How to use a music streaming service as an alarm on android

Google’s Clock app can use songs from streaming services as alarm sounds, giving you millions of tracks to wake up to in the morning. Here’s how to set it up.

Get the Google Clock App

While there are many alarm apps on the Google Play Store, there’s only one that properly integrates with major streaming services. That’s the native Google Clock app, which is installed by default in Pixel phones. If you’re using a different phone, your smartphone manufacturer likely has its own clock app installed on your device.

To get the Google Clock app, search “Google Clock” in the Play Store. Your current clock app’s alarm settings will not be carried over into Google’s app. Don’t forget to set them up and turn off your old alarm, so you won’t accidentally have two alarms playing in the morning.

Using music streaming with the Google Clock also has an added benefit. If you wake up to a song that you enjoy, you can continue playing the rest of the tracks instead of turning off the alarm or hitting snooze. However, unless you have these playlists downloaded offline, make sure your phone is connected to the internet in the morning.

Three music services can be integrated into Google’s clock app: Spotify, YouTube Music, and Pandora Radio. Here’s how to link each of them.

How to Set Spotify Songs as Alarms

Spotify is one of the most popular streaming services in the world. If you have an Android device, chances are that you already have a Spotify account. However, to integrate your alarm with Spotify, you need to have a Spotify Premium subscription.

First, open the Google Clock app, and tap the bell icon under one of your alarms to go to alarm sound settings.

Select the Spotify tab, then tap Connect in the bottom-right corner. If you have a Spotify account on your phone, you will be led to a Permissions Screen. Tap Agree to connect your Spotify account to the clock app.

Once your app is connected, navigate to the Spotify tab in the alarm sound settings. You’ll see several in-house Spotify recommended playlists, including “Wide Awake”, “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee”, and “Wake Up! Work Out!”. When you select one of these playlists, it will shuffle among the tracks in it every day. Tap a playlist to preview what kinds of songs are on it.

You can also tap the search button in the bottom right to look through the whole Spotify database. You can select a single song, pick an album, shuffle through an artist’s entire discography, or use one of the millions of playlists available on Spotify, including custom playlists that you’ve made.

Spotify also lets you set a podcast as your alarm. This is great for daily podcasts. You can select one of the podcasts listed on the Google Clock app, or create a playlist full of podcast episodes and use that.

How to Use YouTube Music as Your Alarm

Aside from Spotify, Google’s alarm function also works with its music streaming service, YouTube Music. To link your YouTube Music account to the Google Clock app, you simply have to install YouTube Music on your phone and have an account. Like with Spotify, you need to have a paid YouTube Music Premium subscription for this to work.

When you navigate to the alarm sound settings, tap the YouTube Music tab in the top middle. You’ll see a series of in-house playlists sorted by genre, such as “Relaxation”, “Today’s Hits”, and “Pop Music”. There’s also some personalization in the selection you’ll see. At the top, you’ll see the artists, songs, playlists, and albums you most recently played in the YouTube Music app.

Under the “Your Favorites” tab, you’ll also see your most played artists and albums. There’s also “Your Mix,” which is an automatic selection of music based on your listening habits. You can also search for any of the tracks or playlists on YouTube Music’s library by tapping the Search button.

How to Wake Up to Pandora Radio

If you prefer a more curated way of waking up in the morning, you can also select one of Pandora Radio’s stations as your alarm clock in the morning. To do this, you should have the Pandora app installed on your phone, and you must be signed in.

Select Pandora in sound settings. From here, you can select one of the recommended stations for waking up, such as “Upbeat Indie Morning” and “Laid Back Morning”. You can also browse through all the stations on the service using the Search button. Tap the station to preview the style of music on it.

