Database Develop

What keeps Android apps from looking into specific folders ? ((music/pics/vids))

There's been ongoing discussions for a long time about the best way to "hide" certain media to keep them from showing up in media players.
Every 3rd party App Ive dled for Music/Movies/Pictures has had the same issue of scanning all the media in the SD card.
Is this some inherent mandate in Android ? Or lazy dev programming ?
I have podcast apps that only pick up podcasts. NYC subway map app that only picks up its MAP images...
Yes open up any media player and I see all of these included with my media.
Obviously the function is in there

add a file called .nomedia and Android will not index that directory

The no media trick does not solve the problem.
Android apps are scanning the entire SD for media instead of letting you pick a default directory.
I want to know if this is an android OS problem or an app development problem.

xManMythLegend said:
The no media trick does not solve the problem.
Android apps are scanning the entire SD for media instead of letting you pick a default directory.
I want to know if this is an android OS problem or an app development problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i wouldn't call it a problem.. it's just the way the mediascanner works... it scans each directory on the sdcard for media files.
and both the gallery and music app relies on the system mediascanner to fetch pics/videos/music: it's called intended design
There is no way to set a default location for those apps.
3rd party apps can be developed for scanning predefined dirs at the developer's liking.
so for the stock apps the only option is the .nomedia file trick.
note that if u put the .nomedia into a directory, all the sub directories are going to be skipped too.

just rename the folder with a "." in front of the folder name, this makes it a hidden folder and the gallery and what not wont search it.

rastacre said:
well i wouldn't call it a problem.. it's just the way the mediascanner works... it scans each directory on the sdcard for media files.
and both the gallery and music app relies on the system mediascanner to fetch pics/videos/music: it's called intended design
There is no way to set a default location for those apps.
3rd party apps can be developed for scanning predefined dirs at the developer's liking.
so for the stock apps the only option is the .nomedia file trick.
note that if u put the .nomedia into a directory, all the sub directories are going to be skipped too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THANK YOU !!
I somewhat figured this out when I saw this option in Doggcatcher.
This answers my question.

making a folder invisible doesn't help me.
I have ringtones in one folder and when I playback music, I don't want to hear ringtones.

hmmm is there anyway you can adb push the ringtones to the ringtone folder on the system? So you wouldn't need to have it in your sd card?

download MixZing music player. It will let you select which folder on the memory card to scan for music. Select music folder and your done. No more ringtones playback

This .nomedia trick dosnt work 100 percent. I placed it in my music folder and yes it makes the album covers disappear in the gallery but it also makes the music disappear from the music player. I can no longer scroll through artists, songs, etc from within the music player...
I am not running a rooted phone just the stock firmware with the latest Android update.
Hooligan

*Hooligan* said:
This .nomedia trick dosnt work 100 percent. I placed it in my music folder and yes it makes the album covers disappear in the gallery but it also makes the music disappear from the music player. I can no longer scroll through artists, songs, etc from within the music player...
I am not running a rooted phone just the stock firmware with the latest Android update.
Hooligan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^bump^
I have the same issue - I don't want to see album covers in the gallery, but I do want the music to show up in my music app - any ideas?
Thanks

.nomedia works 100% and does exactly what it says - NO MEDIA. That includes NO VIDEO, NO AUDIO, NO PHOTOS, NO WHATEVER. All system apps looking for media ignore the folder and all its subfolders.
If the album art is in a subfolder inside the album folder - put .nomedia inside that subfolder. If it's outside with the .MP3s - then .nomedia won't help you.

If you're having issues with album art, you could always embed the album art into the mp3/m4a with an app like dbpoweramp.

