How to play Apple Music with Roku mobile app

The Roku mobile app is not just a remote for your Roku device, it also allows you to easily share photos, videos, and music from your compatible smartphone or tablet right to your TV. This feature is called Play on Roku, which allow you to display photos, videos, and songs stored on your compatible mobile device to your Roku streaming player or Roku TV. However, you may find that although you have downloaded Apple Music songs to your phone, you still can't play them on Roku. This is because the Play on Roku feature only supports MP3 and M4A audio formats. DRM-protected music files, such as M4P, are not supported. Apple Music songs you downloaded are saved in DRM-protected M4P format, so you can't play them on Roku with Play on Roku feature. You need to remove Apple Music DRM and convert M4P to MP3 first.

How to download Apple Music to MP3 and play with Roku mobile app

Play on Roku is a feature built in to the free Roku mobile app for iOS and Android devices. Play on Roku lets you share photos, videos, and songs stored on your compatible mobile device to your Roku streaming player or Roku TV. After you launch the mobile app and choose what to view from your phone or tablet, it will appear on your TV. You can use the Roku device comparison chart to determine which Roku products support Play on Roku.

What file types are supported with Play on Roku?

Play on Roku supports the following file types:

Photos: JPG and PNG
Video: MP4 (MPEG-4 Pt 14), MOV, M4V
Music: MP3 and M4A (*DRM-protected music files, such as M4P, are not supported)

As you can see from above, DRM protected M4P songs are not supported. When you download Apple Music songs for offline playback, they are stored in this format, so to play Apple Music songs with Roku mobile app, you need to remove DRM from the Apple Music songs and convert M4P to MP3 first. Here we will recommend Ondesoft iTunes Converter, which allows you to easily remove DRM from Apple Music songs without downloading them and output Roku compatible MP3, AAC, FLAC, etc. Below steps will show you how to remove DRM from streaming Apple Music songs and play them on Roku.

1. Download and Launch Apple Music Converter

Download, install and launch Ondesoft Apple Music Converter on your Mac or Windows.

2. Sign in your Apple Music account

Click the Sign in button and enter your Apple ID.

3. Change output format(optional)

The default output format is lossless M4A. Ondesoft Apple Music Converter also supports converting Apple Music to MP3, AAC, FLAC, WAV and AIFF. You can also customize output file name with any combination of title, artist, album, playlist index and track ID.

4. Select music

Follow the on-screen instructions to choose the playlist or album you want to convert.

Click Add songs.

5. Start Conversion

By default, all songs in the playlist/album will be checked. If there are songs you don't want to convert, please uncheck the box. Then click Convert button to start downloading songs to the format you choose.

After conversion, click below folder icon to quickly locate the downloaded songs.

How to play DRM-free Apple Music MP3 songs with Play on Roku feature?

Open the Roku mobile app on your phone or tablet.
If you have not already done so, connect your Roku device to the mobile app.
1. Select the Devices icon from the navigation bar.
2. Select your Roku device.
Once your Roku device is connected, launch Play on Roku by selecting the Media icon .
Select either Music to begin choosing what to share from your mobile device. When prompted, grant access to your media library allowing the Roku mobile app to share your content.
Select the songs to share on your TV.