Expo Music Library

A powerful Expo native module that provides seamless access to the device's music library, enabling you to read and retrieve audio files, albums, artists, folders, and genres in your React Native applications.

📱 Screenshots

IOS	Android

✨ Features

• 🎵 Comprehensive Music Access: Retrieve audio files, albums, artists, folders, and genres with full metadata
• 🔍 Full-text Search: Search assets by title, artist, or album name
• 📄 Pagination Everywhere: Cursor-based pagination for all asset queries
• 🎛️ Advanced Filtering: Filter by artist, genre, date range, and more in getAssetsAsync
• 🗂️ Sort by Title, Artist, Album: New sort keys beyond time and duration
• 🔔 Real-time Change Listener: Get notified when the music library changes
• 🆔 Get Asset by ID: Look up a single track directly by its ID
• 📊 Accurate Asset Counts: assetCount on genres and folders reflects actual song count
• 📱 Cross-Platform: Full support for Android and iOS
• 🔧 TypeScript First: Complete type definitions with IntelliSense support

🚀 Platform Support

Platform	Android	iOS Device	iOS Simulator	Web	Expo Go
Supported	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌

Requirements:

• ✅ Expo SDK 55 / React Native 0.79+
• ✅ Expo Development Builds
• ✅ Vanilla React Native (via npx install-expo-modules)
• ❌ Not compatible with Expo Go (requires custom native code)

Minimum OS Versions:

• iOS: 13.0+
• Android: API Level 21 (Android 5.0)+

📦 Installation

Expo Projects

npx expo install expo-music-library

After installation, rebuild your app:

# For Android
expo run:android

# For iOS
expo run:ios

Vanilla React Native Projects

This library uses the Expo Modules API. To use it in a vanilla React Native project:

Step 1 — Install Expo Modules:

npx install-expo-modules@latest

This one-time setup integrates the Expo Modules runtime into your existing React Native project without requiring you to migrate to Expo.

Step 2 — Install the library:

npm install expo-music-library
# or
yarn add expo-music-library

Step 3 — Rebuild native code:

# Android
npx react-native run-android

# iOS (install pods first)
cd ios && pod install && cd ..
npx react-native run-ios

⚙️ Configuration

Config Plugin (Expo Projects — Recommended)

expo-music-library ships with a config plugin that automatically adds all required permissions to your native project during expo prebuild. You never need to touch Info.plist or AndroidManifest.xml manually.

Add it to your app.json or app.config.js:

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": [
      "expo-music-library"
    ]
  }
}

Then rebuild your app:

expo prebuild --clean
expo run:android   # or expo run:ios

Plugin Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
musicLibraryPermission	string	"Allow $(PRODUCT_NAME) to access your music library."	iOS permission string shown in the system dialog

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": [
      [
        "expo-music-library",
        {
          "musicLibraryPermission": "$(PRODUCT_NAME) needs your music library to play songs."
        }
      ]
    ]
  }
}

What the plugin does

Platform	Changes applied automatically
iOS Info.plist	Adds NSAppleMusicUsageDescription
Android AndroidManifest.xml	Adds READ_MEDIA_AUDIO (API 33+) and READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (API ≤ 32)

Manual Configuration (Vanilla React Native / Bare Workflow)

If you are not using expo prebuild, add permissions manually.

iOS — add to Info.plist:

<key>NSAppleMusicUsageDescription</key>
<string>Allow $(PRODUCT_NAME) to access your music library.</string>

Android — add to AndroidManifest.xml:

<!-- Required for Android 13+ (API 33+) -->
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_AUDIO" />

<!-- Fallback for Android 12 and below -->
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

🎯 Usage Examples

Basic — Request Permissions & Load Songs

import { useEffect, useState } from "react";
import { getPermissionsAsync, requestPermissionsAsync, getAssetsAsync } from "expo-music-library";

export default function MusicApp() {
  const [songs, setSongs] = useState([]);

  useEffect(() => {
    (async () => {
      const { status } = await getPermissionsAsync();
      if (status !== "granted") {
        await requestPermissionsAsync();
      }
      const result = await getAssetsAsync({ first: 50, sortBy: "title" });
      setSongs(result.assets);
    })();
  }, []);

  return /* render songs */;
}

Search Songs

import { searchAssetsAsync } from "expo-music-library";

const results = await searchAssetsAsync("Beatles", { first: 20 });
console.log(results.assets); // songs matching "Beatles" in title, artist, or album

