Newbie Question about Downloading Music

[kentr]

I am still in week 1 with my new Nexus 7 (first Android device) and I am going crazy. My objective is to download Google Play Music to my tablet so that I can use a DLNA app (Skifta) as a media server which can then be seen by my DLNA-enabled home A/V receiver and thus music on the tablet can be played over the whole house. I can do this quite nicely with an album that I downloaded from my Amazon account, but so far I have not been able to make it work with Google Music. I bought an album for test purposes and I have not yet seen anything that will allow me to download the album. I can listen to said album on my device, but it never appears to be downloaded (even though I get the "saving requested music" message). When I open Skifta or my home receiver, it does not see the Google album, but it sees and plays the Amazon album with no problem. I've read on-line help topics until I am blurry and downloaded the Google Music Manager to my PC (from which I downloaded said album), but I swear I have not yet seen an option to download to my tablet. Someone please help me. I am sure that I am overlooking something basic (and probably obvious), but I am about to throw the darn tablet against the wall and go back to my good ol' Windows Media Player. Thanks so much!

Ken Traynham

 

[B. Diddy]

When you save music locally from Google Music on your tablet, it's meant to be somewhat temporary, so the music files themselves are located in an obscure directory using obscure filenames. I believe the directory is /storage/sdcard0/Android/data/com.google.android.music. Easy to remember, right? And the music filenames won't be in plain English--they'll be coded. I think the reason Google does this is to prevent people from freely downloading and copying music, thereby reducing the extent of pirating. If you want to download the actual music files, the best way to do so is from your desktop using the Google Music Manager program (which allows you to download your music an unlimited number of times, but is hobbled by the fact that you have to download ALL of your music at once), or from Google Music on your desktop browser (which give you more control but limits you to 2 downloads per file, I think). Once you've downloaded the actual music files to your computer, you can then move them and copy them freely to other devices.

Hmm, my explanation seems unnecessarily complicated. Let me know if that makes sense.

 

[davidhm]

The directory you suggested is empty, no files. Any other suggestions?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[B. Diddy]

If the files aren't there, then all I can suggest is to use a file manager app and explore. Sorry!