Technology and you: Getting your music collection onto your phone

A customer came into the shop last week with a question I hear more often than you might think: "I have 20 years of music sitting on my computer. How do I get it onto my phone?"

It's a fair question. Many of us spent the 2000s carefully ripping CDs and organizing digital music libraries, and that collection still matters. The good news is that if you have an Android phone, YouTube Music — the app that comes pre-installed on most of them — will store your entire personal collection in the cloud for free, and it works better than you'd expect.

Why YouTube Music?

Google allows you to upload up to 100,000 of your own songs to YouTube Music at no charge. You don't need a paid subscription for this. Once uploaded, your songs live in your library right alongside anything else you listen to, and they're available on your phone, your tablet, and any computer where you sign in to your Google account. Lose your phone or replace your computer, and your collection is safe.

Step one: Upload from your computer

On your computer, open a web browser and go to music.youtube.com. Sign in with the same Google account you use on your phone — this part is important, because the account is the bridge between the two devices.

Once you're signed in, click your profile picture in the top right corner and choose Upload music. A window will open letting you browse to your music folder. Select the songs, albums, or entire folders you want, and click Open. You can also simply drag files from a folder straight onto the webpage.

YouTube Music accepts the common formats: MP3, M4A, FLAC, WMA, and OGG. If your music came from ripped CDs or old iTunes purchases, you're almost certainly covered.

Depending on the size of your collection and your internet speed, uploading may take a while — a few hundred songs might take an hour or two. You can leave the browser window open and let it work.

Step two: Find it on your phone

Here's the part that trips people up. Open the YouTube Music app on your Android phone and tap Library at the bottom. Your uploaded songs don't mix in automatically with everything else — tap Songs or Albums, then look for the small tab near the top labeled Uploads. That's your personal collection, exactly as you organized it.

From there you can play anything, build playlists, and search your own library just like a streaming service.

One tip worth knowing

Streaming your own uploads still uses internet data. If you want your music available anywhere — say, on a drive up A1A with spotty coverage — YouTube Music Premium subscribers can download uploads for offline listening. If you'd rather not subscribe, there's an old-fashioned alternative: connect your phone to your computer with a USB cable, choose "File transfer" on the phone's screen, and copy your music folder directly into the phone's Music folder. Then use a free app like the built-in Files app or a simple music player to listen without using any data at all.

The bottom line

Your music collection represents years of care, and it doesn't have to stay trapped on an aging computer. An afternoon of uploading puts it in your pocket for good.

As always, if you'd rather have a friendly face walk you through it, bring your laptop and your phone by the shop. We're glad to help.

Deryck Burnett is the founder of Megabite, a technology, creative, and multimedia company on Amelia Island. He can be reached at 904-430-0350 or megabite.co.