Shuffle only my music library with Android Auto/Google Music Play while driving?

[youngdoc]

I just bought a new SUV that came with Android Auto and I can't figure out how to get Google Music Play (on Android Auto) to mimic what I have done in the past (without Android Auto). I have about 9,000 songs in my music library (NOT downloaded to my phone -- all in the cloud) and I like to shuffle all songs in my library. I don't have any interest in the Google Play Music radio stations, I don't have a subscription, and I don't store that sizable library of songs directly on my phone, because it's easier to keep the library updated via the cloud from my desktop.

Here is what I did before Android Auto:
- I simply opened Google Play Music (GPM) on my phone, selected the "songs" tab, and clicked on "shuffle all."

With Android Auto, I can find no way to do that. Here are some things I have tried and how they have failed:

1. Voice commands -- all voice commands seem to lead to radio stations (with ads) or require me to name a specific artist or genre, which I do not want to do. I want to simply shuffle my entire music collection

2. Scroll -- you can't scroll through your entire music collection while driving, and even if you can do this while parked (?), that doesn't really work for me either. If I'm on a long drive, as I often am, I sometimes switch from Sirius/XM to GPM and I just want to be able to shuffle all of my music library in GPM without looking at my phone or disconnecting it from Android Auto.

3. Playlists -- I tried creating a playlist of my entire music collection, but GPM limits playlists to 1,000 songs, which would force me to fragment my music collection into 9 or more playlists. Not only is it awkward to create playlists of 1,000 songs in GMP on the web, it defeats the purpose of shuffling my entire library.

I'm out of ideas. The idea behind Android Auto is safety, I believe, but I cannot figure out any safe way to simply get GPM to shuffle all of my personal library.

Many thanks for your help!

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

This is a GPM limitation - not an AA limitation.

 

[youngdoc]

This is a GPM limitation - not an AA limitation.

I'm not sure what you mean, Andrew. I can do exactly what I want to do in GPM -- I can shuffle my entire music collection as I described above -- but I cannot do the same thing once connected to Android Auto. Regardless, I'm looking for helpful solutions and I'm not sure what your comment adds to the discussion.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

What I meant was that GPM is artificially limiting the size of a playlist to 1000 songs. If that limitation were not there you'd have a solution.

I agree there's not a shuffle all on AA. However, try this: Disconnect your phone from AA. Run GPM on your phone. Select Songs then Shuffle all. Hit pause. Connect your phone back up to AA. Go to the Media apps and select GPM. Hit play... Does it shuffle all of your songs? (<- Not tested - just curious).

 

[youngdoc]

try this: Disconnect your phone from AA. Run GPM on your phone. Select Songs then Shuffle all. Hit pause. Connect your phone back up to AA. Go to the Media apps and select GPM. Hit play... Does it shuffle all of your songs? (<- Not tested - just curious).

Yes, I tested this previously. In fact, Android Auto will keep returning to shuffling my entire library even if I switch to another media source in the car, or even disconnect the phone altogether and reconnect it, as long as I don't stop GPM from running in the background on my phone, i.e., in the pull down menu. Once you quit the app on GPM, however, you can't return to it in Android Auto, because it will be categorized under "Recent" as "I'm Feeling Lucky," which generates ad-based music.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

So then you have an awkward solution.

 

[Android404]

Hopefully you've found a solution already but just in case you haven't I do this with android auto and have my personal library stored on a 256GB card on my phone. Go into Google Play, hit the settings tab and turn on "downloaded only". Then when you connect it to your car simply say "play music" and it will play music randomly from your collection.

It's not the best service. Sometimes I'd like to hear an album in order by asking it to play either the artist or album and it's not capable of doing that. It instead defaults to alphabetical order and I don't feel like renaming my entire library to artificially fix that issue. I use my car's radio to play albums in order since it can use the file name as a reference. Hopefully Google addresses this someday and lets you select how it orders music it's playing.

Side note: I've had several instances where it will start playing Android radio after doing this. Sometimes GP seems to forget the above setting and you have to go set it again. Maybe it's after an update or something. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[Lee McAllen]

In Android Auto, on the music screen (once playing) if you swipe left there's a second screen with thumbs up/down and a shuffle button.