[Closed] Best Android player for downloaded music

Vanila Music. Simple and free, open source.

Poweramp. Not free, but so awesome that I chose to pay for it.

Google have announced they’re killing Google Play

Oh, hadn't spotted that. Hopefully YouTube music is just as good.

PowerAmp is very good and added cast feature last year.

Google have announced they’re killing Google Play.

I assume you mean Google Play Music, as Google Play is an umbrella brand for lots of products. I've searched and I can't find any reference to it being dropped - do you have a link?

And if it is being dropped, and you have an Xperia phone, Sony Music is a decent enough player.

I’ve searched and I can’t find any reference to it being dropped – do you have a link?

They are migrating users to YouTube Music. I've just started playing with it.

https://youtube.googleblog.com/2020/05/youtube-music-transfer-google-play-music-library.html

I've been using poweramp for years, yes it's quite pricey at a hefty £4, and a bit geeky and the interface isn't the best until you get used to it, but it's awesome.

I found it particularly useful on an older phone if you use cheap headphones or the phones audio hardware isn't too good, the EQ features are really good, if you take the time to set it up, you can make crap hardware sound half reasonable and good hardware sound fantastic.

Pricing
Existing pricing is the same between Google Play Music and YouTube Music. Fans can enjoy the ad-supported version of YouTube Music for free, or enjoy YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership that gives listeners background listening, downloads and an ad-free experience for $9.99 a month. Or you can try YouTube Premium to extend ad-free, background listening and offline playback across all of YouTube for $11.99 (USD).

Which suggests you can't download to listen offline without paying a subscription. That means that all of my own music (which is also stored in Google Play Music) is only available offline if I transfer it from my home system to my phone directly. This is a bit of a pain, but not insurmountable.

Thanks Simon. That generally sucks, I think. On my current XZ1 Compact I can use the Sony app, but other manufacturers phones don't necessarily have a decent player - the Samsung one on my S8 was rubbish. Oh well.

I have a Sony phone. If I remove Google Play Music (sorry, forgot the last word in my OP), will all my playlists and meta data transfer over?

After asking a similar question in January I was advised to get Poweramp and did. Truely excellent at importing iTunes playlists and for the few quid it cost I am delighted.

PowerAmp is the only App I've ever paid for..it's very good

Powweramp +1
It’s excellent

How do I transfer over a decade of ripped from cd, imported from iTunes and bought from Play Music to the Sony App?

I'm reading that I 'keep' my music, but they're removing the easy to use app and along with it the ability to have playlists, auto-mixes, play from download and play in the background etc.
In effect I now have to pay for that good app - I just get the bonus of unlimited music..?
Hmmm

Power amp is good but there is an issue with it and Bluetooth in some cars which causes the player to crash the phones Bluetooth connectivity. The dev has buried his head in the sand claiming it's an android issue (other players work perfectly on the same handsets/cars).

Black player

Free, can play from NAS, customisable, easy to use & no issues with Bluetooth

N7Player is very good.

Just found out that the Sony player will play music stored on my Google Drive. If I want to put all of my music on Drive then I'd have to pay for extra storage, but that's massively cheaper than paying a YouTube Music subscription.

I am off to investigate that then scotroutes.

Currently in the process of uploading 13k songs to my phone's micro SD card. Google Play Music handily used up all the card's storage but it used encrypted versions of the files so no other music player could use them. What's their motto, Do No Evil? Hmm, I wonder...