How do I transfer music from a Laptop to Windows Phone?

  • Thread starter Windows Central Question
  • Start date
W

Windows Central Question

How to transfer music from Laptop to Windows Phone

I have a Lumia 630 running Windows 8.1. Earlier this year I bought a 64GB micro sdxc card so I could transfer my music from my laptop (an old laptop running, I think, either Vista or XP) to the phone, via an external hard drive. I did this by simple drag and drop from the place where I keep my music files (linked to iTunes which was on my laptop) to the music location on the phone. This worked fine, albeit some albums/artists showed up as 'unknown' for some reason. My files are a mixture of MP3, which is music I download from my preferred music website, and M4A, which I think relates to the music I imported from CDs, and I assume is an iTunes format. I have never purchased music from iTunes.

Anyway, the 64GB is not large enough as I have over 16000 tracks so I bought a 128GB card last week. A month ago I bought a new laptop running either Windows 8 or 8.1 (with the 10 update pending), and the music is all stored on the laptop rather than an external hard drive as this laptop has 400GB capacity. This time when I tried to drag and drop it started off ok, then it warned that M4A might not play on my device and asked if I wanted to convert, so I selected yes, and I think it started converting the files to WMA format. This process was taking forever so I left it overnight. In the morning I had a further error message, which I didn't note down, but basically saying it couldn't copy some files so I cancelled this process and thought I'd start again. I then tried using the Windows Phone app to sync from iTunes but for some reason the sync option would never be highlighted so I couldn't use this option. I then decided to put the card in an SD card adapter and into the laptop, and drag and drop this way. This time I didn't get the warning about M4A files and the transfer happened pretty quickly so I thought I had found a solution.

I put the card in the phone and waited an age for the files to all populate in the xbox music app. I then started trying to play some music but for virtually every track, with only a few exceptions, I got the error code 80070003, and it wouldn't play the tracks, whether the MP3 or M4A files (there is no clear pattern as to which ones work and which do not, but I would say 95+% are not working). I tried similar tracks on MixRadio and they would play fine, however it takes an age to load anything up on this app, and it keeps freezing, so I do not see this as a solution.

So, to cut a very long story short, is there a way that I can get my 16000 tracks in MP3 and M4A format from my laptop onto my phone and working properly? Is it possible that I am having an issue which I didn't have last time, because I am now transferring from a new laptop running a newer version of Windows? Is it a problem because I am using a larger micro sd card? I am finding it so frustrating as I thought it would be a simple process and I now feel I might have wasted my money buying the larger capacity micro sd card.

Any help you can offer would be appreciated, and please bear in mind I am not very technically minded.
 

harihar akhil

New member
Jul 20, 2014
471
0
0
Visit site
No it's not the problem with sdcard or phone or your laptop but with music app in windows phone.Try playing them on different music player in wp. If you want to play them on Xbox music format your sd card insert it in your phone copy and ignore all warnings(select no if prompted to convert)
 

Chintan Gohel

Active member
May 23, 2014
10,785
1
36
Visit site
Re: How to transfer music from Laptop to Windows Phone

No it's not the problem with sdcard or phone or your laptop but with music app in windows phone.Try playing them on different music player in wp. If you want to play them on Xbox music format your sd card insert it in your phone copy and ignore all warnings(select no if prompted to convert)

What he said. Format the card, put it back in the phone and connect the phone and copy, ignore errors.

I suggest copying a few at a time and see if they work before continuing with others
 

Yost72

New member
Nov 23, 2015
2
0
0
Visit site
Re: How to transfer music from Laptop to Windows Phone

No it's not the problem with sdcard or phone or your laptop but with music app in windows phone.Try playing them on different music player in wp. If you want to play them on Xbox music format your sd card insert it in your phone copy and ignore all warnings(select no if prompted to convert)

Thanks for this. So if I do this it is more likely to be successful than when I copied to the micro sd card inserted into an sd adapter into the laptop? I would have thought I should get the same result. Anyway, will give it a go.

BTW, what other music apps would you recommend? I have no specific preference for the xbox music app.
 

harihar akhil

New member
Jul 20, 2014
471
0
0
Visit site
Re: How to transfer music from Laptop to Windows Phone

Thanks for this. So if I do this it is more likely to be successful than when I copied to the micro sd card inserted into an sd adapter into the laptop? I would have thought I should get the same result. Anyway, will give it a go.

BTW, what other music apps would you recommend? I have no specific preference for the xbox music app.
Does not make any difference if you copied it to your sdcard via adaptor or via USB to your phone.Problem is with Xbox music app which I get occasionally.
 

Yost72

New member
Nov 23, 2015
2
0
0
Visit site
Re: How to transfer music from Laptop to Windows Phone

I use core music player,but there are other apps which are good.music locker(play music from OneDrive),perfect music player,n7 music player.

Interested in your comment regarding OneDrive as I have a OneDrive for Business account. I did have a play with this but was struggling to work out how to get all files onto OneDrive without having to do it one file at a time, and when I got some on OneDrive I wasn't sure how to play them (although I was trying to do it via xbox music).
 

harihar akhil

New member
Jul 20, 2014
471
0
0
Visit site
Re: How to transfer music from Laptop to Windows Phone

Not sure but may be allowing streaming option in settings and streaming in filter(in collection) would automatically add your OneDrive music to your collection.for me it added them automatically.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
322,901
Messages
2,242,866
Members
428,004
Latest member
hetb