Answer
Dealing with storage limitations
I've had a Sonos system for a couple of months now, and already, "my Sonos" will no longer hold any more albums or playlists. Is there a simple work-around for this problem? Is that what "My Cloud Home" and "Plex" are for, since both are add-on services for Sonos?
Best answer by bockersjv
The limit afaik is on the indexing. The index is held in each and every one of the Sonos Players. The restriction is because the older players have a limited amount of memory and Sonos would not want to increase the limit and effectively end the life of older players.
The index is limited by the number of characters in the music file tags. You could use a tool like MP3 tag to clean these and create a more room.
The index is limited by the number of characters in the music file tags. You could use a tool like MP3 tag to clean these and create a more room.
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+21The limit afaik is on the indexing. The index is held in each and every one of the Sonos Players. The restriction is because the older players have a limited amount of memory and Sonos would not want to increase the limit and effectively end the life of older players.
The index is limited by the number of characters in the music file tags. You could use a tool like MP3 tag to clean these and create a more room.
The index is limited by the number of characters in the music file tags. You could use a tool like MP3 tag to clean these and create a more room.
+21More and more people are switching away from locally stored music to streaming services, the limit that Sonos has is actually quite large but some people do have vast music collections that they want to use. The services you mention are designed to let you workaround this. Bluesound (another system) also has a limit but in tests this has been over 200,000 tracks.
+1I don't know if this is helpful, but I keep a separate folder on my NAS for my Sonos music. My collection is too large to all be on the Sonos.
+21How do you manage it? Swap directories when you want different music?
+1I keep two "Sonos Music" directories on my NAS drives. One is for the stuff I want to keep at the ready and always want access to. The second is for short term music that I only want to hear once or twice.
While the "many people are happy to rent their music" narrative does make local libraries less of an issue for Sonos as they focus on ensuring compatibility with the streaming/subscription services, it is annoying that Sonos doesn't seem to give users any info on the size of a local library or memory used so that those of us with large music collections can manage them better. Am I missing an option somewhere? Is there an easy way to at least see how much Sonos storage I'm using?
+1To Sonos' credit, one feature I could not live without is the ability to browse my music collection by folders. From from all my music has good tack data.
+21Repeat, It is not the size of the collection but the index of that collection. If you cut the music tags down to the bare minimum you can index a lot more. If the tags are long with loads of info the numbers start to fall. Therefore it is very difficult to specify exactly what the limits are. 65k is the guide given by sonos. Back when the early players were introduced I doubt they anticipated music collections so large or tags getting that long.
+21There have been a few threads on this issue.
This one had some workarounds.
https://en.community.sonos.com/advanced-setups-229000/workaround-for-large-music-collection-16126
And here is a long thread on the 65k limit.
https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/future-of-the-65k-limit-6046321/index1.html
This one had some workarounds.
https://en.community.sonos.com/advanced-setups-229000/workaround-for-large-music-collection-16126
And here is a long thread on the 65k limit.
https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/future-of-the-65k-limit-6046321/index1.html
I'd try some testing to see if it worked for me. Make a copy of your music, use a tag editor to remove all but essential tags from the copies. Compare how many load compared to the originals.
Might also get a few more by fiddling with album names and track titles.
I'm not going to try this, my collection hasn't grown in several years and I can't see it growing in the future either.
Might also get a few more by fiddling with album names and track titles.
I'm not going to try this, my collection hasn't grown in several years and I can't see it growing in the future either.
Repeat, It is not the size of the collection but the index of that collection. If you cut the music tags down to the bare minimum you can index a lot more. If the tags are long with loads of info the numbers start to fall. Therefore it is very difficult to specify exactly what the limits are. 65k is the guide given by sonos. Back when the early players were introduced I doubt they anticipated music collections so large or tags getting that long.
Exactly, that small Sonos memory is required to store the relevant tagging information that Sonos uses (we can probably assume that tags like "Year" and "Composer" are ignored and don't count towards memory usage as they are not displayed anywhere, and that artwork is only read on-the-fly and not stored), and that any track count is a useful guide. But the inability to get either count (total tracks or memory used) from our Sonos systems is annoying.
There used to be, but Sonos removed it not that long ago. My understanding is that you now need to submit a diagnostic and then ask support to tell you the result - hardly convenient, IMHO.
+24Hold on a second, the OP is asking about "my sonos" limits, isn't that the new name for "sonos favorites"? (I am away from home right now so cannot verify). If so then yes, there is a limit to the number of Faves (50-ish I think). The limit that the other replies refer to is the 30,000 song limit for Library storage. I think the limit for Sonos Playlists is 4000. I can't think of any others off the top of my head.
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