Where does Tidal store offline music Android?
Tidal is a popular music and entertainment streaming service that offers high fidelity lossless audio quality and music videos for users to enjoy. Along with streaming capabilities, Tidal also offers an offline mode that allows users to download music onto their devices like smartphones and computers for listening without an internet connection.
On Android devices, Tidal has an app that provides access to the streaming library and offline features. Users can download tracks, albums, playlists and more for offline listening. The downloaded music is then stored locally on the Android device. This enables continued access to the music even without an active internet connection.
In this article, we will look at where exactly the Tidal app stores offline music on Android devices. Understanding the storage location can help manage the offline music collection.
Tidal App Overview
Tidal [1] is a subscription-based music streaming service that offers lossless audio quality and high-fidelity music videos. The service was launched in 2014 by Norwegian company Aspiro, and acquired by Jay-Z’s company Project Panther Bidco in 2015.
Tidal offers an Android app [2] that allows users to stream and download music for offline listening. The Tidal Android app provides access to Tidal’s library of over 100 million tracks, playlists curated by music experts, and exclusive content from major artists. Key features of the Tidal Android app include:
- Stream music in lossless HiFi audio quality
- Create and share playlists
- Browse new releases and top charts
- Watch high-definition music videos
- Save music for offline listening
- Radio station creation based on favorite artists
The Tidal app aims to provide Android users with a premium music listening experience, replicating the high-fidelity sound quality that made Tidal popular on desktop. It allows users to take their music library anywhere, while accessing Tidal’s vast catalog of songs, albums, playlists and music videos.
Enabling Offline Mode
To enable offline downloads in the Tidal Android app, first open the Tidal app and tap on “My Collection” at the bottom of the screen. Then tap the settings icon in the top right corner (shaped like a gear). This will open the Settings menu.
Under “OFFLINE MODE” toggle the switch on. This will enable offline downloads and allow you to save music for offline listening. Make sure mobile data and/or WiFi is turned on in order to download the offline content.
Once offline mode is enabled, there will be a download icon next to tracks, albums, artists, and playlists. Tap the download icon to download that content for offline listening. The downloaded content will appear under “Offline Content” within the “My Collection” tab.[1]
To manage the storage used by offline content, go back to Settings > Offline Storage. Here you can see how much space is being used and delete downloaded music if needed.
[1] “How to Listen to Tidal Music Offline.” Tidabie. https://www.tidabie.com/guide/listen-to-tidal-offline.html
Offline Music Storage Location
For Android devices, Tidal stores offline music downloads in the “Music” folder or sometimes a folder called “Tidal”. The specific location can vary based on your device and Android version, but is usually in internal storage under:
/storage/emulated/0/Music
/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.aspiro.tidal.android/files/Music [1]
/storage/emulated/0/Tidal
You can navigate to these folders using the native Android File Manager app to view and manage your offline Tidal music. The files will be stored in formats like .mp3, .flac, or .m4a depending on the download quality selected.
File Format for Offline Music
When downloading music for offline listening in the Tidal app on Android, the songs are stored locally in the lossless FLAC audio format. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and it allows songs to be compressed without any loss in audio quality. This makes FLAC ideal for storing high fidelity music for offline listening.
According to Tidal’s website, all offline downloads in the Android app use FLAC encoding at 44.1kHz / 16 bit. This matches the audio quality of Tidal’s “HiFi” streaming tier. So Android users with a Tidal HiFi subscription can download tracks for offline listening without any reduction in sound quality compared to streaming.
The FLAC file format has some advantages over other lossless formats like WAV when it comes to offline music storage. FLAC compresses the size of the audio files by around 50%, allowing more songs to be stored locally while retaining the full CD-quality fidelity. FLAC files also contain metadata like album art, song details, etc embedded in the file.
So in summary, Tidal utilizes the FLAC lossless audio codec to store offline music downloads on Android devices. This provides high-resolution sound quality matched to the streamed audio, along with the benefits of compressed file sizes and embedded metadata. It’s an optimal format choice for offline listening that doesn’t compromise on audio fidelity.
Offline Music Storage Size
The amount of storage space used by offline music in the Tidal app depends on the audio quality settings. By default, Tidal will download offline music at ‘High’ quality which uses roughly 1GB per hour of music (Source). This means if you download 10 hours of music for offline listening, it will take up around 10GB of storage space.