1. AccuRadio
2. iHeartRadio
3. myTuner Radio
4. Pandora Radio
5. Radio Online

1. SiriusXM
2. Spotify
3. TuneIn Radio
4. XiliaLive Internet Radio
5. Local radio apps

Read more:

AccuRadio

Price: Free (with ads)

AccuRadio is not as well-known as other radio apps. However, it happens to be good. It boasts over 1000 radio channels to tune into. Each channel is customizable by the listener. There are unlimited skips, a rating system, and you can ban artists and songs from your station. The result is a music station that eventually only plays stuff that you like. There are some downsides. There isn’t Chromecast support at the time of this writing. The servers also occasionally have some issues. However, aside from that, it’s a good experience.

iHeartRadio

Price: Free / $5.99-$12.99 per month

iHeartRadio is one of the most popular solutions for radio apps. It has a large selection of stations to listen to, including FM stations and iHeartRadio’s own stations mixed in. You can find playlists for almost any mood, in almost any genre, and seasonal playlists for things like Christmas or Halloween. It’s completely free to use (supported by in-streaming ads) which is another good bonus. For those who want it, iHeartRadio also comes with Chromecast and Android Wear support. You can get a slightly better experience for $5.99 per month. You can go All Access for $12.99 per month for even more additional features, including on-demand song playing.

myTuner Radio

Price: Free / $3.49

myTuner Radio is another compelling option for those who like traditional radio station content. It boasts an impressive collection of over 50,000 radio stations across 200 countries and territories. Additionally, it has support for podcasts, categories for various types of talk and music radio, and some little extras like a sleep timer and alarm function. You also get support for things like Android Auto, Sonos, and most streaming sticks. A few user reviews complain of the occasional streaming drop, but it’s otherwise a rock solid app for traditional radio fans. This one is also free if you use Google Play Pass.

Pandora Radio

Price: Free / $4.99-$9.99 per month

The venerable Pandora Radio is probably the most popular of all radio apps. The app made streaming random music mainstream and has enjoyed quite a bit of success over the years. Instead of focusing on specific stations, Pandora lets users create their own stations. You can make them around your favorite artist, music genre, or even song. Pandora does offer playlists to stream, but most people just create their own. You can also get a premium subscription to remove ads for $4.99 per month. You can also go for the full $9.99 per month for Pandora Premium and get on-demand song plays along with other features.

Radio Online

Price: Free / $4.99 per year

Radio Online is one of the more traditional radio apps. The app features hundreds of radio stations that cover all kinds of content that are ready for streaming when you want them. It includes both Internet-hosted radio as well as some FM stations that support online streaming. If you go pro, you can get some additional features, including live radio recording, a sleep timer, and more. It’s an efficient solution that does what it says it does. It’s also a good option for those who want something really simple without a bunch of extra stuff.

See more:

SiriusXM

Price: Free app / $10.99-$19.99 per month

SiriusXM satellite radio was one of the first really big pushes away from the standard AM and FM radio services. It features over 150 channels, including music channels, sports channels, and the venerable Howard Stern show. There are also three subscription models to choose from based on what kind of content you want to listen to. The app is slowly getting better and seems to be stable enough now to be enjoyable. It still has problems, so don’t expect a perfect experience on the app yet. It’s also cross-platform with many cars that have SiriusXM built-in. That means you don’t need Bluetooth or any other connection to use it in many modern cars.

Spotify

Price: Free / $9.99-$14.99 per month

Spotify is another music streaming app that has put a larger focus on radio-style streaming over the last couple of years. On top of having genre, mood, and artist-specific stations, Spotify also curates unique lists like “Worldwide top 50” and playlists with new music you specifically haven’t heard yet. The free version gets you pretty much all of the radio features with the $9.99 subscription cost removing advertising and giving you additional features. It’s one of the best out there. Apple Music actually has a compelling streaming radio service as well that honestly isn’t half bad. The service is also ramping up its podcast platform in a huge way so it’s good for talk radio these days as well.

TuneIn Radio

Price: Free / $9.99 per month

TuneIn Radio contains a more varied supply of radio stations that includes music of all kinds, sports, comedy, talk radio, news, and many other types of media. The free version comes with over 100,000 stations in total along with several million podcasts. If you go for the premium version, you can also get live NFL, MLB, and Barclays Premiere League games, audiobooks, and the removal of advertising. The price changes based on what region you live in, but it’s an overall fantastic radio service. It’s not great for music, but it’s one of the great radio apps for other interests.

