How To: Use MSS for easier music transfer from iTunes

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This short how-to walks you through using Mass Storage Synchronizer 1.3 to more easily copy music from iTunes to your phone.

Getting music to your Symbian phone is not as easy as it should be. Although the forthcoming Series 60 phones, the N91 and the 3250, will likely sync with Windows Media Player, current phones do not. If you are using a Nokia phone you may be able to use the Nokia Music Manager (which is part of PC Suite). This How-To shows you how Mass Storage Synchronizer can be used to copy music from iTunes to a memory card (which you can then put in your phone). This does not syncronize iTunes with the phone, it copies music from the PC (iTunes library) to a memory card in a USB memory card reader.

You will need:

You should then take the following steps for the intial set up: 

  1. If you do not have iTunes installed you will need to download and install it.
    iTunes, in this instance, acts as the music library and organizer on the PC. You do not have to use iTunes as your default music player. iTunes can automatically search your computer for music files. You will only be able to play files that your phone supports. This means files purchased from the iTunes Music Store will not work. If you use iTunes to rip music from your CD collection you may wish to change the encoder to MP3. This can be done in the Preferences dialog, found in the File menu.

  2. Unzip the Mass Storage Synchronizer archive to the root of your hard disk. There is a readme.txt in this archive with more information.
    MSS is a collection of scripting files that interact with iTunes. It creates a specific playlist within iTunes and then when you run MSS it copies any files listed in that playlist to the memory card.

  3. Copy the icon MassStorSync Nokia to your desktop or toolbar (optional - you can click on this icon in the MSS folder, moving it allows you to find it more easily).

  4. Run MassStorSync Nokia by double clicking on its icon. The first time you do this iTunes will start and a Nokia Phone Folder playlist will be created in iTunes. This playlist is used to dictate which music should be copied/synced. You can drag and drop music onto this playlist as you would any other.
MSS iTunes Folder

You should follow these steps:

  1. Remove your memory card from the phone and insert it in to your USB card reader.

  2. Double click on the MassStorSync Nokia icon.
    iTunes will start and MSS will start copying files. There is no visual indication this is going on. MSS will continue to copy files until it reaches the end of the playlist or runs out of room on the memory card. Once it has finished copying files, MSS will pop up a dialog telling you it has finished.

  3. Return the memory card to the phone. You can use then use your preferred music player application on the phone to listen to your music.

MSS 

Optimisation Tips

Changing where the files are stored:

When I first used MSS, it copied all my files to the root of my MMC. You can correct this by editing the MassStorSyncNokia.bat batch file in the Mass-Storage-Sync folder. I changed the following line:

if exist "F%MSDNokia%" set MSDPath=F:/

to

if exist "F%MSDNokia%" set MSDPath=F:/Mp3

This is because my memory card appears as the F: drive in Windows (your card may be a different drive letter). You must create the folder on the memory card (Mp3) in my case. Subsequently MSS will copy files to this location.

Alternatives:

  • Sony Ericsson users may wish to investigate Sony Ericsson's Disc2Phone software which does something very similar (although without using iTunes). Disc2Phone allows you to search your computer (and optionally rip music from CDs), encode it appropriately and copy it to a Memory Stick. It does not use the iTunes interface as MSS does and as such is more flexible (and is easier to set up), but is perhaps less intuitive once running.
  • Of course, if you're technical enough to know about files and folders, you may know the location of your MP3 (or Ogg Vorbis or AAC) music files (e.g. My Music\MP3\Abba etc.) In this case, you can simply drag and drop the artist or album folders directly into a suitable folder on your memory card. The advantage of using the iTunes playlist interface is you can more easily manage which music gets copied without having to move files around manually.