MediaMonkey forum

So I finally got all 7300 tracks from my laptop's music library synced via MM to my iPhone. The tracks all appear in the native iPhone music app - so far so good...

I have installed two alternative 3rd-party music apps, and neither of them see these files, reporting that they find no files to play.

Is there a 3rd-party music app for iPhone that will see the files I've already transferred to my phone?

The documentation for the two apps I've already installed (VLC Media Player and FLAC Player+) indicate that you have to use those apps to transfer files from a PC/Laptop onto the phone. I rip all my music files to FLAC and then use MM to convert them to more compact formats when syncing, so I'd like to make use of the files that result from the MM sync if at all possible.

Thanks!

Hi,
Each Apple App works in its own space and they can't access files for other apps nor common folders (I have seen some exceptions, but on jail broken phones, but they might exist).

Re FLAC: There was some users reporting latest iPhones support FLAC by manually adding FLAC into supported formats and they simply play them.

Thanks - that makes sense, so when syncing files from my laptop to the iPhone via MM, the only application that will be able to access those files will be the native Apple music app?

An option to consider is an app called SmartPlaylist. It reads all the music on your iphone in the Music app. It also allows you to create custom views of your music (by unplayed, frequently played, artist sort, title sort, etc)

The other thing I do is keep all my lossless music in ALAC format (.m4a extension) now that way it works across all my home streaming and I can sync it to my iphone.

Hi,
Foobar2000 Mobile can access Iphone music library. In Foobar2000 I can see albums synchronized using Itunes. You must select to scan the library in Settings / Media Library / Rescan Iphone library.

krgds

Onkyo's HF Player will see and play all the tracks synced to iTunes (or whatever it is now called). It will also play FLAC files synced to it either by using the file transfer process in desktop iTunes or they can be downloaded from iCloud Drive or Adobe Document Cloud (I use the latter and it is seamless). Playing the iTunes synced files is free, but using the cloud involves a small one-time purchase. Onkyo's audio hardware has an excellent reputation and that carries over to this app which is great out of the box but also allows for lots of tweaks by audiophiles .

Peke wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 8:08 pm Each Apple App works in its own space and they can't access files for other apps nor common folders (I have seen some exceptions, but on jail broken phones, but they might exist).

Actually, there are many third-party music players available on the App Store that can directly access and play music that is in the iPhone’s Apple music library. Stezza, Cs and Plum are just three examples.

Hi,
It is not problem with iTunes files as they share common path, problem arises when you want to use Stezza to access Plum files. More recent workaround in some cases is to Manually set FLAC as supported format -> Sync with MM -> Use Foobar/Stezza/Plum/... to access them and no wonder they play while fail in native iPhone music app