Finding free music is a lot easier than it used to be. No longer is piracy the easiest way. These days, you can find pretty much any song you want using just a few apps. Streaming services pop up and go down every year, but there are a few that have managed to stand out above the rest. Let’s take a look at the best legal free music apps for Android! Yes, it is possible to listen to music for free legally. Usually all you have to deal with are a few ads. Those looking for apps that play locally stored music should check out our best music player apps list here.

1. Deezer
2. iHeartRadio
3. Jango Radio
4. LiveXLive
5. Pandora Music

1. SoundCloud
2. Spotify
3. TuneIn Radio
4. YouTube
5. Radio station apps

Deezer

Price: Free / $9.99-$14.99 per month

Deezer has been around for a while and it’s one of the better free music apps. The free version of the service lets you use Deezer’s FLOW feature to discover new artists and you can listen to playlists and mixes based on your personal taste. It also has lyric fetching, unlimited playlist creation, and mixes based on individual artists. There is a premium version that gives you more features like higher quality audio, offline listening, and Android Auto support if you want that. The only caveat is that the application seems to be a little rough around the edges.

iHeartRadio

Price: Free / $9.99 per month

iHeartRadio is one of the most popular free music apps out there. It’s a radio app where you can listen to a variety of stations based on your individual tastes and it also comes with seasonal radio stations and things like podcasts, talk radio, and comedy shows. It also includes AM and FM radio stations that support data streaming and you can even listen to news and sports. It’s a versatile application with a modern, Material Design UI and it comes with the little stuff like Chromecast support, Android Wear support, and Android Auto support.

Jango Radio

Price: Free

Jango Radio is kind of a wildcard in the free music apps space. It has a variety of music from both big names and independent artists alike. Unlike most, this service allows independent artists to pay for plays, meaning that you may hears a song that an artist paid to hear. This gives Jango its operating revenue which helps it stay free. There are some potential ethical issues. However, there aren’t any ads on the service and it’s a good way to discover some new stuff.

LiveXLive

Price: Free (with ads) / $3.99-$9.99 per month

LiveXLive replaced Slacker Radio in 2019 and has a lot of the same features. You can listen to free music with various stations that cover a wide variety of genres. It basically acts like a green and black Pandora in that sense. You can get the premium version to add more features if you want them, but the free version works good enough. This one also puts a focus on live music over a simple on-demand or station streaming service. It has potential, but it still needs work. We also strongly dislike that it uses only carrier billing or credit card through the app instead of Google Play subscription support.

iii. To set a song as your custom alarm sound, follow these steps:

• If the music file is on your PC/Mac, transfer the file into the Alarms folder on your Android device.
• On your Android device, find and open the Clock app.
• Tap .
• Tap the down arrow on the alarm you want to set the custom alarm sound.
• Tap.

How do I make a song my alarm on Android?

Wake up to your favorite song every morning in a few simple steps

1. Open up the alarm ‘editing’ screen.
2. Once you’ve set the time, scroll a little further down and look for “Alarm tone”
3. Tap this to see the pre-loaded selections.
4. Tap “Add” at the bottom of the screen.
5. The next screen will show all music currently on your phone.

How do I set a song as my alarm?

• Open up Apple Music and find the song you want to wake up to.
• Tap the three dots icon and select “Make Available Offline” to download the song to your device.
• Open up the Clock app and edit an alarm (or create a new one).
• Tap the Sound tab, then tap “Pick a Song.”
• Select the song you downloaded in the first step.

Can I use google play music as an alarm?

To set an alarm to music, you used to have to store the song you wanted on your device. The alarms work with whichever music service you’ve set the Assistant to use by default, so Spotify and Pandora, for instance, can both be used. You’ll also be able to use any songs uploaded to your Google Play Music library.

How do you set a custom alarm on Samsung?

