Sync iTunes with Portable Player - Android

02	Sync iTunes with Portable Player - Android

Austin posted on October 02, 2011 22:55

If you have an Android phone - or any non-Apple portable player you probably have wondered how to keep in in sync with iTunes. You may have even tried a few of the options that are scattered around the web. I am a firm believer in the Android platform but I also have years of music stored neatly in my iTunes interface. After fighting with several options to keep these worlds in sync I opted to write my own solution which is today being released as mediaSync.

mediaSync is a purpose built application designed to be lightweight and provide the basics of keeping iTunes in sync with ANY portable player that will mount as a removable media device inside the Windows environment. The basic function of sync as I define it is that if you add or remove media from either side it should propagate through at the next run of the application. This means if you buy a track from Amazon on the phone it should be added to the iTunes library, and if you remove a track from either iTunes or the portable player the action should be applied to the other side of the partnership.

The application is freely available here at austinhenderson.com and should you choose to donate to our cause you will get a faster functioning version of the application as a thank you for your support. Thank you for your time - I hope the application fills a need of the community.

Posted in: MediaSync

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# Chad

Thursday, October 6, 2011 4:27 PM

Any idea if this will work with the Microsoft Zune mp3 player? Thanks!

# Austin

Thursday, October 6, 2011 8:41 PM

You know I cannot say for sure so ill do some digging. If the zune will show up on your computer as a drive and you can copy music to it then sure it should work. Plug the zune into your computer. Does it show up as a drive? Curious.

Thanks for your interest.

# Chad

Saturday, October 8, 2011 7:07 PM

Well, it doesn't show up as a "drive" with a letter assignment, but I have a program where I can see it listed. I tried to do it but no luck. I'm gonna keep tweeking it and see what I can do.

# Chad

Monday, October 17, 2011 9:54 AM

Also, does this work for podcasts? Thanks!

# Austin

Monday, October 17, 2011 2:44 PM

@Chad - yep it will sync podcasts - but it works in conjunction with the checked options in the UI. So if you uncheck the Exclude Podcasts option it will sync them for you, and this feature works in conjunction with the copy checked only feature.

So you can conditionally sync only certain podcasts if you uncheck the option to "exclude podcasts" then check the option to "copy checked only" and then using the checkbox next to your tracks in iTunes you can control which audio files/podcasts are moved to the portable player.

Problem is if you cannot get your device to show up as a driver - and I dont think the Zune can - then you are out of luck with this tool at least.

Hope this helps.

# Jake Hegnauer

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 3:56 PM

Also, even if it does copy over, the Zune will not understand any of the Itunes ratings or playlists etc..

# Austin

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 4:00 PM

This is correct... when the playlists are copied over they are copied as M3U files... so any player that will support M3U playlists will work dandy. The Zune does not mount as a drive so this the main hurdle to cross here.

Given there are a few different mechanisms to manage a Zune this probably isnt something I will get into. My primary audience is the Android audience who wants to close the gap between iTunes and their Android device.

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# paul

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 4:58 PM

So, i'm looking at trying this out for a newbie that loves itunes and has an android bionic. It appears that the program is set up to synch with the "drive" mounted when the phone is connected.
Bionic mounts two drives (sometimes 3). F: (MOTO) and G: where G:\music might be where the music should be stored.

however, sometimes windows/moto flip flops and shows G: MOTO F:\music ... so, how do we get this program to handle this? anybody see this issue?

# Austin

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 10:16 PM

@paul - I am not sure I understand the issue you are seeing to be honest. The application is smart enough to figure out the drive letter after you run a sync once. It does this by setting a flag file in the directory ahSolutions.MediaSync on the remote device. This file helps me know where you sync'd to last on this device.

So if the drive letter changes this should not be a problem. I dont have any personal experience with the MOTO device you speak of but my guess is that one drive mapping is for the internal storage and the other is for the SD card in the device... and you would want to sync to the SD most likely. So if you navigate to your target directory on your initial sync you should not have any problems to sync to the device in the future.

If this doesnt solve it for you reach out to me using the contact page and Ill see if we cannot come up with another solution for your taste.

Thanks for checking it out.

# ADI

Thursday, November 22, 2012 10:13 PM

do u have this software for a mac? i have a mac, use itunes but an android phone.. and i am so tired looking for something to sync my music with itunes that i gave up..plz helpAustin

# Austin

Monday, November 26, 2012 4:06 PM

No I am sorry this is for Windows only at this point. To be honest I didnt know you existed... the mac user running Android phone. I assumed this to be a mystical beast - like the unicorn or something.

; )

I am sorry that this project will not be of help to you, but thanks for reaching out.

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