The Google Play Music app is pre-installed on almost all Android smartphones, a very special on-demand music service that for many people may seem like nothing but an app similar to Apple Music. In reality, this Play Music is much more and can be used for free on Android and also on iPhone in a very productive way, as you would not expect, thanks to unique and very advantageous hidden functions.
In fact, if it is true that the store is very similar to iTunes while the subscription streaming service is very similar to Spotify, there is a whole part of Google Play Music that can be used for free and which represents the best way to manage the own music collection, in a shared way, between PC and mobile phone.
In practice, by uploading music to Google Play Music from your PC, you can then listen to it, even offline, from your smartphone without paying a Euro.
First of all, if not yet installed, you can use Google Play Music as an app on Android smartphones and tablets, on iPhone and iPad and also from a PC by connecting to the Play Music site by logging in with your Google account.
Upload music from your PC
The best and unique feature of Play Music is its ability to transmit our PC songs online, via website or app on Android and iPhone.
The nice thing is that this possibility is free for up to 50, 000 songs that can be saved in the Google Music cloud space.
To upload music from your PC to Google Music and keep it always available whatever PC or smartphone you use you need to download and install on the computer where we have our mp3 files the program "Music Manager" or, if you use Chrome as a browser, directly from the browser using the Google Play Music extension.
Through the Google Music Manager program, we scan the folders where we have kept the songs from our collection and start uploading them online to your Google account.
This upload, depending on the number of files we have and the bandwidth speed, can take several days, so it takes patience before it ends, leaving the music manager active every day we turn on the computer.
Once finished, however, here's the magic: all the music will be freely listenable to streaming or downloadable from PC, Android and iPhone without having to pay anything.
Note that the songs purchased from the Google Play Music store do not count within the limit of 50, 000 songs that can be kept online for free.
Download music with Google Play Music offline mode
The offline mode allows you to listen to the songs saved from your smartphone without an internet connection, by downloading them to the mobile phone memory.
To use the offline mode, open the app on Android or iPhone, go to the main menu by pressing the button on the top left and activate the switch "Music downloaded only.
To download a song or an entire album, go to the main screen called " Listen Now ", select an album and touch the download icon, the one with the down arrow.
If you want to make all the added music available offline, you can go to the main menu, then in Settings, scroll down and find in the Download section the option for automatic music download.
The Play Music app will automatically download the songs available up to a maximum of 1 GB of space on the phone's memory.
NOTE: In the settings, the option is activated by default to cache the songs already listened to in streaming, which automatically become available for offline listening.
When you switch to " downloaded music only " mode, you can see a playlist made only of music saved on the cache.
Always in the settings you can clear the cache.
Saving data in streaming
As for listening to streaming music, in the Settings of the Play Music application you can activate the option to lower the quality on the mobile network, which at the cost of a less clear listening, allows you to save a lot of network bandwidth.
Equalizer (Android only)
Speaking of audio quality, you can use an efficient equalizer to improve listening to music.
This Equalizer is located in the Settings menu.
Automatic Music and Mix Management
The free version of Google Play Music allows you to play as you want with music loaded from your computer.
Starting from each song, you can touch the menu button to create instant mixes, i.e. playlists of songs similar to the chosen one.
You can also create your own playlists and save them to listen to them whenever you want.
In addition to this, Play Music automatically organizes all the available songs by genre, artist, album so you can easily find any song.
While playing a song, you can touch and drag the mini player upwards to rate as much as we like (the judgment will affect future instant mixes) and by touching the small button at the top to watch the playback queue i.e. the next songs that are played by the app.
In the settings of Play Music you can also activate the Sleep timer, to turn off the music after a certain period of time, perfect for when you want to fall asleep.
The Rankings section always refers to the subscription which costs 10 Euros per month and allows you to stream various automatic playlists and new releases.
Different is instead the Music Store on Google Play where you can watch album and song titles based on the charts or genres and where you can buy the various albums.
In this case it is not necessary to make any transfer or synchronization because the music is saved online in the Google Cloud and is always available.
If you wish, undoubtedly and legally, you can download it to your PC or listen offline from your mobile phone without the need for an internet connection.
READ ALSO: App for better listening to Music on Android
