(This is part of the My Quick Start Guide for Samsung Galaxy S3 Series.)
Like any other smartphone, you can use Samsung Galaxy S3 to play your favourite music while on the go.
The Galaxy S3 can play a wide variety of audio and video files:
- Music: mp3, 3ga, aac, m4a, wma
- Sound: wav, mmf, xmf, imy, midi, amr
- Video: 3gp, mp4, avi, wmv, flv, mkv
By default, the Android doesn’t play WMA (Windows Music Audio) files, but Samsung made it possible on their version of Android with the inclusion of codec. And the same goes to WMV (Windows Media Video) files.
How do you transfer music file to your Samsung Galaxy S3?
There are various ways you can transfer video, audio or any other files to your Galaxy S3. According to the Galaxy S3 user manual, below are all the possible ways:
- Download from Internet.
- Transfer from PC.
- Transfer from a PC with Samsung Kies.
- Transfer from a PC with Windows Media Player.
- Receive via Bluetooth.
- Receive via Wi-Fi.
- Copy to your memory card.
In this post, I’m going to talk about the 2 most common methods, which are transferring files directly from PC storage and using Windows Media Player.
Transferring music and video files from PC
- Connect your Galaxy S3 to your PC using the data cable.
- A USB icon appears in the top Notification Bar, tap the USB icon area and drag it downwards to open the notifications panel.
- Tap Connected as a media device and ensure Media device (MTP) checkbox is ticked. Now, you’re ready to transfer files between your PC and phone.
- Open up your PC Windows Explorer. Now, you should see your Galaxy S3 shows up as a removable disk.
- Access the phone storage via Windows Explorer; you should see Videos and Music folders.
- Simply drag/copy-and-paste your music and video files from your computer to these folders. The Galaxy S3 music or video players will automatically recognize the files.
- Alternatively, you can create a new folder in your phone storage to store these files.
Transferring music and video files using Windows Media Player
- Connect you Galaxy S3 to your PC using the data cable.
- Run Windows Media Player on you PC.
- On the left side of Windows Media Player, you will see a little icon with the model number of Galaxy S3. You can (but not necessary) double click on that icon to expand the list.
- Now move to the right side and click the Sync Tab.
- Drag any music files or video files to the Sync list area. You can drag these files from either PC folders or Windows Media Player library.
- Once you have all the files in the Sync list, click Start sync.
- Now, move to the left, and click Sync status to verify if those files are successfully copied over to your phone.
- Start playing those songs on your Galaxy S3.
I hope you will find the above steps simple to follow. As mentioned, there are more than 2 ways you can get all your favourite music files onto your Galaxy S3. And I highly recommend you to try out using the Samsung Kies application too.
(This is part of the My Quick Start Guide for Samsung Galaxy S3 Series.)
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I want to transfer files between apple mac book pro and samsung galaxy s3. Also I am also not able to change the name in media folder in s3. Please help
Sorry, I don’t have a mac to test on anything. But I’m sure you can use Samsung Kies on Mac to do file transfer.
Can I transfer WMA and MP4 music directly onto to the S3 without converting to MP3? Will they play as MP4 or WMA?
According to the GS3 user manual, it can play both MP4 and WMA.
what is the reason that my device no reflected to my pc after I follow steps for transferring music and video files from pc???
kindly assist..
Which method are you referring here ? Are you saying when you connect your S3 to the PC, it didn’t appear on the Windows Explorer ? Need more details.
How can i download music using just the internet of my galaxy s3.. I have no laptop or pc.. Ty
You might find this discussion helpful http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-v-4g/605708-best-app-download-music.html
Windows media player doesin’t recognise my samsung galaxy s3 as a devide, no matter how many times refreshing, replugging etc. I can’t drag my music files to My Computer-removable disk(SGS 3-music folder. I can’t transfer anything to my sgs3. My friend has SGS2, and he can’t do the thing on my pc too. Maybe you guys know how to solve this problem, cuz I’m getting really nervous. Thank you.
