How To Setup and Use Amazon Cloud Player & get 20 GB of Free Space

Yesterday Amazon launched their Amazon Cloud Drive Storage service for music. Here we take a look at how to set it up and get 20 GB of storage space for free.

Here is how to qualify for the offer according to the Amazon Cloud Player Site:

• Purchase an MP3 album from the Amazon MP3 Store by 11:59 PM PST on December 31, 2011.
• If you qualify for this offer and either have not signed up for Amazon Cloud Drive or have the 5GB Amazon Cloud Drive plan, you will be automatically eligible for the 20 GB plan for one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase. Unless you set your account to auto-renew to a paid plan, the 20 GB plan will revert to a free plan one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase.
• If your Amazon Cloud Drive account is already at 20 GB or higher when you qualify for this offer, the offer will be saved to your account as a $20 credit toward any future Amazon Cloud Drive plan fees you may incur at the time your plan renews or at the time you upgrade your plan. If you elect to downgrade your plan to a free plan at the time of renewal, your upgrade offer will be applied towards the 20 GB plan at that time.

Setup Amazon Cloud Player

1. First head over to the Amazon site and click on Launch Amazon Cloud Player

2. Then you’ll be prompted to enter in your Amazon user account credentials, or create an account if you don’t have one already.

3. Then you will need to accept the Terms of Use, enter in the Captcha, and click Continue.

4. Then you will get a message letting you know there is no music stored on the drive. At this point you have 5 GB of Cloud Drive storage. To start adding music files click Upload to your Cloud Drive.

5. Next you’ll be prompted to download the Amazon MP3 Uploader…go ahead and download it and save it to a convenient location on your hard drive.

5. Then install the MP3 Uploader. Installation is easy following the defaults in the wizard. Adobe Air is required, but if you don’t have it already, it will be installed for you.


6. After the MP3 Uploader starts it will find all of the music on your computer. Here you can see we have far more than the allocated 5 GB and the upload would take approximately 2 days.

7. Since there isn’t enough space yet, you can go through and uncheck the songs you don’t want and only select the ones you want to upload.



8. Once you have the songs you want to send to the Cloud Drive, click the Start Upload button. Here you can see we only picked a few albums, so the amount of space used is under the 5GB limit and the estimated time to upload is much less than uploading the entire collection. It uploads each song individually, so depending on the amount of music files you upload will determine the amount of time it takes.

9. Keep in mind that only MP3 and AAC files are supported. So if you’re a fan of say FLAC or your collection is in a different format, you’ll need to convert them.

10. Once the music you selected to upload is finished you can upload more or start listening to it.

11. After you’re music is uploaded you can play it on your Windows, Mac (with Chrome or Firefox), and Android devices. It opens the Amazon Cloud Player in your default browser. There isn’t an app for iOS at this point, and the Safari browser is not supported. You can get to your Cloud Player, but the songs won’t play.
The player let’s you create playlists, upload more music, displays latest purchases, and let’s you easily shot for more music through the Amazon MP3 Store.

Here’s an example of it playing on a Mac running through Firefox.

Get 20 GB of Storage for Free

1. The cool thing about this service is you can get an additional 15 GB of space for free! All you need to do is buy an MP3 album from the Amazon store at regular price before next year, and they’ll automatically give you 15 GB for free for a total of 20 GB of space.

2. Save the album to your Amazon Cloud Drive.

3. Then open your Amazon Cloud Player and you can start listening to the album you bought virtually instantly. You’ll find the MP3 album you bought under Latest Purchases. Then notice here we received an additional 15 GB of storage space automatically. That’s it! Nothing else to do other than purchase one album.
Note: The 20GB account is free for one year. After that, if you don’t if you don’t auto-renew it will revert back to the free 5 GB plan.

If you look in the Albums section you’ll see the one you just purchased along with the songs you uploaded from your computer.

More Than Just Music

While the amount of space and music player is very cool there is even more benefits. You can upload and store more than just music files. After purchasing the MP3 album you’ll receive an email from Amazon pointing you the page where you can manage your drive.
1. Notice there are 4 different folders for Documents, Pictures, Videos, and of course Music.

2. So for instance if you want to upload a video, open that folder then click on Upload Files. Or you can click on the Upload Files button on the upper left corner of the page.

3. Select the folder you want to upload the file to…in this case Videos. Then click Select files to upload where there is a limit on the size of the video…only 2 GB.

4. Then select the video you want to upload.

5. Then on the Amazon Cloud Drive page you’ll see the progress of the file uploading.

6. If you want to see more details, click on See Upload Details and there you’ll see the progress of what’s uploading and you can add additional files as well.

7. When managing your drive you can create new folders, delete files, rename files and more…you have many options for file management.

Amazon Cloud Player Android App
Android users are in luck because there is an app specifically developed for the Android OS and devices running it. With your Android Device just scan the QR Code on the Amazon site to install it.