Open up your clock app and tap the alarm clock symbol so you’re on the alarm screen. Once you’re there, hit the plus at the bottom of the screen to create a new alarm. Select the time you want and then hit confirm. You can now see your newly created alarm.

Can you set Spotify as an alarm android?

If you own an Android phone and you’re tired of waking up to the standard alarm clock tones, you can now easily wake up to a playlist of your favorite songs served up by Spotify instead. Open the Clock app and tap the alarm you want to edit or tap the + button to create a new alarm. Tap the Sounds (bell) icon.

How do you set a song as your alarm on Spotify?

Step 1Open the Clock app and tap an alarm you want to edit or tap + icon to create a new one. Step 2Tap the Sounds icon, and then tap the Spotify tab. Step 3If this is the first time for you to set Spotify music as alarm sound, you will need to connect Clock app to Spotify. Just tap Connect button to contine.

How do I set music as my alarm on my LG phone?

Tap Alarm sound to set the sound notification. Tap Alarm tone or Music, select the sound for the alarm, then tap OK. The ringtone plays briefly when you select it. Slide the button on the Alarm volume slider to the right to increase the alarm volume and to the left to decrease it.

Can you set Alexa alarm to music?

You’ll be able to request songs in the same way that you can for regular playback, meaning that requests as specific as “Alexa, wake me up at 7AM to Beyoncé,” or as vague as “Alexa, wake me up to ’80s music at 8AM” will all work. The new music alarm feature should be available today on Amazon Echos or any Alexa device.

Can I set Alexa to play music as an alarm?

Ask Alexa to play a music alarm

You can ask Amazon Alexa to play a specific song, playlist, artist, or genre as your alarm. The feature supports several music services, so it can pull alarm tones from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, SiriusXM, and iHeartRadio. But that only works with Amazon Music, however.

Can Google home play music as an alarm?

As with the beeping alarm, it will only play on the speaker you’ve set it on. The music will be taken from the default streaming service you’ve set up on your Google Home account, and if you’re not connected to Wi-Fi, the regular alarm tone will sound.

When someone calls me can they hear the music?

A Ringback Tone is that ringing sound you hear when you try to call someone. With LISTEN, you have the option to replace that ringing sound with music or voice status messages. This way your callers can hear the latest music hits or a personalized message from you. It’s whatever you want to play to them!

How can I use a song as a ringtone?

To set an MP3 file for use as custom ringtone system-wide, do the following:

1. Copy the MP3 files to your phone.
2. Go to Settings > Sound > Device ringtone.
3. Tap the Add button to launch the media manager app.
4. You will see a list of music files stored on your phone.
5. Your selected MP3 track will now be your custom ringtone.

Apple Music is out now for Android phones. Find out how it’s different than Spotify and others, and why you might want to sign up.

Apple’s music service has finally arrived for Android, so now you can rock out to the 30-million song catalog or tune in to live radio on Beats One. Even more importantly, Apple Music offers the

first official way to stream music you’ve purchased from iTunes on an Android device.

The app is technically Apple’s third-ever title for Android, after Move to iOS, an app that helps you migrate photos, contacts and messages from an Android phone to an iPhone and Beats Pill+, which allows you to control a wireless Beats Pill speaker. That’s important because while Google has created several apps for iOS, Apple didn’t return the favor until 2015.

At first look, the apps look very similar, identical in places even. But there are some differences that affect the overall experience of using Apple Music. Here’s what you need to know.

You need an Apple ID to use it

If you’ve ever purchased something from iTunes, be it a song, album, TV show, movie or something else, you have an Apple ID. But if you’ve somehow never used Apple’s products, you’ll need to create an Apple ID to use Apple Music. You can sign up for one within the app, through iTunes on a computer or on iCloud.com.

The design is the same, but slightly different than iOS

Apple kept much of the same design from the original iOS app, but embraced the typical Android layout too. True to Android design, the app has a left slide-out “hamburger” menu (so named for the three horizontal lines that look like a hamburger) where you can jump to different sections. That menu is where you’ll find the For You, New, Radio, Connect, Playlists and My Music tabs. The hamburger menu keeps things a bit more organized, but it does make it more tedious to switch between tabs.