Make sure you’re using the original USB cable. Also sometimes can be the USB cable faulty. Download and install (or re-install) Samsung Kies to find out if your phone is detectable after that.
If you ever given up on troubleshooting your USB port, try KIes with Wi-Fi or AirDroid (highly rated) to connect your phone to PC via Wi-Fi.
I had the same issue when trying to sync through an external hub. When I connected the USB cable to a powered USB port on my PC, the phone was recognized in Windows Explorer.
when i drag my playlists, it is only copying the playlists, not the songs…how do i get this straight?
sorry for my newbie-ness…have avoided this stuff for an eternity..now wish to be indipendetn…
Click the “Start sync” button after you’ve dragged the playlist over. Windows Media Play will copy the songs to your S3. I’ve tested this using the latest version of Windows Media Player.
Using Media Player 12 I “sync’d” a playlist. I see it copied the playlist & music to the S3. When I launch S3 music player the playlist is there but reports “no Songs”? Looking at the S3 music directory I see the folders ie. /music/shannon curfman/loud guitar/…..mp3 so any idea why the player is not reading the album/songs? Thanks!!
It seems like the music player detected unknown album or artist even though you have the right ID3v2 tag information. I’ve no ideas why the phone behaves in such an undesirable manner. But I’ve found a not so concrete workaround for that. See link.
http://webcazine.com/2999/unknown-album-and-artist-when-using-windows-media-player-12-to-sync-a-new-playlists-with-galaxy-s3/?preview=true&preview_id=2999&preview_nonce=8f60caf07f
Ethan –
I want to be able to use Windows Media Player to sync to my Samsung Galaxy MP3 Player, yet when I try and sync this, Windows Media Player goes “wild”. It says the following error message… “It is not possible to change sync settings at this time. try again later”. This happens when I connect my usb to the mp3 player and open windows media player. The computer recognizes it under My computer, but it does not work with windows media player.
Try update your Windows Media Player to the latest version, and below are some simple suggestion from Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/webhelp/default.aspx?mpver=11.0.6001.7000&id=C00D11EF&contextid=231&originalid=C00D11EF
If those aren’t helpful, try to Google further.
Hello, is there a way to change the display name of a video on the s3? I have a few movies I ripped, the ripping tool default named them “DVD888″, I manually changed the file name to the name of the movie and pasted it into the external sd card on my S3. When I open the folder on my pc the name of the file is correct, when I open the video player on my phone to watch it, they are all labeled “DVD”, do you know if there is a way to change this?
You can try using the file explorer app such as Astro File Manager or ES File Explorer to browse the video file, and then long tap it to get the Rename option.
Go to your files then go to your sd card
Whenever I try to copy video file from my PC (Windows 7) to phone via MTP gives error “Your device might not be able play or view this file.” I am using Android ICS in Samsung Galaxy. Please help me transfer video file.
I have yet to come across this error. You can try Google the error message to find a possible solution. I’ve read someone suggested to use the wireless connection instead of the USB.
I am trying to transfer some photos from pc3 to Samsung galaxy S3. I tried your first option but i could transfer by dragging or by copy paste or even i cannot make new folder too.
Trying to use a real estate site that has audio and video tours of homes. Tried to click on the link to see one of these tours on my galax s 3 and i’m asked how to view. I selected Internet and a download started. The donwload lets me here the audo but I can’t see the home images without having to get out of the audio app and go back to the original app where everything should be playingin the first place. This program works on other phones and on computers but not on my galaxy.
So apparently the GS3 can’t play m4a. I downloaded m4a files and transferred it via Windows Media Player, it all seemed to work, but I just now checked it through my “My Files” app and noticed that the .m4a files were now .wma. Just a heads up.
Yeah, I can’t play m4a music file on my Galaxy S3 too.