Tidal also offers ‘HiFi’ and ‘Master’ quality for offline downloads which use more storage – approximately 1.5GB per hour for HiFi and 2-3GB per hour for Master quality. So with the highest quality settings enabled, 10 hours of offline music could potentially use 20-30GB of storage. Users report Tidal taking up over 100GB of space for large offline music libraries (Source).
The key factors determining Tidal’s offline music storage size are the amount of music downloaded and the selected audio quality. By optimizing these settings, you can manage the app’s offline storage footprint.
Managing Offline Music Storage
The Tidal app allows you to manage the amount of storage space used for offline music downloads. Here are some tips for controlling the size and location of your offline music library:
Check how much storage space is being used for offline music in Settings > Storage. You can see the total space used and clear the entire offline library if needed.
To remove individual offline downloads, go to the My Collection section and tap the download icon next to tracks to delete them. This frees up space taken by those songs.
Set a maximum storage limit under Settings > Offline Mode to prevent Tidal from using up too much space for offline music. The limit can be set from 1GB up to available free space.
Offline music is stored locally on your Android device storage. To change the save location, go to Android Settings > Apps > Tidal > Storage and tap Change. Then select a different storage location like an SD card.
Consider upgrading to a Tidal HiFi Plus account, which allows up to 10x more offline song downloads compared to the regular HiFi tier.
Regularly review and prune your offline collection to delete songs you no longer want. This keeps your offline library a manageable size.
Audio Quality of Offline Music
When downloading music for offline listening on Android, Tidal stores songs at the highest quality available for that track based on your subscription tier. For example, if you have a HiFi subscription, downloaded tracks will be stored offline at lossless quality up to 9216 kbps. With a Premium subscription, downloads are saved at 320 kbps AAC.
According to Tidal’s website, their HiFi tier offers “high-fidelity sound quality at an average bitrate of 1411 kbps”, while Premium provides “high quality digital music…at an average bitrate of 320 kbps”.
So in summary, Tidal’s offline audio quality on Android mirrors the streaming quality – HiFi subscribers can download and listen offline in lossless format like FLAC, while Premium members get high quality 320 kbps AAC files. This allows you to enjoy your favorite music to its full potential even without an internet connection.
As noted on Reddit, Tidal always defaults to playing the downloaded quality when offline, just like other streaming services. So you don’t have to worry about lower bitrates when listening to your offline music library.
Sources:
https://tidal.com/sound-quality
https://www.reddit.com/r/TIdaL/comments/th1xhp/tidal_streaming_music_at_offline_quality/
Limitations of Offline Mode
While Tidal’s offline mode provides the convenience of accessing your music without an internet connection, there are some notable limitations users should be aware of on Android devices:
The offline music will expire after 30 days if you don’t go online and verify your Tidal subscription. According to one Reddit user, after 30 days in offline mode, you’ll get a message saying “Offline period has expired” and you’ll need to connect online again to verify your subscription and access the downloaded music (Source).
There is no offline mode available when using external services or devices like Tidal integration in Serato DJ software or Android Auto. Tidal’s offline mode only works within the Tidal mobile app itself (Source).
The audio quality of offline music is limited to “High” quality even if you subscribe to the HiFi Plus tier that offers Master quality streaming. Downloaded offline music cannot be played in lossless quality.
There are storage space limitations. The Tidal app takes up storage on your device for the offline music and downloads. Managing the storage used can be challenging.
In summary, Tidal’s offline mode has restricted time duration, quality, platform support, and storage management compared to the fully online streaming experience.
Summary
In summary, Tidal allows Android users to download music for offline listening. This offline music is stored locally on the device’s internal storage in the Android/data/com.aspiro.tidal/files folder. The music files are stored as encrypted .ogg files to prevent piracy. The size of offline storage depends on the subscription plan, with higher plans allowing more offline storage.
To manage offline storage, users can add or remove content through the “Available Offline” section of the Tidal app. Audio quality is maintained for offline listening, though limitations include needing an internet connection for initial downloads and restrictions on listening on multiple devices simultaneously. The key takeaways are that Tidal provides a seamless offline listening experience for Android users with optimized local storage and audio quality.