One more possible solution:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=4c95682562b36eca&hl=en

xManMythLegend said:
The no media trick does not solve the problem.
Android apps are scanning the entire SD for media instead of letting you pick a default directory.
I want to know if this is an android OS problem or an app development problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rastacre said:
well i wouldn't call it a problem.. it's just the way the mediascanner works... it scans each directory on the sdcard for media files.
and both the gallery and music app relies on the system mediascanner to fetch pics/videos/music: it's called intended design
There is no way to set a default location for those apps.
3rd party apps can be developed for scanning predefined dirs at the developer's liking.
so for the stock apps the only option is the .nomedia file trick.
note that if u put the .nomedia into a directory, all the sub directories are going to be skipped too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
xManMythLegend said:
THANK YOU !!
I somewhat figured this out when I saw this option in Doggcatcher.
This answers my question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.... what? You argued with the first post, next post said the same thing, then you're thanking them??

r4zv4n said:
^bump^
I have the same issue - I don't want to see album covers in the gallery, but I do want the music to show up in my music app - any ideas?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, name the files right. AlbumArt.jpg

BTW, after putting the .nomedia, you will need to REBOOT the device for it to take effect and system media scanner will rescan after first start up.

I'm having trouble believing this is "by design" and adding .nomedia to EVERY FOLDER other than my music folder makes absolutely no damn sense... the other way around would make much more sense instead! ".media"
This issue has also been breaking my balls... I don't want my damn ringtones in my media library...

Kraion said:
I'm having trouble believing this is "by design" and adding .nomedia to EVERY FOLDER other than my music folder makes absolutely no damn sense... the other way around would make much more sense instead! ".media"
This issue has also been breaking my balls... I don't want my damn ringtones in my media library...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your ringtones should go into the following folder
/sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
And your notifications should go into the following folder
/sdcard/media/audio/notifications
Those folders are not scanned into your music library. There is no need for .nomedia files on those two folders, otherwise they will not show up in your notifications/ringtones list.
NOTE: /sdcard means your sdcard.... so on the root of your sdcard you should put a folder named media, then inside media folder you should put another folder called audio, and then the ringtones or notifications folder inside audio folder..... This should solve your issue.

zeus_chingon said:
Your ringtones should go into the following folder
/sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
And your notifications should go into the following folder
/sdcard/media/audio/notifications
Those folders are not scanned into your music library. There is no need for .nomedia files on those two folders, otherwise they will not show up in your notifications/ringtones list.
NOTE: /sdcard means your sdcard.... so on the root of your sdcard you should put a folder named media, then inside media folder you should put another folder called audio, and then the ringtones or notifications folder inside audio folder..... This should solve your issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This works....Did this over a year ago when i first bought my N1...

[Q] What Playlists formats are supported by Samsung Galaxy S music player?

Hello Everyone,
sorry if it has already been discussed before, i really searched for this in the forum, couldn't find it.
Does anyone know what playlist formats are supported by the Samsung music player in Galaxy S?
it doesn't support .m3u whereas many other music players ( in the market) support this!
there is nothing as visually pleasing and comfortable as the samsung music player (Things should change with Gingerbread)
Also, can we use the default android 2.2 music player in an .apk in 2.1 galaxy s?
why i am asking for this is, its a big pain for manually adding the playlist in the phone. there should be some way to create the playlist in the computer and sync both playlist as well as songs to galaxy s.
i have tried isyncr , media mokey and double twist, nothing works!!

I have found a dirty tiresome work around for this.
This is for guys who have 100s of songs with playlists sitting on either itunes or windows media player!!!!
Sync each playlist from computer (i do from windows media player), select all the songs visible in the phone and create a playlist.
open the playlist tab in the Samsung music player -> edit the recently added playlist (default one) and clear the songs.
Sync again with a different playlist and select the songs in the recently added playlist (newly synced songs will be here now). manually select all the songs here to create a new one.
I saw Btunes music player and few others to provide support for .m3u playlists along with nice lock screen music controls.
btunes is the only slick player apart from samsung player to provide iphone style music player.

I've been fighting and fighting with this for 3 days straight now. I really like the music player and want to use but lack of "normal" playlist support is killing me. I even created a playlist so I could take a look at the file but I can't find it. Where the heck does it store it's own playlist files??

Hi guys,
I have no idea where the playlist files are saved.
Community help is needed badly for the list of supported playlist formats.
worst case, we have to manually make the playlists the hard way.