Beyond the menu layout, the app looks a lot like the iOS version. In fact most pages look nearly identical and suffer from the same overcrowding, with tabs jam-packed with albums, playlists and other suggestions. That was my biggest gripe with the iOS app and it’s still a problem with the Android app.

Apple Music on Android has a streamlined design that’s very similar to the iOS app.

Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET

All of the Apple Music features are there.

Just like the iOS app, Apple Music for Android is full of musical recommendations, human-curated playlists and radio. You can create your own playlists and access music you’ve purchased through iTunes on the My Music page. You can download songs, playlists and full albums for offline listening when you don’t have a connection. The Connect tab lets you follow your favorite artists and see photos, songs and other updates they share.

Beats One, Apple’s private radio station is available, ready to listen to day or night. And when you sign up, Apple asks what genres and artists you’re into so it can suggest music for you, just like the iOS app does. Music videos are missing, but Apple says those are coming shortly. Overall, there aren’t many obvious omissions in the Android version.

. but there’s no voice control

The one significant absence is voice controls, but that has more to do with iOS than it does Apple Music. On an iPhone, iPad or iPod, you can use Siri to control the music and queue up new songs. It’s one of the better features of Apple Music, because Siri understands when you ask to play more songs like the current track or when you ask to play the number one hit from 1992.

That’s missing from the Android app, because Siri is part of iOS. Unfortunately, you cannot use Google Now’s voice commands to control Apple Music. For example, if I ask Google Now to “play The Rolling Stones” it asks me which app to use, with a list of choices installed on my phone. Apple Music isn’t on that list and if I answer with “Apple Music” Google doesn’t understand the request.

Google Now’s voice commands don’t work with Apple Music.

Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET

You cannot sign up for a family plan, yet

For now, you can only sign up for an individual monthly subscription, which costs $9.99 (£9.99, AU$11.99) within the app. You still get a free three-month trial, after which you’ll be automatically charged unless you cancel.

However, you’ll need a Mac or iOS device to upgrade to a family plan, which lets up to six people share a subscription for a total of $14.99 (£14.99, AU$17.99) per month.

The Android app is still in beta

While I didn’t encounter major issues, other than the occasional sluggishness, you may come across a bug or two. The app is also only available for devices running Android 4.3 and up, and doesn’t appear to work on tablets right now — I wasn’t able to download it on a Nexus 7 or Nexus 9.

There’s an option to leave beta feedback in the menu which opens webpage with a survey. You can let Apple know about problems, and also opt-in to automatically send diagnostics about the app’s performance.

Apple Music for Android asks what music you like to make suggestions.

Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET

You cannot use the app to play music files on your phone

Unfortunately, Apple Music for Android doesn’t work as a media player to listen to music files stored on your phone. This is important because a lot of Android owners have been using their phones as an MP3 player for years, storing music files on it.

Google Play Music lets you do this, so that if you transfer music files from your computer, you can play them along with streaming music. The My Music tab in Apple Music only includes tracks you’ve purchased from iTunes.

It’s not better than what’s already out there

Arriving years after its fellow music streaming apps, Apple Music has a lot to compete with this late to the game. Google’s own music streaming service Google Play Music keeps getting better and is well-liked by many Android fans. Spotify has dominated streaming music for years and Rdio, Rhapsody and Pandora are popular choices too. Plus, Google just announced a new service, YouTube Red, which lets you listen to music through YouTube using a soon-to-be-released YouTube Music app.

Getting on Android gives Apple Music the best fighting chance to uproot its adversaries, but given its lackluster launch on iOS, I’m skeptical that it will gain many more customers on Android. Especially because Apple Music doesn’t offer much more than Spotify, Google Play Music or others do.

It does have two significant advantages however. First, Apple Music has exclusive music you can’t find elsewhere, like Taylor Swift’s discography (which she famously pulled from Spotify ) and Dr. Dre’s latest album. Second, if you’ve spent years and years purchasing music from iTunes, and have been longing for a simply way to play those tracks on your Android, Apple Music gives you the simplest solution. Sure, you’ll need to spend $10 per month for this luxury, but it’s worth it if you have a substantial library.

