Garmin Forerunner 265 and Forerunner 965 are the latest smartwatches coming with a number of new features including the ability to add music on it using third-party audio streaming apps. Yes, you heard it right, you can now easily download your favorite songs on your Garmin Forerunner 265 or 965 from apps like Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music, or other third-party apps. In this guide, I will tell you the different ways to add music on the Garmin Forerunner 265 and 965 smartwatch with steps.
The previous-generation Garmin Forerunner watches don’t support adding music until you purchase a dedicated “Music” variant of the watch. Fortunately, Garmin took off this limit. The latest watches – Forerunner 265 and 965 support adding music using third-party apps, transferring songs from PC, and listening to them by pairing headsets to your watch. The best part is, you can listen to your favorite songs when you are offline.
Garmin officially gives access to the users to add music to compatible smartwatches. The firm has also shared a list of compatible audio files you can move to your smartwatch. Here’s the list, which you can check before moving ahead.
- mp3
- m4a
- m4b
- aac
- adtc
- wav
- m3u
- m3u8
- wpl
- zpl
- pls
Note: .wpl, .zpl, and .pls files are not natively compatible, must be synced over the watch using Garmin Express. Apart from that, you can not transfer .aac protected music files to your watch before removing the DRM (Digital Rights Management) from the file.
So, now you’re aware of the audio file formats which work on the Garmin Music compatible smartwatches. Now let’s move to how you can add music to your Garmin Forerunner 265 and Forerunner 965.
How to Download and Add Music on Garmin Forerunner 265 and 965 [from Spotify]
There are a number of third-party apps you can use to add music to your Garmin Forerunner 265 or Forerunner 965 smartwatches. The list includes famous audio-streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, Line Music (Japan), and more. The new watches come pre-loaded with these music apps, Yes, there’s no need to download Spotify separately on the watch, you can easily access it. Here’s how you can do it.
- Press and Hold the Up button on the watch to open the app menu on your watch.
- Now use Up and Down buttons to find the Music app.
- Press the Start Stop button top open the Music app.
- Music app has a number of options including access to Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, My Music and other settings.
- Select the Streaming service from where you can download music on your Garmin Forerunner 265 or 965.
- When you open it for the first time, it will ask for the login credentials. Yes, a premium account is required to download music for offline playback.
- It asks you to complete the login process from your smartphone using the Garmin Connect app, so make sure you have Garmin Connect app installed on your smartphone with the watch paired to it.
Now let’s take a look at the methods by which you can download songs for offline playback from Spotify on your Garmin Forerunner 265, 265s, or 965.
- Open the Music app on your watch and select Spotify on your watch.
- Tap Your Library, then Add music & podcasts.
- Tap Add to download.
That’s it. You can now listen to your favorite music through Spotify or other third-party apps on your Garmin Forerunner 265 or 965 smartwatch.
You can also manually add music to your app from your PC for offline playback. Now let’s take a look at the steps of installing music from computer.
How to Add Music to Garmin Forerunner 265 for Offline Playback
Garmin officially supports transferring music files to compatible watches, and to make it happen Garmin has a dedicated software – Garmin Express. The software allows loading the music files to the watch easily. Before moving ahead, check out the list of prerequisites.
Prerequisites
- A computer with Garmin Express installed on it.
- Windows 7 or newer version
- macOS Catalina 10.5 or newer
- USB Cable
- Garmin Account credentials
- First, Download and Install Garmin Express software on your Windows or Mac PC.
- Connect your Garmin Forerunner 265 to your computer using a USB cable.
- Open Garmin Express on your PC.
- Enter the login credentials if needed.
- Now select your device.
- Select the Music option.
- Now click on the folder icon in the sidebar with a + icon.
- Locate the music files on your system that you want to transfer to your Garmin watch, then tap on Save.
- Then go to the Songs section in the Garmin Express on PC.
- Choose the songs which you want to transfer, once selected, click on Send to Device.
- The music files will be transferred to your watch now.
- That’s it.
How to Play Music on Garmin Forerunner 265 or 965
Garmin Forerunner 265 owners can listen to the music after downloading or transferring songs to the watch. You can connect your Bluetooth earphones/earbuds/headphone to the watch. Now let’s take a look at the steps on how you can play music on your watch.
- Press and hold the Down button.
- Find Music.
- Hold Up button.
- Choose the Music providers, if you want to listen to the songs you just downloaded from your PC, then select My Music.
- Now select the play option on your watch.
- That’s it.
So, these are the simple ways by which you can add music to Garmin Forerunner 265. If you want to stream music from apps like Spotify, then you can check out this guide to play Spotify on Garmin Forerunner 265 and 965.
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