I keep MMA on my phone strictly for syncing purposes. As an actual music player, it leaves a lot to be desired unfortunately. I use Pulsar as my main player, with Shuttle and PiMusicPlayer as alternatives.

1) MMA works best when syncing between MMW and MMA. Otherwise you're relying on Android Media Scanner to pick up tags and Artwork and it doesn't have a good track record. MMA 2.0 should come with its own scanner, but for now it's best to Sync MMW > MMA.

2) Shuffle is on the Now Playing screen and will show when you tap on the Artwork along with Rating and Repeat.

3) You may be using Shuffle Play to add files to the Now Playing. Shuffle Play will add files in a random order to the Now Playing. Instead long press on files, select what you want to play and use Play Now, Play Next or Play Last at the bottom of the screen instead of Shuffle Play on top. This works independent from Shuffle on the Player.

I use MediaMonkey Gold on a Windows 10 desktop, but on my Android phone (Galaxy S9+) my needs are SO SIMPLE and yet I can't find a simple music player. Rather than BUY all the features when it's already a disappointment (MMA should be free with Gold), I'd like to just solve this.

I just tried MMA, and honestly, it's awful! It apparently shuffles whether it is told to or not (so forget books-on-tape!). It doesn't display the album art burned into each track, or any visualization... Shuffle is disabled when it's DARK, but repeat is disabled when it's LIT? I turned on the 15-day trial on the file folder viewer, and I have to navigate to the music folder EVERY TIME I run MMA? There is no general config?

I just need to shuffle-play ONE folder! Whatever is there, PLAY IT! I'll copy the files in manually -- isn't that a bonus of Android? I used to use MXPlayer (pro which I bought and used for years) but it "updated" to destruction apparently. FileManagerPro decided it really wanted to play my voicemails! Why is this so difficult?