Google Play Music App for Chrome Brings Mini Player and Drag-And-Drop Uploading [Experimental]
Google Play Music has received a new entry in the Google Labs section, which enriches it with a whole new dimension of functionality. From now on, you will be able to upload and listen to your own music through a simple drag-and-drop function.
The feature is still experimental, which means it can be buggy, but the Labs label offers two major things. In the first place, now you have a very cute mini player that gives you full control over your current playlists. The mini player itself looks a lot like Android app, except for the fact that it runs on desktop and laptop computers. Power users who always have plenty of things open on their screen will love the mini player.
The second function it performs means a great deal because now you can upload your own music to Google Play Music. Before, you had to use a helper application, which gets a little buggy at times in a way that it ignores bandwidth settings and takes over your channel. Generally, it’s not a very pleasant experience for many people and may result as a pain in the neck when you just want to upload a few songs. The new Labs feature enables users to simply drag and drop to upload their files and entire folders to Google Play Music. Those who work on desktop OS will love the application, but the luckiest are the Chromebook users. The apps are better suited to work completely inside Chrome.
- It is fairly easy to enable it, but the feature is still hidden, so here is a quick guide on how to set it up:
- First, launch the Google Play Music website from your Chrome browser.
- Under you Google profile picture, find the Gear icon and click it -> choose Labs from the drop-down list.
- At the top of the Labs page, you have the option to enable Google Play Music for Chrome.
Next, you can close the Labs page and get back to the main window to locate the new orange “add music” button. As you click it, you will be prompted to install Chrome extension, and this is what you need.
When the installation is finished, you can now click the button “add music” and simply drag and drop files or entire folders full of songs to your Google Play Music. From there, you can go to the mini player: find a small arrow at the bottom right of Google Play Music and click it.
How buggy this application is yet remains to be seen, but it sure is a very welcome update from Google.