure out how to migrate my iTunes collection to something Android or Alexa (Amazon) compatible for awhile.

11

If I may ask, what all have you tried?

12

You can remove the fast-ish (maybe) from my OP title. I had tried my iPod (playing fine until I turned my car off and pulled the connector out) connected to my laptop (with and without iTunes active), on its own, and back in the car (plugged before starting and after starting). Dead.

Then it occurred to me that I hadn’t tried just plugging the iPod into a charger. That worked! I then plugged the iPod into the laptop and iTunes detected and sync’d it. It went from Apple Symbol to fully charge suspiciously fast, so it is still on its last legs, most likely.

Besides, I realize I’m a dinosaur, with no music on my phone and carrying a little iPod around, so now is as good as any to evolve from a dinosaur to a chicken.

So thanks to everyone participating (particularly @Railer13 ) and keep suggestions coming and add any experiences you’ve had with making this type of transition.

13

If you’re lazy and don’t want to try anything new, you can do what I did for decades… just keep buying a new iPod when yours dies.

There are hundreds out there. Especially since you don’t have to be like me and only go for the 5th generation because you love the click wheel AND getting FM radio through it… (ahh, live NPR on walks…)

The biggest catch is, they’ll be used, so none will have a new battery in it. Oh, wait, there are people selling new ones, huh…

~ ~ ~

But when my kid was playing an audiobook in my car, and I saw her hit the “Rewind 15 Seconds” button on her iPhone, I knew I had to upgrade. So I joined the Apple sheeple.

And I love that I can sync my vintage iTunes library to it with no problem.

Thanks for the cookie!