My love for MediaMonkey is not a secret – I found this desktop music management app quite some time ago and it quickly replaced Winamp for me due to the countless ‘extra’ features that make managing my music a better experience. You can read my full review of MediaMonkey here.
While MediaMonkey synchronized with my Symbian-powered devices quite easily, I noticed that it was a bit more stubborn when trying to synchronize with my new Nexus One. No matter how I changed the configuration settings, MediaMonkey insisted on dropping all my music into the root of my memory card, which is really messy, and didn’t sync my playlists properly, either. After a bit of Googling, I found the answer on the MediaMonkey forums.
You can read the full guide here, but this is the breakdownt:
- Mount your phone in USB Mode to your computer, and note the drive letter that it is associated (mine is H:)
- Open this drive in Windows Explorer and create the appropriate folders where you want your music stored. I have one called ‘Music’ and one called ‘Playlists’, but you can do this however you want.
- Now launch MediaMonkey, and make sure it shows your phone’s memory card in the left sidebar (separately from the MyComputer option)
- In MediaMonkey, click on ‘Tools’ up top, then choose ‘Options’ and go down to ‘Portable/Audio Devices’
- Uncheck *all* of the plug-ins except ‘d_USBMass1.dll’
- Highlight ‘d_USBMass1.dll’ and click on the Configure button to the right
- Choose the ‘Device Configuration’ tab in the dialog box that popped up
- In the middle of this tab, you’ll see a box called ‘Device Name’, which is where you’ll type the name of your phone (mine is ‘NexusOne’)
- Below this, choose the appropriate drive letter from the drop-down
- Below this, enter a Drive Label (again, mine is ‘NexusOne’)
- Leave the ‘USB Device ID’ box empty and don’t click the ‘Find Device’ button
While you have this dialog box open, you can tinker with the other tabs, if you want. This is where you can specify a folder hierarchy and adjust your sync settings. I would recommend creating a small playlist (~15-20 tracks from various artists/genres/albums) to test with – you don’t want to do a full sync only to realize you don’t like your sync settings.
After changing the Plug-in to d_USBMass1.dll, everything works beautifully. My music is synced to my device with the folder heirarchy that I specified, and my playlists properly show up on the device, as well. I’ve also noticed that there are more options available when I right-click my device in the left sidebar on MediaMonkey, too.
This also solves my problem of being able to browse my music by genre (sort of). While I have yet to find an Android music player that supports genres (aside from the HTC Sense UI one), I can now have MediaMonkey automatically organize my tracks into folders by genre by adjusting the configuration settings. Then all I need is a music player on my Nexus One that lets me play an entire folder – these are available in abundance. Here’s a screenshot of my configuration tab:
I also noticed that this plug-in also makes the reverse-sync option available in MediaMonkey, where it will sync a music track back to my computer if the one on my device is deemed to be newer – I’m really hoping this will support star ratings and playcount meta back. I’ll report back when I’ve been able to test this. I’ll also have a full post with my thoughts on the Android music experience soon.
What do you use to synchronize you music with your device?
Ricky Cadden 
The reverse sync would be cool. I purchase a lot of my music with the Amazon MP3 app.How do you specify which music gets sent to the phone? I assume your PC collection is larger than what you can fit on a microSD card?Thanks Ricky. 🙂
I have one standard playlist setup of 'Pump me up' songs that get me jazzed. Aside from that, I have genre-specific auto-playlists setup that populate themselves with tracks from a specific genre that I have *not* played in the past XX days (usually 30), which I sync to my phone. That way, my phone pretty much always has a solid collection of awesome tracks, as well as a larger collection of music that I need to listen to.
I have one standard playlist setup of 'Pump me up' songs that get me jazzed. Aside from that, I have genre-specific auto-playlists setup that populate themselves with tracks from a specific genre that I have *not* played in the past XX days (usually 30), which I sync to my phone. That way, my phone pretty much always has a solid collection of awesome tracks, as well as a larger collection of music that I need to listen to.
Fantastic! Thank you!
Fantastic! Thank you!
works perfect! thanks
works perfect! thanks
much obliged
much obliged
Any news about the reverse sync ? waiting for it…
Any news about the reverse sync ? waiting for it…
Hey, it worked! Thanks, I’ve been having this problem with my Nexus One for a while. Incidentally, I always found if you right-clicked the tracks and selected “Sync To” and chose my phone, it got the folders right instead of sticking it all in the root folder. This is much better.
Hey, it worked! Thanks, I’ve been having this problem with my Nexus One for a while. Incidentally, I always found if you right-clicked the tracks and selected “Sync To” and chose my phone, it got the folders right instead of sticking it all in the root folder. This is much better.
~You are a life saver~
~You are a life saver~
Thanks Ricky, this is the recipe I needed 😉
Thanks Ricky, this is the recipe I needed 😉
Thanks you have answered all my questions now my Droid syncs great.
Nice!
Thanks you have answered all my questions now my Droid syncs great.
Nice!
ohhh, that’s what i was looking for. now i can get rid off iTunes ;o)) works perfectly with win7 and galaxy s.
 Thank you muchly. This is exactly what I was looking for. I was getting very angry with the “dump” into the root, and infact just started deleting and re-copying my whole collection over to my Archos A70 250GB. *Happy Dance*
 Thank you muchly. This is exactly what I was looking for. I was getting very angry with the “dump” into the root, and infact just started deleting and re-copying my whole collection over to my Archos A70 250GB. *Happy Dance*
I use the media player Double twist, this will let you play by genre. You can use media monkey (preferred player) to sync (or double twist). Double twist also converts ALL video files to your android.
I’ve tried Doubletwist, but found it completely unusable because it needs to rescan its own database and THEN scan iTunes again. With 20k+ tracks, it would take my computer over an hour before I could even sync. With MediaMonkey, it’s ready within a minute or two.
Thanks for the help. Your directions didn’t completely work with my droid X2. But you still gave me a basic understanding on how the program works. So thank you.
Thanks for the help. Your directions didn’t completely work with my droid X2. But you still gave me a basic understanding on how the program works. So thank you.
Thanks a bunch for posting this. I was about to give up on media monkey. MM worked very well with my Nokia. I am glad I can stick with MM for Android too.
Thanks a lot!
Thanks a lot!
Awesome! Thanks a lot. If you find an android player that lets you rate your music I would really like to know.
For the reverse sync of ratings you could try this script: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=59888
I’ve spent hours trying to figure out the best way of doing this and then I read your post. Many thanks!
Does this work on Vizio tablet. I tried and it cannot find the device!
Does this work on Vizio tablet. I tried and it cannot find the device!
You should update this for MediaMonkey 4.0
I didn’t even see that MediaMonkey 4.0 had been officially released! Thanks for the heads up, I’ll see what needs to be updated.
 Thanks a lot! works perfect with Media Monkey 4.0.2.1462 and Motorola Atrix 🙂
You should update this for MediaMonkey 4.0
Thank you this worked for me 😉
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My phone doesn’t identify with a drive letter in Windows Explorer. It only says the device name. Any ideas?
Im using mediamonkey on pc and mobile. I use the sync. But the programmers at mediamonkey clearly dont have a clue what they are doing because 9 out of 10 times it doesnt work correctly.
How do I sync only playlists and they work in poweramp? I know of the method where you create a M3U playlist in mediamonkey, correct the filepaths according to my device, then copy the playlist to a folder being monitored by poweramp. This works, but a bit cumbersome.
I have the same mp3’s on my PC as on my S3 (CM11 – AOSP ROM), in the same folder structure.
Which is
C:\Music\subfolders
/Music\subfolders