How to manage the music application on Firefox OS

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  • Revision id: 42928
  • Created:
  • Creator: ksempel
  • Comment: I've merged "How to put music on your Firefox OS Phone" with this article to create one big music magement article.
  • Reviewed: Yes
  • Reviewed:
  • Reviewed by: mluna
  • Is approved? Yes
  • Is current revision? No
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This article explains how to manage and edit your music to work properly on the music application for Firefox OS so that you can enjoy using your music application. You'll learn how to add music files on your phone and how to edit them so they are managed the way you want them to be and to be able to use the covers you want.

Don't know how to use the music application? More information is stated here.

How to add music to your phone

This chapter explains how to put music on your phone by connecting your device to your computer with a USB cable and how to copy your music with a simple drag and drop.

Firefox OS supports many popular audio formats. A full list is located here.

Here's How

  1. Open the Settings app, scroll down to the Device section and tap Media storage.
  2. In the Media storage settings, enable USB mass storage.

    USB Mass Storage
  3. Connect your Firefox OS phone to your computer using a USB cable. In a moment the SD card on your phone should be accessible from your computer.
    Note: Your phone must be turned on for these steps to work.
  4. On your computer, click the Start menu and choose My Computer. You should see your phone's SD card listed as a "Removable Disk" (labeled "E:" for example).On your computer, click the Start menu and choose Computer. You should see your phone's SD card listed as a "Removable Disk" (labeled "E:" for example).On your computer, choose the Desktop tile on the start screen. Then open the File Explorer (Folder icon in the task bar) and choose Computer in the left sidebar.On your computer, click the Finder in the dock. A new Finder window will open and you should see your phone's SD card listed in the left sidebar under "Devices" (labeled "NO NAME" for example).On your computer, click the Home folder button in the top left corner of your screen to open a file window. You should see your phone's SD card listed in the left sidebar.
  5. Double-click on the SD card in the My Computer window. You will see a list of the files and folders on the card. FXOS Removable Disk - Win
    Double-click on the SD card in the Computer window. You will see a list of the files and folders on the card.

    FXOS Removable Disk - Win
    Select your SD card in the left sidebar. You will see a list of the files and folders on the card. Select your SD card in the left sidebar. You will see a list of the files and folders on the card.
  6. Drag and drop your music files (or folders with music files in them) on to the window to copy them to the SD card.
  7. When you are finished, eject the SD card from your computer and disconnect your phone. You can now access your music in the Firefox OS music app.

How the music application works

After adding music to your phone you'll probably be missing alot of album covers and have several artists and album names missing or mixed up. In this chapter you'll learn the ways of the music application and learn how to manage your music.

How it Arranges Music

Every music file uses tags to define what it is. There are a few types of tag that are important as for using the music app:

  • Title (includes the title of the track shown in the music app)
  • Album (includes the name of the album shown in the music app)
  • Artist (includes the name of the artist shown in the music app)
  • Cover (includes the image file of the cover art shown in the music app)
Note: Firefox OS uses these tags to organise the music app.

Warning: The folder structures and file names on your SD-card do not affect the music app in any way and are therefore only for your own visibility.

What to Do

If your tags are not managed the way you want them to be, you can easily edit them using an mp3 tagger. You can use MP3tag or any other mp3 tagger of your choice for this task.

  1. Install the mp3 tagger software.
  2. Open the folder your music is located in.
  3. Edit the tags like shown below.

    mp3 taggerIf you don't have an image to use as a cover I suggest to enter the album name on Google Images and download the desired image file. Supported image formats are PNG and JPEG.
    Note: Every track can have it’s own cover, but the cover of the track tagged as first in the album is used as the cover shown in the album gallery.

    Warning: Make sure to use a square image, because else it gets scaled to fit the square frame and that may not look very good. That means it should be the same width as height. For example image size 500x500.
  4. Save your changes. You can also exit the mp3 tagger once finished.
  5. Disconnect the device from your computer, because you're not able to use the music app while being connected.

And you are all done!
It should be looking something like this.
The image "album gallery no default covers" does not exist.

Note: Music files of the OGG format containing cover art are currently not shown in the music app.

Warning: The music app does not use any loose images you put into your album folder. These images are loaded into your image gallery though. So you should delete those if you don't want them cluttering your gallery app.