Question

Fix playlists!


There is no logical sense to Sonos being concerned if my mobile is accessible all the time or not in my system.

I want playlists from my mobile and when I'm connected it's accessible. That's it that's all. Any other way is really stupid and restrictive. Fix this please. It doesn't matter if the playlist isn't always accessible. That's not an actual sense in being so restrictive.

Make it simple let us do what we want. Hour hard is this to resolve??

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14 replies

I'm afraid I am not understanding what you're saying. At what point are your playlists not accessible? Are these Sonos playlists, or playlists from another company?

Sonos playlists are stored on your Sonos speakers. As long as your controller device is connected to your system, any playlist should indeed be available.

If you're not experiencing that, I'd suggest that there's some other issue you're having. Either the controller is not maintaining a steady connection to your system, or your speakers aren't.

Please give more information on your request. It would be helpful in supporting your concern, or perhaps helping you resolve an issue in your LAN.
I think the OP is complaining that you cannot put tracks stored on a mobile device into a Sonos playlist - this basic message did get rather lost in the rant.

@narkor - your mind is made up on this so it would be a waste of all our time to debate it. There are several other threads on it anyway.

Just one practical point. When I briefly experimented with playing tracks stored on my phone through Sonos (long since abandoned as a bad idea), I created playlists in the music application on my phone. These were then playable on Sonos in 'On this mobile device' under 'Imported Playlists'. I imagine it's still the same on Android and I think it can be done on iOS too, but not sure. You possibly knew this anyway, but I mention it just in case....
I guess the TO is talking about music files stored on their mobile device.


There is no logical sense to Sonos being concerned if my mobile is accessible all the time or not in my system.

I want playlists from my mobile and when I'm connected it's accessible. That's it that's all. Any other way is really stupid and restrictive. Fix this please. It doesn't matter if the playlist isn't always accessible. That's not an actual sense in being so restrictive.

Make it simple let us do what we want. Hour hard is this to resolve??

It does matter when you have kith and kin who are trying to access those playlists when you are not at home.
Indeed @Smilja. I would bet that the OP has a single speaker, is the sole user of it, and plays mainly from phone. In which case he / she should probably have bought a BlueTooth speaker, rather than one designed to be part of a multiroom, multi-controller, multi-source music system.
Hi everyone.

I have my own house with 6 Sonos speakers and tv soundbar. I live alone. Hence unnecessary for it to matter if other people can't access my playlist built from music on my mobile device. That's what my rant is about.
I read answers that said it's an issue to do it that way as they won't be accessible to others... That is irrelevant in my case and many others.

I have tried to do imported from my music app but maybe I went about it all wrong. I will try that again.

Like Android I like the full functionality aspects which I feel Sonos lacks because of something that is a user issue not a company issue. The company should not care if something isn't accessible, it limits the full capabilities of the system.

I'll try what you suggested and import the playlist in my other possibly unsupported music player.
Many people would not understand why the playlists are not accessible when their mother, husband, father, you name it, is not at home, so no chance that Sonos is going to change their mind.

Transfer your Music library to a NAS or PC and set up a share.

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/257?language=en
https://support.sonos.com/s/article/78?language=en
How is this a concern for a company that is trying to make everything seamless and easy. Literally who cares if it's accessible or not to x number of people when phone isn't home... It's never accessible to any people anyway as they can't access my mobile device content even when I'm home. They can have their own playlists that can work from their phone. Am I the only one who thinks this is just pure stupidity. My phone is my laptop, computer, and everything else. Don't have laptop, or anything other then my phone because it does it all including over 300 gig of storage. So music is only stored there. How am I the only one that does this?

I'll read the articles. Thanks for the info but I doubt it will fix my problem if I can't upload it anywhere for free and for 300 gigs
Hi again. I understand why it is frustrating for you given your 'use case'. I said I wouldn't get into arguments about why this is as it is, and I'm going to stick with that, because it is highly unlikely to change.

I have played with this a bit on my Android phone and at the moment Sonos is insisting on treating Samsung Music as the music app from which it takes my mobile device playlists. I have tried a few things to get it to look at my VLC media player instead, but haven't succeeded yet.

But if you go with whatever default app Sonos picks up, you should be able to create playlists on your phone and find them automatically under 'On this mobile device', 'Playiists'.

I hope that helps a bit.
Thanks John. I'll have to reorganize completely from the way I originally set my music apps and how I've been doing things for the last 7 years. I wasn't looking to argue, my brain simply doesn't comprehend a system that touts itself as sophisticated and simple and the most basic thing and they defend it as logical to not have playlists based on mobile device because others can't access. I'm sorry but that just is a really dumb answer.

Thanks for your input I'll see if I want to transfer to Samsung music. Much appreciated!
Thanks John. I'll have to reorganize completely from the way I originally set my music apps and how I've been doing things for the last 7 years. I wasn't looking to argue, my brain simply doesn't comprehend a system that touts itself as sophisticated and simple and the most basic thing and they defend it as logical to not have playlists based on mobile device because others can't access. I'm sorry but that just is a really dumb answer.

Thanks for your input I'll see if I want to transfer to Samsung music. Much appreciated!


No, it isn't for said people would complain to Sonos about not being able to access those playlists. The feature was once there but has been removed several years ago for that reason. As far as I know Google Music lets you also upload up to 100.000 tracks for free.
@narkor. I suspect there is much you don't understand about the way Sonos is designed and has developed, about the way in which it stores playlists, the way it plays tracks stored on mobile devices, the lower reliability of playing from a mobile device and much else besides. You are free to think what you like and to disagree with Sonos' decision on this. But when you have built a multi-billion dollar global company, then you will have the right to call Sonos 'stupid'.

It is a perfectly reasonable model to say that system playlists should be constructed from tracks that have a reasonable chance of being permanently available, and accessible across controllers, while each mobile device can play what it has stored on it, INCLUDING PLAYLISTS stored on that device. IMO that is logical and consistent.

There, you forced me to debate this after all....

Incidentally, I wasn't suggesting that you need to move to Samsung Music. This is about where the Sonos app looks to find the playlist files. I haven't figured that out yet, but I do know that as things stand, if I wanted to create playlists of tracks stored on my phone, and play them back through Sonos, I could do so.
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I think Sonos should allow you to includes songs from wherever you choose in Sonos Playlists.
If the device/song is available then it plays it. If not, it is seamlessly skipped. Same as now - if my NAS is on they get played, otherwise it's just Spotify tracks that get played.
I think Sonos should allow you to includes songs from wherever you choose in Sonos Playlists.
If the device/song is available then it plays it. If not, it is seamlessly skipped. Same as now - if my NAS is on they get played, otherwise it's just Spotify tracks that get played.

Sonos is not capable of playing DRM-protected Spotify tracks downloaded to a mobile device or a HDD.
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I haven't mentioned playing Spotify tracks downloaded to my phone.
Just said what it did now.