Transcode and Sync

The purpose of this feature is to copy transcoded music to your portable device.

The way this is intended to work is you maintain a playlist of all the albums you want on your device. Then you can add and remove items and only the difference needs to be copied.

Flatpak Note: Refer to instructions for adding file permissions here.

Tutorial

1. Create a sync playlist

Firstly, we want to make a playlist of the albums we want on the device. You could use an existing playlist, or make a new playlist. You could for example name it something like Sync Playlist. To mark this playlist as the sync source playlist, right click its tab, then select "Misc..." > "Set as Sync Playlist"

2. Copy albums to that playlist

One way to easily copy albums to a playlist is to use the Gallery Quick Add function by right clicking the target playlist tab, then selecting "Misc..." > "Engage Gallery Quick Add".

Then, you can right-click any album in the gallery view from any playlist to add it or remove it from that target playlist. Once done, click MENU and select "Disengage Gallery Quick Add"

3. Setup transcoder

So now we have our playlist ready, let's select transcode settings. Go to MENU > Settings... > Transcode, And select a lossy codec.

I suggest selecting OPUS and setting the bitrate to 64kbps for a good quality/size balance if your device is compatible with that format.

Android note: Make sure to enable the "Write as .ogg extension" toggle as most Android apps don't recognise the .opus extension.

4. Setup sync

Now click the "Sync..." button to switch to the sync page.

At this point we will want our device connected and ready. The device filesystem must be mounted and contain a folder to sync music to.

Android/MTP: For an Android/MTP device connected by USB, try open this in your file browser to trigger a mount. Then back in Tauon you can click the lighting bolt icon to automatically try detect this location. If that failed, you will need to supply the path manually.

iPhone: For iPhone install an app such as foobar2000. Connect your iPhone via USB. In your desktop, trigger a mount of your iPhone documents drive in your file manager. Then use the terminal to locate the mounted location for that app. Under GNOME it looks something like /run/user/1000/gvfs/afc:host=???/com.foobar2000.mobile. Paste the full path into Tauon.

There is an option named "Delete all other folders in target" which you can optionally enable. If enabled, any folders in the target path not in the playlist will be deleted.

Tip: So, if you have copied music from other sources to your device, you'll want to leave the above disabled, otherwise if you don't mind anything being deleted, you can enable to remove all other music)

Finally click "Transcode and Sync" to begin the process.

Tip: This function syncs based on the generated folder name. Clear both the encode output directory and target directory to fix incomplete albums or to update transcode codec/bitrate.

Tip: You can safely interrupt the process by clicking Stop... (or right click status bar text and select Cancel). Starting again will effectively resume where you left off.