Adding your music files, mp3 and such, stored on a hard drive or other kinds of storage on your laptop or tablet to Xbox Music app in Windows 8.1 is easy when you start the app for the first time. On the main app screen you’ll have “Choose where we look” option, where you can select which folder to add to the Collection.
Simply browse to the folder you want to add via the built-in Windows 8 SkyDrive file manager app (manages files on both SkyDrive cloud and local hard drives) and click “Done” when you finish.
Now you have music files added to the Collection. However, you no longer have “Choose where we look” on the start screen of the app, making addition of files a bit harder in comparison to the previous situation.
But, it’s possible of course. Just open the Charms menu on the right side of the screen, buy swiping from the right-bezel to left if you have a touchscreen laptop or tablet, or put mouse cursor on the top-right or bottom-right corner of the screen if you use mouse or trackpad. Then, click on Settings option on the Charms menu.
Under Settings, there’s Preferences option. Click it.
Preferences tab will provide various choices to click on and one of them is “Choose where we look for music on this PC”. Then you can repeat browsing your local HDD / SSD (or USB Flash drives and media cards) and adding folders, like on the images 2 – 5.
Alternatively, you can add audio files to the Music Metro-style app from the classic Desktop environment in Windows 8(.1), by going to Desktop > Libraries > Music > tab labeled Library Tools and then clicking on Manage Library button.
Alphaville and Metallica. lol