Apple Music didn’t wow me when it first debuted and it’s still unremarkable as a music streaming service. The live radio is a unique catch and streaming the long-ago purchased tracks from iTunes is great, but the app’s cluttered design still holds it back. For a deeper dive into the good and bad of Apple Music, read our full review , and check out why I switched back to Spotify after testing it.

Would you make the switch? Let me know in the comments below.

Play music without internet on Android!

Well, streaming music or videos can be convenient, but it also eats up your mobile data. Since data plans and data caps are becoming more expensive, maybe it’s the perfect time to go back to offline music files. So, to play the offline music files, you need to have a music player app.

There are plenty of Android music player apps available on the Google Play Store that can play music files stored on your device. In this article, we will share the ten best offline music player apps for Android. With these apps, you can easily play the music files stored on your smartphone without an internet connection.

List of 10 Best Offline Music Apps For Android

It’s worth noting that plenty of music streaming apps like YouTube Music, Spotify, etc., offer the ability to download music for offline playback. However, we haven’t included any such apps on the list. So, let’s explore the list of the best free offline music player apps for Android.

1. AIMP

If you are searching for an easy to use and simple music player app for your Android smartphone, then AIMP might be the best pick for you. The great thing about AIMP is that it scans and lists all music files stored on your internal and external storage without showing any ads. Apart from that, the app supports a wide range of music formats and also includes a 29-band equalizer.

2. JetAudio

JetAudio is another top-rated offline music player app on the list that you can consider. The great thing about JetAudio is that it supports almost all major music file formats. Not only that, but JetAudio also provides users 10-band equalizer, 32 presets lossy and lossless support.

3. Mi Music

It’s a stock music player app for Xiaomi Devices. All budget, mid-range, and high-end Xiaomi smartphones have this music player. It automatically detects all your music files stored on your internal storage and SD card. As of now, the music player from Xiaomi supports over 25+ different audio file formats. However, the app is only compatible with Xiaomi phones.

4. Lark Player

If you are searching for a good looking and lightweight music player app for your Android device, you need to give Lark Player a try. It’s both a music and video player app that changes how you watch videos or listen to your favorite songs. Lark Player supports nearly all popular audio & video formats when it comes to the supported file formats. It automatically fetches the audio and video file saved on your phone or SD card.

5. Stellio

Stellio is one of the most advanced music player app available for Android. The app is known for its powerful sound, theme support, and a wide variety of sound settings. When it comes to filing compatibility, Stellio supports lots of popular audio file formats, including FLAC, MP3, CUE, APE, M4A, etc. Also, it has Android wear support, which enables you to control music from your smartwatches.

6. Music Player

It’s one of the best and top-rated offline music player app that you can use on your Android. The app lets you find and manage all your music files quickly and easily. Music Player supports MP3, midi, wav, flaw raw, aac files, and more when it comes to file compatibility. Music Player also offers a five-band graphical equalizer to enhance your music further.

7. Impulse Music Player

Impulse Music Player is a gesture-controlled music player app on the list known for its intuitive user interface. The key features of the Impulse Music Player include bass boost, virtualizer, gapless playback, crossfade, metadata editing, etc. Amongst all those, the gesture control feature is the extraordinary one.

8. Rocket Player

Rocket Player is a fully customizable offline music player app available on the Google Play Store. Guess what? Rocket Player is one of the oldest music player app available out there, and it offers users a wide range of useful features. With the free version of Rocket Player, you will get features like a 10-band equalizer, 30 themes for customization, tag editor, chromecast support, etc.

9. PlayerPro

The great thing about PlayerPro is its plugin support. So, the features of the music player app can be expanded with the plugins. Apart from that, PlayerPro also allows users to browse and play music files in different ways – by albums, artists, composers, genres, etc. The music player app also provides users a built-in tag editor, multiple audio effects, a 5-band graphic equalizer, etc.