Is anyone having problem I am with S3. When I copy onto phone some files play and some don’t same album same format.
when i sync the songs to my s3 it works but when i try to play them on my phone it says th.is item is no longer availible
I’ve had problem with this, ever since i updated to jelly bean. before i just drag the files in to the folders, on the phone but now i can’t, so now I’m trying this and nothing I’ve tried so far works. When I try to use your method, it just freezes the sync and when i try Kies air it doesn’t transfer the files, same with the normal kies.
Sorry, I have no idea why is this happening to your phone. Maybe you can seek more opinions from the forum such as androidforums.com
Why cant i transfer a whole playlist from my GS3 to other people’s GS3′s? I can do a single song at a time but every time i try to transfer a whole playlist it doesn’t work?
Great! Except it doesn’t work.
On *some* Windows systems it works. On others it does not. When I plug my S3 into my PC it shows up as a phone. When I open the phone there are two folders, “data” and “media”.
“data” is empty and I cannot write anything to it.
“media” has a FILE for each folder – yes, each FOLDER shows up as a FILE. All of them are greyed out, have zero length, and cannot be accessed.
If you are lucky and it works on your system, you can drag and drop as with other android phones. If you are like me and it does not work, you cannot transfer files PC S3 by any of the usual methods.
I have done both of these methods (first method I have tried a few times before coming to this site). NO matter what I do I cannot get my music players to find the songs on my phone. I can go to the file folder on my phone and manually find the song and play it through a player. Even after doing this, when opening the music player app it is unable to find any of the songs. Any suggestions?
never mind. A simple reboot of the phone (powered down then took out battery, put back battery and restarted the phone) allowed the files to be found.
Hi,i have this problem which is when I connect my S3 to my pc (windows 7) via usb, my S3 kept showing ”common charging” instead of ”connected as media device”. Any help?
Sorry, I’ve no idea why is this happening. You might want to visit the service center to check on your hardware.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1894786
I have no problem transfering the WMA files onto my phone, but when I tryto play them, I get the following error message: “Sorry, the player does not support this type of audio file”. Am I missing some driver on he phone itself?
Could it be your WMA file got corrupted ? On my international model, it plays the WMA file alright with stock music player.
I got my Galaxy S3 last week and have found everything really easy to set up and use – except put music on!! We have followed every instruction we can find and have managed to easily put the 2 test albums on to my husband’s cheap little Nokia but on the Galaxy if it shows the albums/songs on the music player when I try to play anything it is ‘error, no longer available’ what does this mean please and what am I doing wrong?
I’ve no idea why is that happening. This forum thread has a user reported his S3 can’t detect all music files. It comes with some suggestions too. If that doesn’t help, try to get more opinions from forums such as http://forum.xda-developers.com/ or http://www.androidforums.com
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1900998
ok im having a issue with putting music on my phone from my pc…it worked before but not now, can anyone help..this how i was doing it, i would have music stored on my pc under the music file. plug my usb in open up the phone open music file from phone, then i open the music file on my music foler , would drag the son or songs onto the phone music file, it starts but will not transfer… keeps staying at about an 1/8th of download progress for awhile, thats with doing one song to..after like 4-5 minutes a error pops up stating that the server took to long or stopped…im thinking theres an issue with the MTP file on the phone…i tried downloading a usb driver for the s3 from samsung and u completes all filed but the MTP file failed to complete or download??????
You can try install the Samsung Kies, it will install the drivers for your automatically. And make sure you’re using the usb cable that comes with the phone.
When I plug in my samsung galaxy s3 into the computer, the icon of my phone looks like a camera. It doesn’t let me drag and drop/copy and paste my music into the folder. What am I doing wrong?
Once your S3 is connected to your computer, you can drag down the notification bar (on your phone), tap Connected as a camera, and tick Media device (MTP). If you computer is MAC and you’re having a bit of problem transfer files between the 2 devices. Here is the thread that talk about this problem
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/623203-file-transfer-problems-mac.html
help me, i have my samsung connected, but it does not show up on my pc, even after i have my s3 selected as a media device (MTP)
Try installing the Samsung Kies software, it helps to install the proper drivers as well into your PC.