Songs from Google Play don't show up on phone

Question

I'm trying to make a custom calendar notification on my mom's Samsung Galaxy S3 (Android 4.1.1) because the built-in ones are too short for her to hear. This article says I can move a music file to the notification folder in MyFiles.

So I bought a song from Google Play and looked for the file on her phone. Wasn't there. Checked every folder, but no luck.

Did some more searching and found this article from Google Play troubleshooting how to get songs to show up on your phone. Absolutely none of the menu options even existed on my mom's phone, so it was completely unhelpful.

Tried to search for how other people added songs as ringtones from Google Play on their phones. I found quite a few articles addressing it. They all said to add the ringtone from the Music Player app. Checked the Music Player app, and the song wasn't there.

That might explain why the song doesn't exist on her phone, except I can play the song on her phone through the Play Music app. I clicked "Keep on Device," but the song still doesn't seem to exist.

How do I get the song I bought from Google Play to show up as a file on my mom's phone?

However, if anyone provides a quick way to skip all this mess and just make the notifications last longer, that would be appreciated too.

EDIT
There are a number of oddities about this issue I don't understand, so insight into any one of these would be incredibly helpful.

1. Why would the Google Play Troubleshooting article have irrelevant information? Is it because it's for older phones? Do I have to activate something on my mom's phone, or configure something, or download a plug-in, or whatever to get it to have the same menu options?
2. Does anyone have a Galaxy SIII and is willing to translate the Google Play instructions to something that fits with this type of phone?
3. Does music from Google Play usually show up in the Music Player app automatically? Is there a setting I need to set so that it will do that from now on?
4. What does "Keep on Device" actually do?
5. Is it possible that my mom might have previously deleted or deactivated something needed to get the songs to go into Music Player?
6. Is there any reason to suspect this might be due to a glitch in my mom's phone?
7. How can the phone have access to the song in some places when it doesn't have the file on hand? Is the song stored in some kind of network?
8. My original thought was to copy one of the files for a built-in ringtone into the Notifications folder, but I couldn't find where those were stored. (They're not in the Ringtones folder.) Could the song I bought be stored in the phone in a similar way to how the built-in ringtones are stored?
9. Is there some relation to the Music Player app and songs stored as files? If I can get the song to show up on the Music Player app will that mean that it has become a file? Does the Music Player app only play songs that are files?
10. Is there some other way I can access the song outside the phone so I can make it into a file and copy it into the phone?
11. I can find the song on the Play Music app, but not on the Music Player app or the Music Hub app. Is there another app it might show up on that I haven't checked?

Again answering any one of these would be beneficial. Hoping some clue will lead me to the answer. Thanks!

Answer 1

I was having the same problem and just fixed it: Under the Google play (app the you purchased it from) search in the music section the song you bought. When your results come up click the one that says purchased and then click listen (I did mine under wi-fi might be able to do it through data). I should give a message saying error, just click try again and it should sync. At least that's what mine did. Good luck, hope it works for you if you didn't already fix it.

Answer 2

In response to: "If anyone provides a quick way to skip all this mess and just make the notifications last longer, that would be appreciated too."

Use the free Rings Extended app to easily choose any audio file (music or clips) for notifications/ringtones - without having to copy anything to specific folders. Just to clarify, this won't show up as an app when installed. However, whenever you try to change a ringtone/notification, "Rings Extended" will show as an option, which you can then choose to open the app for choosing a ringtone/notification.

Additionally, you can use Ringdroid (also free) to cut the required part/length from a sound file (or music track) on the device.

Unfortunately I don't live in an area that allows me to buy music on the Play store so I can't help with that problem.

Answer 3

I think your are missing an important concept of Google Play Music: The songs are kept in the cloud and are streamed on-demand if you want to listen to them.

If you want to keep them on the device for offline listening, you have to check 'keep on device'. Now it should be clear what that option does.

The links you mentioned in your question are all about 'how to get uploaded music (with Google Musicmanager) to appear on your device'. They are not about how to let the actual song file appear on the device.

This 2 questions should help you further:

• How can I turn songs from Google Play Music into ringtones?
• Where does Google Music store offline songs?

Answer 4

Go to the folder:

/mnt/SDcard/android/data/com.google.android.music/cache/music

and remember that the songs don't come up with the title as their file name, GM creates its own numeric filename (God knows why, it's annoying).

Answer 5

You can only set songs that are actually on your sdcard... music from the cloud on google music are saved in a database, so you can't access them