10. Pulsar Music Player

Pulsar Music Player is another best offline audio player app without advertisements. The music player is known for its gorgeous user-interface that matches every single detail of material design guidelines. Apart from that, the music player packs almost every necessary features to fulfill your music needs.

So, these are the ten best offline music player apps for Android. If you know any other such apps, let us know in the comment box below. I hope this article helped you! Please share it with your friends also.

Not sure whether to subscribe to Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music? Our guide is here to help.

For many of us, the days of buying albums are over. The best music streaming services have put millions of songs at our fingertips, ready to play through our smartphone, tablet, computer or smart speakers whenever we fancy.

Just under £10 a month gets you access to a bigger music library than you could ever own, with most apps boasting over 50 million tracks! Clever algorithms suggest artists and albums based on your listening habits, expanding your musical horizons daily.

With so much decade-spanning music on tap, it’s unsurprising that 60% of Brits now use streaming services.

Our top-rated music apps are:

• Joint best music streaming service:Spotify
• Joint best music streaming service:Deezer
• Best for multiple devices:Apple Music
• Best hi-res streaming service:Tidal
• Best for Amazon Prime subscribers:Amazon Music Unlimited
• Best for watching music videos:YouTube Music
• Best for classical music:Primephonic

Which music app has the best sound quality?

The tracks available on music streaming services have been compressed to save space, meaning audiophiles may find the sound quality disappointing. Some apps, including Tidal and Amazon Music, let you pay more for a hi-res stream that offers CD quality or better. The improvement is noticeable, but these bigger files will eat through your data allowance more quickly.

What is the cheapest music streaming service?

Some music streaming services, including Spotify and Deezer, offer a free, ad-supported version that limits how many times you can skip songs. For an ad-free, limitless listening experience, you’ll need to sign up for a monthly premium subscription.

In our eyes, Spotify is the best free service if you enjoy podcasts thanks to the number it has available, while Deezer will be the free service for you if you want access to live radio.

How we test

When testing a music streaming service, we judge the size and range of its catalogue and review the quality of the audio files. We note how easy the interface is to navigate and try out any extra features, including parental controls, gapless playback, offline listening and the ability to watch music videos or sing along to lyrics.

Today Google revealed their first Google Clock app – slightly different from the clock app we’ve used before. For some users this will be a new download, for most it’ll just be an update to an already-installed update. Either way, there’s a big change coming through. This app now allows users to use streaming music for their alarm sound in the morning.

Yes, you can still buy an alarm clock at your local electronics store that turns on at the time you want with your favorite radio station. But why do that when you can just buy a several-hundred-dollar smartphone that’ll instead play music from a streaming service for which you’re paying around $10 a month?

The loving team-up between Google and Spotify continues. Here the user can integrate Spotify and the Google Clock app in a way that’s not been ready to roll before. Functionality works for both free and Premium Spotify users. That means you don’t actually have to pay that subscription fee I mentioned in the scenario above, but you still can if you want.

Spotify enhances the Google Clock app, and in return, people download the Spotify app and thereby wish they’d subscribed to the Spotify experience. Everybody wins in this equation. Unless you hate music and love money, because that won’t work out for you here.

Users will find a new section in the “Alarm sound” section of their alarm clock in the Clock app. This new section is called “Spotify” and it’s right next to “Sounds.” This might not appear unless you’ve got the Spotify app and are logged in – but we’ll see! Once inside, users will be able to choose all sorts of Spotify-based music, including Spotify’s curated morning playlists and other bits and pieces.

This update will be on the Google Play app store immediately if not soon. Users will need to have at least Android 5.0 Lollipop installed to make it all work. If you’ve got the Clock app updated but it’s still not showing Spotify, download Spotify and try again!

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You know those texts from your carrier informing you that you’ve almost blown through your mobile data allotment? Of course you do. You receive them every month. Which means it’s time to make some changes. Sure, you could switch to an unlimited data plan, but those can be costly. Instead, take control of your data destiny by tweaking a few phone settings and recalibrating your media consumption.

