How do I Play Music from Google Play on my Android phone?

Google Play Music is a music and podcast streaming service and online music locker operated by Google. The service allows users to upload up to 50,000 songs from their personal music library to the cloud for free.

Google Play Music comes pre-installed on most Android devices. It gives users access to over 40 million songs for streaming or download. Key features include:

Streaming music from the Google Play catalog

Uploading your own music collection to the cloud
Downloading songs for offline listening
Curated playlists and radio stations

Podcast streaming

This guide will walk through how to play music you’ve added to your library or downloaded for offline listening on an Android device using the Google Play Music app.

Open the Google Play Music App

Google Play Music is the default music player app on most Android devices. To open the app, simply tap the Google Play Music icon on your home screen or in your app drawer.

The app interface features tabs along the top or bottom for Listen Now, My Library, Browse, and Radio. The Listen Now tab shows recommendations and recent activity. My Library has your uploaded and purchased music. Browse lets you search and explore new music. And Radio offers streaming radio stations.

You can also open Google Play Music by using voice commands. Say “OK Google” or “Hey Google” and then say something like “Open Google Play Music” or “Play music.” Just make sure you have voice commands enabled on your device.

Search for Music

Google Play Music has a robust search function that allows you to find specific songs, albums, artists, and more. To search, simply tap the search icon at the top of the app screen and enter your query. The app will display relevant results across songs, albums, artists, playlists, and stations.

You can search by song title, artist name, album name, lyrics, or other keywords. For example, searching for “Hello” will bring up results related to the Adele song. Searching for “Beyonce” will show Beyonce’s full catalog of albums and singles.

In addition to searching, Google Play Music provides personalized recommendations and featured sections like “New Releases,” “Trending Near You,” and genre stations. Browsing through these sections is a great way to discover new music tailored specifically to your tastes.

Overall, Google Play Music makes finding new jams effortless. With robust search and discovery features, you can easily search for your favorite tracks or let Google Play Music suggest music you’ll love based on your listening history and preferences.

For more details, see “Search for music, albums or artists” from Google Play Help: https://support.google.com/googleplaymusic/answer/6073114?hl=en

Add Music to Your Library

The Google Play Music app allows you to add albums, songs, and playlists to your personal music library. Your library acts as your collection of music that you can then play through the app.

To add music to your library:

Search for an artist, album, song, or playlist. You can browse Google Play’s catalog of over 40 million tracks for free.
When you find an album or playlist you want to add, tap the “+” icon next to it. This will add it to My Library.
You can also tap the 3-dot menu next to an album or playlist and select “Add to library” to add it.

For individual songs, tap the 3-dot menu and choose “Add to playlist” to add it to an existing or new playlist in your library.

To create a playlist in your library:

Tap “Create Playlist” at the bottom of the Playlists tab.

Give your playlist a name and description.
Search for songs to add and tap the “+” icon to add them.
You can add up to 1,000 songs per playlist.

According to users on Reddit and Google support forums, the average Google Play Music library has around 2,000-50,000 songs. With Google Play Music, you can add up to 50,000 of your own songs to your library for free using Music Manager.

Once you’ve added albums, songs, and playlists, they become available for playback through the app anywhere you’re signed in. You can stream or download the content for offline listening.

Download Music for Offline Play

One of the great features of Google Play Music is the ability to download songs, albums, and playlists for offline listening when you don’t have an internet connection. Here’s how to download music for offline playback on your Android device:

Open the Google Play Music app and find a song, album, artist, or playlist you want to download. Tap the download icon next to the item (it looks like a downward arrow). The app will begin downloading the music to your device.

You can view and manage your downloaded music by tapping on the hamburger menu icon in the top left corner of the app. Select “Downloads” to see all the music you’ve downloaded for offline listening. From here you can play downloads, delete downloads you no longer want, and download additional music.

Downloaded music is stored locally on your device, so you can access your offline music collection even when you have no cell service or Wi-Fi. This makes it easy to listen to music on flights, while traveling, or anywhere without an internet connection. The only downside is downloaded music takes up storage space on your device.

To save storage space, make sure to occasionally delete music you no longer want downloaded. You can always re-download it later when you have internet access. With Google Play Music you’ll always have your favorite tunes available offline when you need them!

