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Sonos won’t allow tracks stored on my phone to be added to Sonos Playlists.

My question is, what music service or Android app will allow me to create Playlists from tracks on my phone that I can then either play through Sonos or cast to Sonos? Or whose Playlists I can import to Sonos?

  1. My Google Play Music and YT Music apps will create Playlists from tracks on my phone, but can’t cast to Sonos (SONOS doesn’t show on list of available device)
  2. My Tidal app will cast to Sonos, but won’t let me add tracks from my phone to its Playlists
  3. I tried the Samsung Music Player based on a post in the Community but it just keeps stopping (I’m using a Pixel 2 so that’s likely the issue)
  4. I should mention that my YT Music app also has the limitation that I can’t mix locally stored tracks on the same Playlist as streamed tracks

I have hundreds of tracks I’ve accumulated over the years and my phone is my primary music library because it’s always with me. I’m relatively new to Sonos and am shocked that it won’t allow locally stored tracks to be added to a Sonos Playlist.

And I don’t buy the “Oh but your phone won’t always be around to the song can’t always be played if another person accesses that Playlist”. No one can guarantee that Tidal, Spotify, etc. will always be in operation either. Or that the house will always have a functional internet connection. So songs from those sources may not always be available yet Sonos has no objection to adding them. All Sonos would need to do is skip any song that isn’t available, and when a local track is added to a Playlist, pop up a warning that it will only be playable when the phone is within reach.

My apologies if I sound frustrated. I’ve consumed hours working on this and should not have to rely on the Community for assistance with this. If Sonos had decent documentation I would not have to relay on the Community for basic information.

 

 

 

Given Sonos’ system design it is logical and appropriate that you cannot add music stored on a mobile device to Sonos playlists.  I don’t think the theoretical possibility that Spotify may one day go out of business and you popping out to the supermarket are sufficiently similar events for your arguments to hold water.

What should be possible, however, is that playlists created in a music app on an Android device should be available on Sonos when using ‘on this mobile device’.  And it it seems to me that Sonos no longer does this reliably.  Playlists created in Samsung Music on my Samsung phone do work like this.  But I have experimented using a few other apps and the playlists simply don’t appear in Sonos.  This is odd, because the format and storage location of the playlists should be the same whichever music player app is used.  It seems to me that this is the problem that needs to be addressed.

My interest in this is purely theoretical, as I haven’t played from my phone for years.

... I don’t think the theoretical possibility that Spotify may one day go out of business and you popping out to the supermarket are sufficiently similar events for your arguments to hold water. ...

I appreciate your comments, John, and agree re the playlists should ALL be available.

However, on your point I quoted, we’ve all seen software companies go out of business or change direction or be bought etc. Not as often as I grocery shop, but it’s happened. And sites going down does occur. Again not as often as I grocery shop, but it does happen. The concept of a home internet connection, especially a wireless one, being interrupted is pretty reasonable, at least in my home and where I live. Further, try googling “song removed from music services” and you’l see multiple counts of songs being removed from music services like Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music etc., sometimes simply due to a disagreement with the artist (cough>Neil Young>cough)

Given that, I think you’re being picky. My position remains that Sonos’ excuse for this (“Oh, we can’t be asked to handle songs that might not always be available”) is just a touch precious.

  • R.

I think you are misrepresenting Sonos’ reasons for adopting this approach on a system which was originally designed without ‘play from the device’.  But let’s agree to differ. 

There's no clear solution given on creating playlists in Sonos app. The app do show all the songs, albums etc. of my music on the mobile. There is drop down menu also on the app by touching 3 dots on right top side which open various options . There's option to play next song, put song in a que etc. Under more options there is option to add to playlist, but this option is non functional. Therefore I am forced to open a particular album and listen to my desired song. So frustrating. I had shortlisted Bose 300 bluetooth speaker and Sonos 2nd generation as my bedside speaker to listen to my stored music before I fall asleep. And then I chose Sonos over bose because it's reproduction of old songs was more natural to my ears. And now in absence of playlist, I have to face frustration daily at bedtime. Will someone help ?

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