Infinite Scrolling

import { useState, useCallback } from "react";
import { getAssetsAsync } from "expo-music-library";

export function useInfiniteMusic() {
  const [assets, setAssets] = useState([]);
  const [endCursor, setEndCursor] = useState(null);
  const [hasNextPage, setHasNextPage] = useState(true);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(false);

  const loadMore = useCallback(async () => {
    if (loading || !hasNextPage) return;
    setLoading(true);
    try {
      const result = await getAssetsAsync({
        first: 20,
        after: endCursor,
        sortBy: "title",
      });
      setAssets((prev) => [...prev, ...result.assets]);
      setEndCursor(result.endCursor);
      setHasNextPage(result.hasNextPage);
    } finally {
      setLoading(false);
    }
  }, [loading, hasNextPage, endCursor]);

  return { assets, loadMore, loading, hasNextPage };
}

Filter by Artist or Genre

import { getAssetsAsync } from "expo-music-library";

// Get all songs by a specific artist
const byArtist = await getAssetsAsync({ artist: "artist-id", first: 50 });

// Get all songs in a specific genre
const byGenre = await getAssetsAsync({ genre: "genre-id", first: 50 });

Paginated Album / Artist / Genre Songs

import { getAlbumAssetsAsync, getArtistAssetsAsync, getGenreAssetsAsync } from "expo-music-library";

// First page of an album's songs
const page1 = await getAlbumAssetsAsync("album-id", { first: 20, sortBy: "title" });

// Next page
const page2 = await getAlbumAssetsAsync("album-id", { first: 20, after: page1.endCursor });

// Same pattern works for artists and genres
const artistPage = await getArtistAssetsAsync("artist-id", { first: 20 });
const genrePage  = await getGenreAssetsAsync("genre-id",  { first: 20 });

Real-time Change Listener

import { useEffect } from "react";
import { addChangeListener } from "expo-music-library";

useEffect(() => {
  const subscription = addChangeListener((event) => {
    if (event.hasIncrementalChanges) {
      // Incremental update available — refresh your data
    }
  });
  return () => subscription.remove();
}, []);

Get Asset by ID

import { getAssetByIdAsync } from "expo-music-library";

const asset = await getAssetByIdAsync("12345");
console.log(asset.title, asset.artist, asset.duration);

📚 API Reference

Permissions

requestPermissionsAsync(writeOnly?: boolean): Promise<PermissionResponse>

Requests media library permissions.

getPermissionsAsync(writeOnly?: boolean): Promise<PermissionResponse>

Checks current permission status without requesting.

type PermissionResponse = {
  status: "granted" | "denied" | "undetermined";
  canAskAgain: boolean;
  granted: boolean;
  expires: "never" | number;
  accessPrivileges?: "all" | "limited" | "none"; // iOS only
};

---

Assets

getAssetsAsync(options?: AssetsOptions): Promise<PagedInfo<Asset>>

Retrieves audio assets with filtering, sorting, and pagination.

type AssetsOptions = {
  first?: number;           // Page size (default: 20)
  after?: AssetRef;         // Cursor from previous page's endCursor
  album?: AlbumRef;         // Filter by album ID or Album object
  artist?: ArtistRef;       // Filter by artist ID or Artist object
  genre?: GenreRef;         // Filter by genre ID or Genre object
  sortBy?: SortByValue | SortByValue[];
  createdAfter?: Date | number;
  createdBefore?: Date | number;
};

getAssetByIdAsync(id: string): Promise<Asset>

Gets a single asset by its ID.

searchAssetsAsync(query: string, options?: AssetsOptions): Promise<PagedInfo<Asset>>

Searches assets whose title, artist, or album match the query string. Accepts the same AssetsOptions for pagination and filtering.

