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I just found out that the newest MediaMonkey 5 software can easily stream directly from my Windows 10 PC to Sonos.

I’ve been using MediaMonkey software to manage my massive music collection with a lifetime license for 15 years now and just installed the newest version. Version 5 has a “Cast” icon on the lower right that lists all my Sonos and Google devices. All I have to do is pick a Sonos speaker to stream it there.

One limitation is that MediaMonkey streams only to one speaker by itself. I still need the Sonos app to regroup my speakers, mute speakers in other rooms, or adjust volume on individual speakers.

MediaMonkey provides full music file management functions without Sonos’ pesky limit of approx. 64,000 files. My personal music collection has more than 1 million songs and MediaMonkey has no problem with it. The only accommodation I made was to turn off automatic library scanning when my collection reached north of 500,000. Now I just run a manual scan about once a week.

MediaMonkey has a free version, Gold version for $24.95 US and a Lifetime license for $49.95 US. I’m using full functionality with my existing lifetime license. I don’t have any way  to test whether casting works in the free version or if that only gets added after you pay for the Gold license.

I just found out the free version appears to be fully functional but limits you to 30 minutes of streaming. Looks like the best way to try out the free version is to start by adding just a small library or single music folder so you don’t have to wait too long for the initial library scan to finish.

Once the initial scan finishes you can try playing some music with the Cast function until you get prompted to buy a Gold or Lifetime license.

I just installed a second copy on my laptop and was prompted for a license key after listening through my Sonos for 30 minutes. I typed in my existing lifetime license info and everything picked right back up. 

You don’t need Media Monkey to stream music files to Sonos devices, Windows can do that on its own via UPnP. Just right-click on a file. If you want to do this often you can rename the Sonos devices do you don’t need to know their IP addresses.

 

Cast To Device works fine just to play existing files as they are.

MediaMonkey comes in handy when you need to organize and manage a music collection that’s too big and complicated for the Sonos app or other music players to handle. MediaMonkey also lets you reorganize, rename, tag, and convert your music files to other formats.

I’ve been using MediaMonkey in conjunction with the Sonos app and Cast To Device for years. Now with direct streaming to Sonos I really like the ease of being able to use a single app.

I’ve also seen other apps and services that charge ongoing subscription fees while MediaMonkey is just a one-time purchase. It’s nice to have more options.

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