From "Unoficial Samsung Galaxy S Facebook":
Samsung Galaxy S You can use your Windows Media Player 12 to transfer your Playlist and song to your Galaxy S. This is good because WMP's Playlist also readable with original player.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have Windows so I can't confirm if this method is working on our Galaxy. But I hope that there is a way to convert m3u playlists to wmp12 playlists anyway if that's true.

If you connect your Galaxy S in MTP mode, it will sync playlists from Windows Media Player.

I remember that my playlists used to sync but then I wiped my days and forget how to do this...will try again tonight using the method you suggest. Thanks!

solution
for playlists use isyncr to sync..................it had synced all my playlists to the galaxy s music player from itunes

dont know where they are stored but titanium backup can backup and restore them

Well, I tried titanium 3.5.0 backed up a playlist I created in sgs, then I deleted it from the stock music player and from music playerpro (I don't know why didn't delted from teh other when I deleted from the first one), then made a restore playlist with titanium, but there are no media at all in the playlist. I really would like to know how can I backup the playlists. At least until we get a good froyo rom

Turns out the playlist is in xml format. I exported a playlist from iTunes in xml format and dumped it into the galaxy s SD card and boom! it shows up in the stock music player!

xml did not work for me?
After attempted the suggested method above, by:
1) Connected to windows vista on my laptop in usb mass storage mode
2) Exported two playlists in xml format using itunes
3) Copied them to the "sdcard/Music/Playlists" folder
They were not visible in the stock Music Player in my Galaxy S vibrant with the eclair.uvji2 update. If it is of interest, I did sync the files using Windows Media Player. However, both wmp and itunes are using the same file structure, playlists and id3 tags.

syncing with windows media player does not give the playlists...
using playlist creator, i created m3u playlists copied the mp3s and m3u to the music folder and it works...but it's gonna be tedious...
Edit:
FLAC (done manually...)
1. Drag flac files to Playlist creator to create m3u
2. Copy and paste the m3u and the flac files into a folder manually
3. (app to properly read FLAC tags) Download extended media scanner
Mp3s (Since I don't like using itunes and I use WMP instead)
1. Create a lot of playlists in windows media player
2. Import over to doubletwist on PC
3. (Not sure if you need this step but even if you do, there's no need to touch it after installation)) Install isync on your phone '
4. Connect your phone on mass storage
5. Sync the selected playlists on your doubletwist with phone, playlists will all appear in native player.
All these done without using itunes Although technically, doubletwist is based on itunes =X

you are wrong i have manually put the .m3u files on a newly flashed phone which has the songs on my sd card.. it does not work..

lgkahn said:
you are wrong i have manually put the .m3u files on a newly flashed phone which has the songs on my sd card.. it does not work..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess it is program dependent, the m3u created by playlist creator works while those by wmp 12 didn't work.
And oh, might want to try install isync

Lobaba said:
I guess it is program dependent, the m3u created by playlist creator works while those by wmp 12 didn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why don't you post the contents of one of your m3u files that works?

Ok, I tested with and without isync and looks like isync is required for galaxy s to recognise the m3u

can someone give this a shot so that the default music player can read m3u playlists? Method 1 has worked for me so far on 2.1 while I'm trying it out on 2.2
Method 1
FLAC and mp3s (done manually...)
1. Install iSyncR
2. Drag flac/mp3 files to Playlist creator to create m3u
3. Copy and paste the m3u and the flac/mp3 files into a folder manually
4. (app to properly read FLAC tags) Download extended media scanner
Method 2
Mp3s (Since I don't like using itunes and I use WMP instead)
1. Install isync on your phone
2. Create a lot of playlists in windows media player
3. Import over to doubletwist on PC
4. Connect your phone on mass storage
5. Sync the selected playlists on your doubletwist with phone, playlists will all appear in native player.