---

Albums

getAlbumsAsync(): Promise<Album[]>

Returns all albums in the music library.

getAlbumAssetsAsync(albumId: string, options?: SubQueryOptions): Promise<PagedInfo<Asset>>

Returns paginated songs from a specific album.

---

Artists

getArtistsAsync(): Promise<Artist[]>

Returns all artists in the music library.

getArtistAssetsAsync(artistId: string, options?: SubQueryOptions): Promise<PagedInfo<Asset>>

Returns paginated songs by a specific artist.

---

Genres

getGenresAsync(): Promise<Genre[]>

Returns all genres in the music library with accurate song counts.

getGenreAssetsAsync(genreId: string, options?: SubQueryOptions): Promise<PagedInfo<Asset>>

Returns paginated songs in a specific genre.

---

Folders

getFoldersAsync(): Promise<Folder[]>

Returns all folders that contain audio files, with accurate song counts.

getFolderAssetsAsync(folderId: string, options?: SubQueryOptions): Promise<PagedInfo<Asset>>

Returns paginated songs in a specific folder.

---

Change Listener

addChangeListener(listener: (event: ChangeEventPayload) => void): { remove: () => void }

Subscribes to music library change events. Returns a subscription object with a remove() method.

type ChangeEventPayload = {
  hasIncrementalChanges: boolean;
};

---

📐 Type Reference

Asset

type Asset = {
  id: string;
  filename: string;
  title: string;
  artist: string;
  artwork?: string;       // URI to album artwork (may be undefined)
  uri: string;            // assets://* (iOS), file://* (Android)
  mediaType: "audio";
  width: number;
  height: number;
  creationTime: number;
  modificationTime: number;
  duration: number;       // seconds
  albumId?: string;
  artistId?: string;
  genreId?: string;
};

Album

type Album = {
  id: string;
  title: string;
  assetCount: number;     // total tracks in library from this album
  albumSongs: number;     // tracks across all albums
  artist: string;
  artwork: string;
};

Artist

type Artist = {
  id: string;
  title: string;
  assetCount: number;
  albumSongs: number;
};

Genre

type Genre = {
  id: string;
  title: string;
  assetCount: number;     // actual number of songs in this genre
};

Folder

type Folder = {
  id: string;
  title: string;
  assetCount: number;     // number of audio files in this folder
};

PagedInfo<T>

type PagedInfo<T> = {
  assets: T[];
  endCursor: string;      // pass as `after` to get next page
  hasNextPage: boolean;
  totalCount: number;
};

SubQueryOptions

Used by getAlbumAssetsAsync, getArtistAssetsAsync, getGenreAssetsAsync, and getFolderAssetsAsync.

type SubQueryOptions = {
  first?: number;                        // Page size (default: 20)
  after?: string;                        // Cursor from previous endCursor
  sortBy?: SortByValue | SortByValue[];  // Sort order
};

SortByValue

type SortByKey =
  | "default"
  | "creationTime"
  | "modificationTime"
  | "duration"
  | "title"
  | "artist"
  | "album";

// A key alone (descending), or a [key, ascending] tuple
type SortByValue = SortByKey | [SortByKey, boolean];

Examples:

sortBy: "title"                          // title descending
sortBy: ["title", true]                 // title ascending
sortBy: [["artist", true], "album"]     // artist ASC, then album DESC

🔧 Troubleshooting

Android Studio Gradle Sync Error

If you see an error like:

Included build '.../expo-modules-autolinking/android/expo-gradle-plugin' does not exist

This means your root node_modules has an old version of expo-modules-autolinking. Run bun install (or npm install) in both the project root and the example/ folder to fetch the correct version for Expo SDK 55.

iOS Simulator — No Songs

The iOS Simulator does not have a real music library. Use a physical device to test with actual music files.

Permissions Denied on Android 13+

Ensure READ_MEDIA_AUDIO is listed in your manifest. The older READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission is ignored on Android 13+ (API 33+).

📄 License

MIT © fayez-nazzal