Adjust Audio Settings

Google Play Music has several audio settings you can customize to get the sound you want when listening to music. Here are some of the key settings to adjust:

Change equalizer presets – Google Play Music has a built-in equalizer with presets like Bass reducer, Classical, Dance, Flat (default), Folk, Hip hop, Jazz, Latin, Lounge, Piano, Pop, R&B, Rock, Small speakers, Spoken word, Treble reducer, and Vocal booster. You can select a preset to suit your preferences or the type of music you’re listening to. See this thread on recommended Google Play Music equalizer settings.

Enable enhancements like bass boost – In your Play Music settings, you can enable audio effects like bass boost, reverb, and headphone virtualization to enhance the listening experience. Turning on bass boost is especially useful for boosting low frequencies on songs.

You can also adjust the audio quality under settings. See this article on new audio quality features in Google Play Music that allow streaming and downloading at higher resolution levels.

Play Music

Once you have added songs to your library and downloaded them for offline playback, you can start listening to music on your Android device. Here are some tips for playing music and managing playback:

The Now Playing screen shows the album artwork and provides playback controls like play/pause, next/previous track, and scrubbing. You can also like songs to add them to your favorites.

Tap the 3-dot menu icon to access the playback queue. This allows you to view upcoming songs, reorder tracks, and clear the queue. You can save queues as playlists to easily replay them later.

Some useful playback controls include repeat (loop a song or playlist) and shuffle. You can also cast music to Google Cast devices like Chromecast.

Adjust the volume using your device’s volume buttons. The Now Playing screen also has its own volume slider.

Listen on Multiple Devices

One of the great features of Google Play Music is the ability to stream music across multiple devices, whether it’s speakers, TVs, phones, tablets, etc. You can start listening to a song or playlist on one device, like your phone, and seamlessly transfer the playback to another device, like a Google Nest speaker, without missing a beat.

To stream music to multiple devices, you’ll need to make sure they are all linked to the same Google account. Open the Google Home app and ensure any speakers, displays, Chromecasts, etc. are set up under your account.

Then when playing music in the Google Play Music app, tap the Cast button in the player controls. This will allow you to select which available device(s) to stream the audio to. You can select one or multiple devices at once to play music throughout your home.

To move the playback from one device to another, simply tap the Cast button again and select the new device. The music will instantly switch over so you can listen on whichever device is most convenient. This makes it easy to start listening on your phone and continue on a Google Nest speaker when you arrive home.

With Google Play Music’s multi-room streaming, you have the flexibility to listen however you want. Stream a dance party throughout the whole house, or isolate the music to a single speaker as you move room to room.

Subscribe to Google Play Music

Google Play Music offers a free subscription plan that lets you listen to thousands of songs in the Google Music library. However, to unlock additional features and benefits, you can subscribe to Google Play Music’s paid plans:

Google Play Music Unlimited, which costs $9.99/month for individual plans or $14.99/month for family plans (up to 6 people), lets you stream over 50 million songs ad-free, download tracks and playlists for offline listening, and get curated playlists based on your tastes (source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/google-play-music)
YouTube Music Premium includes the features of Google Play Music Unlimited as well as ad-free access to YouTube Music. It costs $9.99/month for individual plans or $14.99/month for family plans (source: https://freeyourmusic.com/blog/google-play-vs-spotify)

To subscribe, open the Google Play Music app and tap on the profile icon. Select “Settings” and then “Subscribe to Google Play Music”. Choose between the Individual or Family plan and follow the on-screen instructions to link a payment method. The subscription will renew automatically each month.

You can cancel or change your subscription plan anytime under Play Music settings. Just tap on your profile icon, choose settings, select “Manage My Subscription” and follow the prompts.

Troubleshooting Tips

If you have issues playing music from Google Play Music on your Android device, here are some troubleshooting steps:

Fixes for common playback issues:
– Restart your device – Sometimes a simple restart can help fix problems with playback and streaming music.
– Check your internet connection – Make sure your device is connected to a stable WiFi or mobile data connection
– Clear the app cache and data – Delete the temporary app files and reset the app
– Update or reinstall the app – Make sure you’re using the latest app version or try uninstalling and reinstalling the app

Resetting app data:
– Open your settings > applications > Google Play Music > storage > clear cache and clear data. This will delete your offline music and settings but can often fix playback issues.

Contacting customer support:

– If you still can’t get music to play properly after troubleshooting, you can contact Google Play Music support for additional help.