Copy over folders of music and audiobooks to iPhone without iTunes (and not having to tag all my media first)

Question

I typically listen to audiobooks on PC, or via some nice audiobook apps on my android phone (which was recently stolen). I have a spare iPhone 6, and am just trying to copy over my audiobook collection, and iTunes doesn't recognize half the folders, or the tags aren't helpful, etc.

What I really want, is to get a few folders full of music files copied over to the iPhone, so I can open them with VLC, and browse by file name (or use a third party audiobook player), and skip all this nonsense involving tagging all of my music/audiobooks before I can even copy it to the phone, much less player it.

Is there a straightforward way (without purchasing some bogus/sketchy looking third party "copy without iTunes" Windows app) to just get a few folders of music onto my iPhone, so I can play it with VLC?

Thank you.

Answer 1

There's an easier way to approach this (at least partially).

First, it sounds like you want to copy over "folders of music" or audiobooks to your device, similar to how you would with an Android phone or a music/MP3 player that just functions as a "USB mass storage device", rather than some useless protocol like MTP (or some company-specific proprietary alternative) which exists mainly to prevent small amounts of music piracy at the expense of making the device a pain to interface with.

Your general approach should be (and you have part of this correct already):

1. Setup WebDAV on your phone (yes, the "Documents by Readdle" app is one way to do this; there are other approaches to doing this too, but that app works fine).
2. Setup a WebDAV client on your computer. Most WebDAV apps on iPhone aren't that helpful, as you have to use a browser/web interface, which usually means you have to select files in groups (i.e. via CTRL+click), rather than just being able to recursively upload folders of files (meaning you be spending/wasting hours using such a horrid interface if you need to upload several audiobooks). If you're using Ubuntu (or Linux in general), most file managers support directly connecting to the WebDAV service on your phone (e.g. Nautilus, for example, supports this) and allowing you to use the file manager's existing graphical user interface (i.e. copy/paste, drag and drop, etc.).. Now, you can literally copy/paste and/or click+drag entire folders of music/files to your device, and you can access them in your music/reader app, rather than fighting with a primitive HTML web app for uploading via WebDAV.

One last note: while VLC is awesome, you're best off finding a dedicated audiobook reader/player app, as they tend to be better/friendlier than VLC (IMHO) at remembering where you left off, adding bookmarks in case you want to switch between books, etc. (I won't recommend any here as it would constitute advertising a product), but if you've figured out this much already on setting up file sharing, you're likely more than capable of seeking out a good free/paid audiobook reader app.

Answer 2

It turns out I can use "Documents by Readdle" to enable webDAV so I can use a browser/http interface to bulk/batch upload files.

Then I can just use a proper dedicated audiobook player app (that doesn't keep pushing a specific audiobook-reseller on me with a useless client/player app), like "BookPlayer by Gianni Carlo", and I'm all set. I can now access my songs with VLC too, so I don't have to "drink the coolaid" and spends days re-tagging all my media collection before I can listen to a single audiobook.