Help requested for a smartphone technophobe

[PrincessOlga]

You will probably laugh at how I am unable to find my way around a smartphone, so I hope someone can help.

I like to listen to music while going out for a jog. I have MP3 files on a very old tablet (which I downloaded from my email or just sent by Bluetooth from my PC) and the audio app on the tablet can be set to play them at random, which I really like. So I have around 70 at a time and that is not too small a number to get bored of any one tune.

But I was thinking that I would rather listen to music on my smartphone in the same way... but I cannot see how this would be possible? I have a Nokia 5.3, if that helps. The audio settings only seem to let you listen to one at a time.

Is there a special app which can play your music (like on a tablet)? Or some settings on the phone? Would my smartphone hold up to 70 MP3 files (I do not use my smartphone for photos or storing anything else: I only have it really because you need it for banking stuff and it is not my "telephone").

I have heard of things like Spotify, but I like to just download my own MP3 files. In any case, I am not sure that the music I listen to would be on anything modern (I do not listen to anything from the 21st century and even the 1990s is "modern" to me, lol).

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

You can try Spotify for free if you don't object to the adverts. At least that way you could see if they have the music you like.

I use Spotify. I do pay for it because we use it for the whole family and get no adverts. It costs the same as buying 1 CD a month. (Cheaper if it was just for you).

I can then either download songs/albums or just create a playlist of the songs I want to hear. I can choose to play on random if I want.

You can try it for free - so you can see if it has the songs you lile on it.

I find it easy to use. And now I listen to podcasts through it too.

There are other streaming apps. I haven't really tried them. I don't have an iPhone either so not used iTunes or anything.

If you just want to listen to your 70 music files you could download an app called VLC which will play them all one after another in a long playlist which you could then shuffle if you'd like. When you open then app, you browse your phone's file storage, you search for those music files and you add to your playlist, press play and those songs will repeat forever more.

That being said, Spotify would be more user friendly and intuitive to the not technical minded and you could listen to a million more songs, discover new music and podcasts but unless you wanted to pay for it you'll hear some adverts.