USB stick: Set the order in which the music is played
If you play music with a USB stick on a stereo system or in the car, you know that the order in which the MP3 files are played is completely mixed up. You can prevent this with a few simple tricks.
Change play order in Explorer
If you don't want to sort your songs into different folders, you can simply number your music:
- To do this, put a number in front of the name of each MP3 file. It could look something like this:
- "001 - Title 1", "002 - Title 2", "003 - Title 3", etc.
- However, be sure to always put a sufficient number of zeros at the beginning. Otherwise, the arrangement gets mixed up from the tenth or hundredth song.
- You can also write these track numbers in the file tag. With some systems, this also leads to the desired success. To do this, right-click on the desired file and select "Properties". You can now enter the title number in the "Details" tab (see picture).
- On the car radio and the music system, you should of course turn off the random mode. This is the only way to play the pieces of music in the specified order.
Set play order via music playlist
If you want to play the music on another computer, you can also create a playlist. Most music systems now also support this function.
- To do this, copy the desired songs to the USB stick. The exact location is irrelevant.
- Now create a playlist in the order you want it to be played. This works for example with the VLC media player.
- Save the playlist on the USB stick as well. Important: As soon as you rename or move a file, it can no longer be played via the playlist.
If you also want to use your USB stick in the office, you can set up separate partitions for an overview. We explain in this practical tip how exactly this works.