Use a m3u in combinaison with a playlist copier
My reply may come a bit late, but hopefully it can still be useful. I've discovered a freeware yesterday, called Amok playlist copy, which run super nicely. For those who used or use Itunes, it permit you to select all the song from a playlist, and copy them automatically to a folder ( then you can send it to your phone), along with the associated m3u playlist.
You have to drop the playlist file into the directory media/playlist on your android phone ( mine is SGS-1), and then you can drop all the associated music file in a folder, either on your phone or sd card ( you can also add subfolder as far as i know, without any problem). That way, you don't have to you use Itunes for fast transferring of every song in your list. Actually, i'll keep using something lighter, like VLC to do the job, after I realized that only Itunes seems to be able to copy the original files to clipboard.
As I said, the software is freeware, and i don't know of any other similar alternatives. Would be nice to stumble upon an open-source alternative.

[Q] Keeping ringtones out of stock media player

Thread title is pretty self explanatory...
How can I keep these mp3 ringtones from showing up in my media player with the rest of my music? I've tried moving them around. They aren't in the same directory as my music.

miztaken1312 said:
Thread title is pretty self explanatory...
How can I keep these mp3 ringtones from showing up in my media player with the rest of my music? I've tried moving them around. They aren't in the same directory as my music.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have mine in the folder:
/sdcard/ringtones/
and they don't show up in media player

I had the same problem, myself. If I put them in sdcard/ringtones, they would show up in the media player. If I used the .nomedia method, they wouldn't show up as usable ringtones. I ended up rooting my phone, and using root explorer, moved all my personal ringtones to the system directory where ringtones are stored. I also deleted all the stock ringtones while I was in there. No more issues. Now I don't have to scan through a list of ****ty stock ringtones to get to my custom ones, either. =)

miztaken1312 said:
Thread title is pretty self explanatory...
How can I keep these mp3 ringtones from showing up in my media player with the rest of my music? I've tried moving them around. They aren't in the same directory as my music.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is an app in the marketplace called "Media Hidden" should make the process a little bit easier.

I'm reasonably sure that if you make a directory on sdcard media/ringtones the music player will not see them. You can also make a directory under media for notifications for your shorter noises to use with messaging etc to keep them seperate in the dialogs for choosing each type.
If you root your phone you can move them to system/media/ringtones in the root folder.

[Q] Music Transfer

Hi there,
I am having problems transfering music on to my LG Optimus Black.
I am not sure where to create a music folder so the default music player can see the music files.
I have created music folders in Audio and in DCIM and in the main menu and the music is on the phone but the it is not found by the default player.
Any help would be appreciated .
Kind Regards
Kev

You put music files (say .mp3) anywhere in your memory card, your player should detect it automatically. So there should be an error reading the memory card.
Try this : Settings >> SD card & phone storage >> Unmount SD card.
Then mount it again. Once scanning of all media files finishes ( You may be able to see the scanning progress and completion notification on top bar. ) you player should work okay.
Also try downloading different players from market. Do they detect your music files?

I'm not that sure but I think the SD already have a "music" folder? mine those, I put all files there and player automatic detected them, even if I have files at bluetooth>music or download>music folders still detect them with no problem

Felsar said:
I'm not that sure but I think the SD already have a "music" folder? mine those, I put all files there and player automatic detected them, even if I have files at bluetooth>music or download>music folders still detect them with no problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well even if there's no music named folder it still works. I directly copied my folders from pc such as metallica and linkin park etc and I put it in "my favourite" folder in root directory and it works perfectly..

[Q] How to add music folders in gal not stock music player app

Hi all,
I am now having difficulties to add music folders onto the stock music player on gal not.
Currently i am using poweramp it is much easier, but i have issue when playing a song then the poweramp gets hung. It cannot skip and need to reboot the phone.
If anybody out there can help me please share me the knowledge.
Thank you
BR

Where are your music folders?
I have the opposite problem. The stock player includes every MP3 file on my phone, but some of my MP3s aren't music and I don't want them in the music player.
The stock player should just scan your whole phone and include any MP3s it finds. I don't think there is a way to tell it which folders to include or ignore.

Add a .nomedia file in the folders it shouldn't include.

@beanr2s
Open stock music player - menu - setting - music menu - check mark on folder
thats it.