Streaming Music from PC?

[CarlGHarris]

I may not be using the proper terminology because I'm not highly technical, but maybe someone can help. Essentially what I'm trying to do is play music on my phone via the library of music stored on my PC (as opposed to downloading all of my music to my phone). I used to do it through Google Music, but that's gone now. Is there another way, preferably free? Thank you!

 

[hallux]

Even Google Play Music wasn't playing directly from your PC. Your PC synced to the Google server, which then allowed access to your music.

I moved to Plex, my music is now hosted on my NAS and I can cache to my phone for offline play (to reduce data usage) just as I did with GPM. Plex also has a desktop app but your PC needs to stay on all the time unless you cache music as I do. There IS a subscription fee for Plex.

YouTube Music is the "replacement" for GPM, I haven't played with it enough to really determine if it would suit my needs in the same way GPM did as a free service.

 

[CarlGHarris]

Even Google Play Music wasn't playing directly from your PC. Your PC synced to the Google server, which then allowed access to your music.

I moved to Plex, my music is now hosted on my NAS and I can cache to my phone for offline play (to reduce data usage) just as I did with GPM. Plex also has a desktop app but your PC needs to stay on all the time unless you cache music as I do. There IS a subscription fee for Plex.

YouTube Music is the "replacement" for GPM, I haven't played with it enough to really determine if it would suit my needs in the same way GPM did as a free service.

Thanks for the explanation! Yes, that makes sense because my phone could play music even when I was on the road and my PC was off. From what I'm seeing, YTM is not a good replacement. I don't use this feature often enough to pay for it, so Plex sounds like it's not a great option for me. Do you know anything about Gelli / Jellyfin?

 

[B. Diddy]

Give Cloudbeats a try. It should work if you have a NAS, but otherwise you'd have to upload the music to some cloud storage system.

 

[SpookDroid]

You can still upload your music to YT Music (if you used Google Music before, there's a tool to migrate those uploaded songs into YT as well). If you don't want to go the route of uploading your music to the cloud, you can use apps like AllCast to allow, well, casting to another device either via WiFi or Bluetooth.

 

[Rose4uKY]

You can still upload your music to YT Music (if you used Google Music before, there's a tool to migrate those uploaded songs into YT as well). If you don't want to go the route of uploading your music to the cloud, you can use apps like AllCast to allow, well, casting to another device either via WiFi or Bluetooth.

I had to do that to my music it was on my phone Google Play Music and then I had to upload it all to YouTube Music which I have on my phone now. Cuz I have a ton of music on my computer. But I also use Amazon music so I don't really use the YouTube music that often.

 

[CarlGHarris]

Thanks so much for the help!

For some reason, I didn't think Youtube Music worked the same way that Google Music did or I thought there was no free option. But I just transferred all the songs and it's working well (with a crappier interface - thanks, Google!).

 

[Rose4uKY]

Thanks so much for the help!

For some reason, I didn't think Youtube Music worked the same way that Google Music did or I thought there was no free option. But I just transferred all the songs and it's working well (with a crappier interface - thanks, Google!).

Yeah I've only used it like trying it's ok. I just use Amazon or listen to Sirius anymore. but I used to be able to say Google play so and so and it would play it from my Google Play library.

 

[CarlGHarris]

Yeah I've only used it like trying it's ok. I just use Amazon or listen to Sirius anymore. but I used to be able to say Google play so and so and it would play it from my Google Play library.

Yeah, no doubt that Google Pay version was better and easier to use. But this is a good substitute with minimal set up.

 

[jlangner]

I use YTM, it has a web browser same as GPM and can upload your local music to cloud as well. For phone can play local saved media as well, not from cloud.

 

[rcab]

I bought a 512gb micro SD card and a type C micro SD reader. I put most of my music on the SD card with plug it in to my S21 when I want to listen to my music. This is an inexpensive method without using up a lot of the phone's internal memory.