Setting up the SONOS app to work with MusicBee with Network Drive

[jacktheripper]

Background: I use a memory stick hanging off my ASUS router as a network drive, where I store music in a partition called SONOS Music. My goal was to have MusicBee directly manage music on this partition, and I wanted to create playlists in MusicBee that the SONOS app would recognize as Imported Playlists. I then play music using the SONOS app on my iPhone to select playlists, albums, song, etc.
MusicBee setup: I used MusicBee>>File>>Library>>Create New Library to create a library called “SONOS MusicBee”, located on the above network drive partition. This created a folder with the same name, with the following subfolders:
(1) Music, which MusicBee directly manages. As I added music into MusicBee, it created subfolders for each artist name, plus a special subfolder called Various Artists for some ripped CDs.
(2) Playlists, which contain .mbp files (MusicBee Playlist files), one for each playlist I created in MusicBee.
(3) Podcasts, which I don’t use but leave there, and
(4) Ripped Files, which receives any new CDs I rip.
At first, I asked MusicBee to manually organize and sweep these ripped CDs into the Music folder. But I found a better way to automate these sweeps whenever I rip a CD (not yet tested, though): MusicBee>>Edit>>Edit Preferences>>Library>> monitored folders section: Choose monitored folders to be the Ripped folder, and check the box “automatically sweep and organize new files”.
The .mbp playlist filetype that MusicBee uses is not recognized by the SONOS app as an Imported Playlist, so there is an additional setup action needed to create mirrored playlists in the iTunes format (.m3u filetype). After this setpu, sweeping is automated:
(5) I added a fifth subfolder in SONOS MusicBee called “Playlists in iTunes Format”.
(6) Drill down to MusicBee>>Edit>>Edit Preferences>>Library>>playlists>>exported playlists line, browse for the folder made in Step (5), and make sure the filetype is .m3u. Hit Save. Thanks, phred for this tip.
(7) Now in the PLAYLISTS tab, right click each playlist, go to Playlist Settings… and check the box labeled “automatically export a static copy”. This ensures any changes made to a MusicBee playlist will automatically update the iTunes version of the playlist. Thanks again phred.
SONOS Setup (using the SONOS PC app):
(8) I went to Manage>>Music Library Settings…, and first selected, then removed, all existing libraries.
(9) I then hit Add, and navigated to the “SONOS MusicBee” folder created above, in my case on the network drive. Note that the subfolder containing the iTunes playlists is inside this folder, so the SONOS app will find them. This action initiated the “Music Indexing” function in the SONOS app. When it’s finished indexing…
(10) In the rightmost panel of the SONOS app, hit the back arrow until the title changes to “Select a Music Source. Then select Music Library and you should see all your music, and the Imported Playlists folder should have all the playlists you created in Step (7) above. You can play music at this point from Imported Playlists if you want, but…
(11) To make an imported playlist a “SONOS Playlist”, pick a room, clear the Queue, then add all the songs in the imported playlist to the Queue. At the bottom of the center panel, hit Save Queue, enter a name, and hit Save. It will prompt to replace an existing SONOS playlist if there is one with the same name.

Setup is now complete. If any music changes are made in MusicBee, remember to re-index in the SONOS app (Manage>>Update Music Index Now). For changes to an existing playlist repeat Step (11) after re-indexing. For new playlists, repeat Step (7), re-index, and then repeat Step (11).