Queue Management in the Mobile App and/or Web Player

Local music, stored on a Mac, is still accessible from the web controller, run from any supported browser, or a mobile device. Just because there is no ‘native OS’ controller doesn’t mean you’re losing access to the music data stored on your Mac. 

The queue is available in both the mobile app and the web app. It is available with my local music library and the streaming services that I subscribe to (Apple Music and Qobuz). Is there a specific streaming service that you use where it is not available? I’m not really understanding the problem you are seeing.

Yes, local music is available from both the mobile app and the web app.  I’m talking about accessing the queue into which local music goes while it’s being played.

The desktop app *always* has access to the queue of local music most recently played.  If you play some other source (say, Sirius or Spotify, the queue persists and is still accessible.  You can return to the queue albeit the system forgets its place in the queue and you restart at the top of the queue rather than at the last track played.  Which why my further comments were about the ability to edit the queue.

In the mobile app, the queue icon is not present when playing other sources.  It is only presented if you’re playing local music.  When you return to playing  local music after playing some other source, you cannot return to the previously played queue as you can in the desktop app.  You end up having to select something new which in turn overwrites the queue.

In the web app, the local music queue icon is present when playing other sources but is greyed out/non-functional.  Again, one would have to select new local music which in turn would overwrite the current queue.

The desktop functionality allows you to use the current local music queue as a temporary playlist.  The reason I care about resuming the queue is that as I listen to a playlist from my collection, I want to resume where I left off.  If I select the same playlist that I put in the queue again, even in shuffle mode, there will be a tendency to repeat tracks.  By resuming the existing queue, one can listen to  local music to exhaustion with no repeat providing one deletes the tracks that have already been played before you leave the queue to play some other source.  It would be nice if the queue automatically remembered the last track played but not even the desktop app does that.  It always resumes at the top of the queue.

I understand now what you are saying. It must be dependent on the sources your playing from. I’m just not seeing it. For the services I use, the queue (mobile or web app) is always available and is a queue of what is playing. Not a queue for just the local music library. If I’m playing an album from, say Apply Music, the queue is populated with the songs from apple music. It is available and can be edited in the mobile and web apps. The queue can contain songs from any service I use and local music.

When I use AirPlay, the queue icon is not available. But when I stop AirPlay, the previous queue is still there.

So it must depend on sources I don’t have/use. I can see that using the queue like you do, that would be a real pain.

I don’t have Apple so I didn’t realize it populated the local Sonos queue.  I tried playing an album with Spotify but it made only a trivial queue entry.  It did *not* replace the queue of local music so while they show the queue icon, that icon does *not* access the queue of local music.  The queue I care about is only instantiated with local music.  That is, files I’m playing from a local computer disk not a streaming service.  So your experience with Apple Music doesn’t apply to the phenomena that I’m trying to address.  In my case, I’m playing files that are stored on a NAS.

The thing is, it’s not a “local” sonos queue. It’s just the queue of all the songs added to it. No matter where they come from. I mostly play from the library on my NAS as well. But i can add songs to the queue from all my services. That’s why I’m saying it must be dependent on the services your using. I don’t use Spotify or Sirius. So it would appear that they don’t add songs to your queue like other services do.

iPhone 15.  Sonos app latest software.

I was able to choose an album from my local library which is stored on a NAS.  That album showed in the queue ( 1st screenshot. )

I was also able to choose an album from the Spotify service integrated in the Sonos app.  That album also showed in the queue ( 2nd screenshot).

When the same Spotify album was started from the Spotify app the queue does not show the individual tracks ( 3rd screenshot).

That would be Spotify connect when using the Spotify app?

Here’s another thread about this: Access queue after playing Sirius

The queue icon does now show when the queue is empty. I think that was a recent fix when they re-added the ability to clear the queue and save as playlist.

Yes.  The last screenshot.

I tried to replicate MoPac’s experience with a Spotify album launched from the Sonos app.  For me at least, I only get the result they were getting with the Spotify app:  there is a “queue” but it is a trivial and not a list of tracks.  It does not get added to the queue that contains my local NAS sourced tracks.  Also, despite having launched the album from the Sonos app, as you can see, it says the album was started from Spotify so that’s odd too.