NAS (Network Attached Storage) Support for Poweramp Music Player

[Manojit Biswas]

Dear Poweramp Music Player Development Team,

As a passionate music enthusiast and avid user of Poweramp, I would like to express my appreciation for the outstanding work you have done with the application. I am reaching out to request the integration of Network Attached Storage (NAS) support into Poweramp.

NAS devices are growing in popularity and offer a convenient way to store and access media files across multiple devices. Integrating NAS support into Poweramp would enable users to stream their music directly from their NAS, providing a seamless listening experience without the need to transfer files to local storage.

Some potential benefits of NAS support include:

• Convenience: Users can access their entire music library stored on their NAS without the need for additional file transfers or manual syncing.
• Centralized Music Collection: Poweramp users can have a centralized music collection stored on their NAS, ensuring consistency across multiple devices and reducing storage limitations.
• Synchronization: Any changes made to the music library on the NAS would automatically reflect in Poweramp, eliminating the need for manual updates.
• Flexibility: With NAS support, Poweramp users can easily switch between devices without worrying about syncing their music or maintaining multiple copies.

Here are some potential functionalities that could be supported with NAS integration:

1. Save to Offline: Ability to download songs or playlists from the NAS device to your device for offline listening.
2. Direct Streaming: Stream music directly from the NAS device to the Poweramp music player without the need to download the files.
3. Editing Metadata: Modify the metadata of music files stored on the NAS, such as song titles, artist names, album art, genres, etc., directly within the Poweramp music player.
4. Add Lyrics: Allow the option to add or synchronize lyrics to songs stored on the NAS, enhancing the music listening experience.
5. Create Playlists: Enable the creation of playlists using songs stored on the NAS, giving you the flexibility to curate your own personalized music collections.
6. Tag Editing: Provide the ability to edit and manage tags associated with music files stored on the NAS, such as album, artist, year, and genre tags.
7. Settings Backup: Offer the option to back up your Poweramp music player settings to the NAS device, allowing you to restore your preferences and configurations easily, even if you switch devices.
8. Auto-Sync: Automatically synchronize music files between the NAS and the Poweramp music player, ensuring that any changes made on either platform are reflected on the other.
9. Multiple Device Support: Allow integration with multiple NAS devices, giving you the flexibility to access music from different storage locations.
10. Search and Browse: Provide the ability to search for songs, albums, artists, or genres directly on the NAS and browse through the music library within the Poweramp music player interface.

I believe that integrating NAS support into Poweramp would be a valuable addition to an already impressive feature set. This feature would not only attract new users but also solidify Poweramp’s position as a leading music player in the industry. Thank you So Much...

[andrewilley]

There are some future plans to provide more direct support for playing music from a NAS and other local LAN-based sources, but in the meantime you can just set up a symbolic SMB share on your Android device's file system. As with any non-local files though, you should expect the scanning process to be significantly slower than with fast locally mounted memory - especially if there are a lot of files. Once the initial Library scan has been completed (which could easily take hours) it might be best to turn the Auto Scan feature off and only rescan periodically as needed.

Although my own full music collection is stored on my home NAS. I tend to copy the files I'm regularly likely to want to hear onto my phone so they are always available (not just when I'm at home). The whole lot is 300+GB and contains all sorts of esoteric stuff - much of it untagged that wouldn't index nicely into a Poweramp Library.

I also use a handy little app called FolderSync which can be set to monitor and copy to/from various folder pairings, which can include SMB shared locations. I use it to move auto-downloaded podcasts from their generic locations to suitably named folders on my phone.

Andre

[Manojit Biswas]

@andrewilley Thank you for sharing this information, andrewilley. It’s great to hear that there are future plans to provide more direct support for playing music from a NAS and other local LAN-based sources. In the meantime, setting up a symbolic SMB share on an Android device’s file system seems like a viable workaround. I appreciate the tip about turning off the Auto Scan feature and only rescanning periodically as needed after the initial Library scan is completed. I hope that native NAS support Will be implemented as soon as possible. Thank you again for your input! 😊

[andrewilley]

Even if more embedded support does get added, don't expect it to be any where near as fully-featured as using local storage. Because of the inherent access speed restrictions, any huge LAN-based library probably would not natively support cover images or tag information in lists until the specific file (or perhaps folder) has actually been loaded for playing. I would guess (and bear in mind I'm not the developer) at something more akin to folder/file browsing.

Andre

[Manojit Biswas]

@andrewilley I understand your perspective 😊. I had a similar experience when I started using VLC Player. Initially, it seemed to scan a lot, but after some tweaking, it now behaves almost like the native storage support 🎉. After scanning was complete, I dumped the media and app databases to the root internal storage. Now, it barely uses any bandwidth for thumbnails and other media database information 📶. Although the app uses about 1.2GB of my internal storage, I think this trade-off is reasonable compared to using more than 50GB or 100GB of storage for full music libraries 🎵. I also noticed that Spotify’s music player consumes more than 1.2GB of internal storage in a month 📈. If Spotify and VLC media player can do this, I believe Poweramp can achieve it as well if they want to 💪. I know big companies have dedicated servers for music streaming, but when VLC can manage it on my 100 megabit NAS (not even using 1/4th of the bandwidth while playing media and scanning for the database at the same time), Poweramp should be able to do it too 👍. Come on guys, VLC is open source! You should learn from their database management 💡. As they say, "There’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration from good ideas 💭.”

[Don Capps]

It really can't be all that hard to implement. JetAudio+ does it. Sees my network shared music folder and plays everything. No muss, no fuss. Even displays album art and tag info to boot. And I'm streaming lossless which is far more bandwidth intensive than mp3.
 

I'm truly hoping that Poweramp adds this functionality soon as I much prefer it's look, feel and overall functionality.

[andrewilley]

@Don Capps Please vote for this in the Feature Requests voting page (requires account to be at least two days old and have two forum posts).

Andre