Google Labs Chrome app also allows music uploading from your Chromebook
There’s a new entry in the Google Labs section of Google Play Music, and enabling it brings a whole new way to upload — and listen to — your own music.
The feature — which is still experimental, thus the “Labs” label — enables two things. First off, it gives you a nice little mini-player that offers full control over your current playlist. It looks a lot like an Android app, except it runs on a laptop or desktop computer. Those that micro-manage real estate on their screen should love it.
The second thing it does is a big deal. To upload your own files into Google Play Music, you have to use a helper application. This app can be a little janky, and often times it seems to ignore bandwidth throttling settings and takes over. In general, it’s not a good experience for a lot of people, and a pain when you want to upload just a few songs. This is all a thing of the past if you enable the new Labs feature, because it allows drag and drop uploading of files and folders. Desktop operating system users will love it, but the folks who are happiest are Chromebook users. Yes, it works completely inside Chrome.
Enabling it is easy enough, but it is hidden. Here’s a quick walkthrough of setting it up.
- Open the Google Play Music website inside the Chrome browser.
- In the upper right, under your Google profile picture, is a gear icon. Click it and choose “Labs” from the list.
- At the top of the Labs page, enable Google Play Music for Chrome.
- Close the Labs page, and when in the main window click the new orange “Add Music” button. this will trigger the installation of an extension. This extension is the good stuff you need.
When finished, you can click the Add Music button to drag and drop songs or whole folders full of songs, and get to the mini-player by clicking the small arrow in the very bottom right of the Google Play Music window.
We don’t know how experimental (read: buggy) this is just yet, but we do know it’s been a long time coming.
Via: The Verge