Google Drive and Autosync (V5.x.x)

If you regularly work with a group of other musicians or you use OpenSong or OpenSongApp for projecting during church services, it often makes sense to create a shared Google resource. This allows all users to have an up to date version of songs, sets and other settings saved with the songs. Since you are using an Android device, chances are you will already have a Google account which comes with free Google Drive storage. If not, head over to https://drive.google.com to set one up.

In your Google drive folder, create a blank OpenSong folder. This will be the synchronised folder.

If you want to share this with other users, open the sharing options (usually be right clicking on the folder). Enter the email address of the person you want to share with and set the sharing permissions.

If you allow set the sharing permissions by entering their email address and if they can read only or write to the folder). If you choose 'View only', they can only download your songs, but can't upload new ones or edit your songs. If you give them full permission, be aware they can delete your songs, so make sure you trust them and make a regular backup of your songs!

Now onto OpenSongApp..............

If you already have songs on your main mobile device in OpenSongApp, before doing anything else you should make a backup of these songs (you can do this from the right hand menu, under the 'Storage' category). A good standard option is to email the backup to yourself.

Check where OpenSongApp currently stores your files, go the the right hand options menu, choose the Storage category and select 'Manage storage'. The storage folder being used is noted near the top of the page. Keep a note of this location. All of your OpenSong files will be inside a folder called OpenSong at the specified storage location. Note that if your location states 'primary/....', this refers to the standard storage location on your device (normally /storage/0/emulated/).

Google Drive does not download files to your mobile device by default (due to storage space concerns), so we need to install a third party app that will synchronise the correct Google Drive online folder with our offline local storage location for OpenSong.

Download and install the 'Autosync for Google Drive ' app from the Google Play Store, then run it. Connect to your Google account (you will need to give it permission).


Next click on the 'Choose What to Sync' button.

Select the 'Let me create my own folder pair' option. You will obviously need to grant Autosync for Google Drive permission to access your storage for this to work.

It is likely that you will want to set it up with full 2 way synchronisation. This means that songs/sets changed on your tablet are updated locally and on Google Drive. Also songs/sets changed or created by others in the Google Drive folder, such as using your PC are automatically downloaded to your device.

Set the Remote folder in Google Drive to the '/OpenSong folder your created.

Set the local folder in device to the OpenSongApp storage location you noted earlier (for most it will be /storage/emulated/0/OpenSong)

By syncing these top level folders, the Songs, Sets, Backgrounds, Notes and Slides folders within these are also synchronised.

Make sure the sync method is set to two way (unless sharing with another user who only needs to set their device to the one way download method).

Click on Save and let the app start the synchronisation process.

Set the The default sync schedule with Autosync is 1 hour, although you can adjust this to suit. You can also manually tell it to sychronise if you know there has been a change that hasn't been updated yet.

If you have lots of songs to synchronise, it will take a while on the first run. However, future updates or changes are much quicker..