I just got a 2022 Toyota RAV4 and it has no CD player of analog AUX jack so I'm gonna load albums of music onto USB sticks which I've never done. I have 5 32gig Sticks on order. The car will play these things. It won't do flac which sucks so I'm gonna go 320k MP3. I wanna load whole albums and would like a detailed explanation how to get it done. I don't want any random or shuffle play. I'll ask some particular questions to steer things in the right direction. 1- Can I drag and drop whole folders of albums on to the stick and open them up individually to play. 2- doing that would they play in order as numbered on each track. 2- Or do I need to load the files individually and have them numbered by song? I think you guys get what I'm trying to achieve ... I've never messed with a thumb drive.... Do you finalize them after loading and then they can't be edited? I don't wanna play poke and hope and end up with randomness, wasted sticks. Thanks for any help... There was this thread that didn't have enough detail-- Best way to load music onto USB stick to play in car?
Plenty of factors to consider. Some will support only the FAT32 file system while others will support NTFS. Some will want specific folder structures or naming conventions to be upheld to work as intended. Most cars' MP3/USB functionality is described in their respective manual. That's where I'd start to get the facts as to what will work for that specific model.
I don't understand your reply. Your USB sticks are formatted as FAT32 or is your car's stereo only capable of reading FAT32-formatted keys? Again, read your manual. Not something anyone enjoys doing but it will have the answers as to what is supported, compatibility in terms of file naming convention, codecs, etc.
Every car has a slightly different way of playing files off a USB, but most of them can handle folders. As for the order, I think it's best to change the filename to have numbers in front in ascending order so there is a higher chance it will play in that order. But you can try one or two folders first and see how it plays. There's no finalization needed. Just make sure you eject the drive before pulling the USB drive out from the USB slot in the PC. It can be overwritten over and over again.
Think the car USB does fat32....Manual is real vague and assumes people have certain understandings.... In Rav4 forums there saying fat32 and you can drag and drop folders...... This I why I go into all tech sh!t kicking and screaming--the requirement to gain knowledge I wish not to have........ and it ain't just because I'm a dinosaur, many young folks I know think just like me...... Guess unless someone who doesn't hate this like me, or hate explaining it to people like me cares to engage here, it's gonna be poke and hope.
You should be able to drag and drop your album folders into the drive and the car interface should keep this folder structure intact. I think it will be easier than you think and will turn out great!
Good luck with Toyota’s garbage system. You’ll have to make sure all your song files begin with 01, 02, 03, etc. within each album to have any chance of them playing in order.
If you have blue tooth in your car's stereo, you might find it more flexible to have a small tablet with a micro SD card storing the music. The tablet controls the music and the stereo simply plays the music.
If you want to stay with a lossless format, there is lossless WMA. MediaMonkey can do the conversion from FLAC or any other lossless type. Other programs may be able to do it as well. Here are a couple of images that might be helpful if you decide to try it with MediaMonkey.
Probably the best route right there....... You have a new Toyota or experience with this? I was definitely lied to about the USB's compatibility, but I strongly suspected it all along, decided I'd make it work somehow.
Toyota likely supports playing music through Bluetooth. Copy files to your phone and stream them from there. AptX is good enough for in-car listening. I actually stream music from Qobuz app in my phone to car system. Sound quality is very much better than FM radio.
Personally I'd just use an old iPod or smartphone (even better if it has an SD Card slot) via USB. Much easier to navigate files that way, and better SQ than Bluetooth (depending on file encoding of course). That said I have found some newer head units sometimes have issues with the old 30pin iPods. The later (lightning cabled) iPod Touches seem to work well, though. Even better, an Android smartphone with expandable memory via SD Card. Or the easiest solution (though not the best-sounding, as it utilizes bluetooth for audio).....load up your smartphone with music and use Android Auto or Apple Car Play. Pretty sure it's standard on a 2022 Rav4.
drag and drop the albums, folders, comps you want to listen to onto the drive and plug it in your car...and enjoy the music...easy peasy! oh, and another thing; 320Mp3 is just fine for the car.
Ever since I started digitizing files, I have kept each album in a separate Windows folder. Over the years, I have found these two applications invaluable: Bulk Rename Utility mass updates filenames. Mp3tag edits your MP3 tags. My 2018 Kia Optima plays USB files in order by track number, but if I save them in the onboard "My Music" storage, they play in alphabetical order by title. So, for the stuff I save, I have to change the title to include a two-digit track number prefix (ex. 01-Come Together, 02-Something, 03-Maxwell's Silver Hammer, ...). It's annoying, but once I save it that way, it's there anytime I want to listen to it. Bulk Rename Utility - Free File Renaming Software Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...)
Good thing its not a Hyundai or Kia. Every one of those I have rented play the tracks in alphabetical order.
I tried a free version and after some dicking around got it to convert files...The free version that I got from their website would do WMA but not WMA lossless.. Free version was pretty clunky to me, I'm guessing a paid for version is much better. I did send an album worth of flac files to my phone to play on my holiday drive...I had to use bluetooth and play each song individually, with no way I know to just play the list...Sounded decent enough... I've been converting flac to 320k mp3....... Got 29 Deep Purple album folders in a bigger folder to put on a thumb drive.. I have 32 gig sticks supposed to come from Amazon today..... All those albums and used less than 4 gigs....Gonna take a lot of work to fill a 32 gig stick. When you copy to a thumb drive and finish can you go back and copy more to it later? Yeah it's not like the stereo is a world beater
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-64GB...&pd_rd_i=B077VYCV37&ref_=pd_bap_d_rp_1_t&th=1 This is the ideal size for a car headunit; literally the size of an adult's thumbnail.
Flacbox: Hi-Res Music Player I highly recommend this music player if one is so inclined to remain in the Apple universe.
My Cooper Mini is a 2015, and the manual didn't give us any of the relevant information. For that matter, neither did Windows when I tried to drag my files onto the USB. The car wouldn't see any more tracks on the thumb drive than the first 30. Another one wouldn't shuffle the tracks. Another one would only read the filenames in alphabetical order, no matter how you dragged-and-dropped them, and how it looked in Windows Explorer when I did it. Very frustrating. And this is back in the day when this tech was unfamiliar to me - I'd still be having a guessing game burning mp3 CD-R's for the other car, and no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get Windows Media Player to burn them in the order I specified, and some would load in their own folders (even after I'd tried removing the meta tag info, to fool them! ), and I wouldn't be able to get them to find the tracks inside those folders unless I'd specifically navigate into them...which meant, they wouldn't play the tracks outside those folders unless I navigated back out! Bottom line, every carmaker is different, every year model is different, and every manufacturer's commitment to knowing anything about the audio systems they force you to choose from is also different. You're better off just singing along with your passengers - bring a pitch pipe!