Smartphones ship with default settings, some of which are over-reliant on cellular data. Left unchanged, those settings can cause your phone to slurp up all of your plan’s allowed data even if you’re swiping and tapping conservatively. Find the following settings and change them. (You should change them even if you’re on an unlimited plan—use too much data and your carrier can throttle your connection, making pages and apps load at a mind-numbingly slow pace.)

If you’re on iOS, first turn off Wi-Fi assist. This feature automatically switches your phone to a cellular data connection when your Wi-Fi connection is poor.

Your apps might also be updating over cellular data, which can burn through your allotment pretty quickly. Turn off automatic app updates under the iTunes and App Store settings.

Your next move should be to make sure your photos only backup to iCloud when you’re on Wi-Fi. Jump into the Cellular page in Settings, scroll down to the Photos app, and toggle the slider to off. While you’re there, you can see which apps are using the most data. Turn off cellular data for your worst offenders and any other apps that don’t need it.

If you’ve already done all that and are still just squeezing by until your next billing cycle, go into the settings for individual apps and turn off “background app refresh.” This stops apps from keeping their feeds up to date even when you’re not looking at them.

Android users have a couple extra options, and won’t have to do as much fine-tuning to keep pesky apps in check. The first—and best—thing to do is set a data usage limit on your Android. This will stop you from going over your plan’s allotment, and you won’t have to tweak any other settings. Go into your Android phone’s Settings, tap on Data Usage, set the duration to match your monthly billing cycle, then toggle the sliders for the limit and warning. Quick tip: If you’re on a family plan, set your limit a bit below your threshold to because you probably won’t be the only one using the data (even though you wish you could be).

When you know you’re close to hitting your limit, turn on Data Saver Mode.With this on, apps will either switch into low-data mode or no-data mode, and you can control which apps can tap into your data.

Even with all of those system-wide settings turned on, you’ve probably got some data-intensive apps that can zap your monthly data.

• Bingeing on streaming media is the quickest way to hit your cap. If you use a music-streaming service, save your favorite albums and playlists for offline access, then stick to those tunes on your long commute. Spotify users beware—you can only save 3,333 songs offline, so if you’re a music glutton, you’d be better off with Google Play Music or Apple Music.
• Avid podcast listeners know those episode downloads can add up. Podcast apps like Overcast and Pocket Casts can be set up to download the latest episodes of your favorite shows whenever you connect to Wi-Fi, and you can disable downloads over cellular data.
• Videos are a sure way to hit your limit, so download as much as you can for offline viewing. Netflix lets you locally store much of its catalog, but some titles are restricted to streaming. With YouTube Red ($10 per month), you can download as many videos as your phone can handle, and you get a subscription to Google Play Music at no extra charge as well.
• Using your phone for navigation can ding your data pretty hard. Google Maps and Apple Maps let you download maps and routes for offline use.Save that data for something more important, like posting your lunch on Instagram.
• Just browsing the web strains your data; web pages with large images and scripts that load in the background can get deceptively weighty. You can save a local copy of longer stories using apps like Pocket and Instapaper. Then you can read the article on your commute without having to open your browser. To save more data, disable auto-play videos on Facebook and Instagram, and swap your Twitter app for Twitter Lite, which is a more data-friendly experience. It works through the web browser, and it’s far less image- and video-intensive than the regular app.
• On Android, the Google Chrome browser has Data Saver, which compresses web pages on Google’s servers before loading them onto your phone. It’s a bit flakey for sites that use HTTPS (the very same protocol Google itself is pushing developers to adopt) but the feature can still save you some data downloads.

Still worried you’re missing something? Download an app to track your data usage. Your carrier probably offers an app (or a page on its website) that shows how much data you have left for the month, but there are better ways to do it.

• On Android, there’s My Data Manager. It tells you which apps are hogging your data, suggests data plan limits that suit your behavior, and sets alarms that trigger when you’re about to go over.
• iPhone users can try Smartapp, which will track your overall usage, show you trends over time, and run speed tests when you suspect you’re being throttled.