Local music files not found, but podcast etc are.

[Andy_P]

Plan: Premium

Country: UK

Device: Sony Xperia XZ2

Operating System: Android 10

My Question or Issue

I have ticked "show local files in library"

Spotify is now seeing my few audiobooks (which are on my SD card) and some audio recordings I made on the phone itself (which are on the internal memory), so it is seeing both storage locations.

However, it is not seeing ANY of my music files which are all mp3s stored in artist and album sub-folders in the main "Music" folder on the SD card.

Please advise on what I can do to encourage Spotify to scan and recognise these files. Thank you.

[CarlosE]

Hi there @Andy_P,

Thanks for reaching out.

Could you try moving your music files to a different folder to see if that makes any difference? Preferably, try moving some music files to the folder where you have the audiobooks to see if they appear in the app. This would help us understand if the issue is related to the folder or to the files themselves.

Additionally, make sure to log out, restart the app, and log back in.

Keep us posted.

[CPTJ]

Has anyone found a fix for this yet?

[Andy_P]

Hi thank you for your reply and sorry it has taken me this long to try your suggestions.

1. I tried logging out of Spotify, force stopping the app, re-starting the app and logging in again - No change.

2. I tried copying one complete 'artist' subfolder from my 'music' folder to my 'audiobooks' folder (both on the SD card) - Spotify DID now show the individual tracks from that artist (I couldn't see any way to get Spotify to show them grouped by album, but that's another question for later!

So... The issue seems to be with my 'music' folder although it is a standard system folder generated by the Android operating system.

3. Checking with a file manager app. I did see that my 'music' folder had a ".nomedia" file in it (which I think I remember adding myself in order to stop my album art appearing in my photo gallery. Having that file present does not stopy other music apps finding the content, but I tried deleting it anyway to see if it cured this issue - but no change.

Do you have any further suggestions on what to try, please?

[MafeG]

Hi folks,

Thank you for keeping in touch!

@Andy_P Just to make sure, after you moved the artist's folder that you were able to see later on the app, did you check if the .nomedia file was included in the "Audiobooks" folder? 

Another thing you can try is creating a new "Music" folder on your SD, then move your files there and check if they're recognized by the app. 

@CPTJ Could you give us more details about the issue you're having? The more information we have, the better we can assist you. 

Keep us posted.