Foldman CD user guide
Foldman - CD player turns a foldable into a portable CD player. Open the phone to pick a disc, close it to play. This booklet covers every key, gesture and setting, with pictures.
- Getting started
- How the CD player works
- Your music becomes discs
- The CD bag and the open player
- Playing on the cover screen
- Five bodies and their finishes
- Make a disc yours
- Settings
- Outside the app
- Keep it with your music
- Phones that don't fold
- Privacy and usage stats
- All gestures at a glance
- Questions and fixes
Getting started
The CD player plays music files stored on your phone. It doesn't stream and comes with no songs, so copy your albums to the phone first: CD rips, downloads you bought, your band's demos.
1. Install
Get Foldman - CD player from Google Play. It works on book-style foldables (the Galaxy Z Fold and Pixel Fold kind) and on ordinary phones too. See Phones that don't fold.
2. Let it read your music
The first time you open the app, it says A compact disc player for the music already on your phone. You have two ways in:
- ALLOW MUSIC ACCESS uses all the music on the phone. Allow access in the Android prompt. The same prompt asks to show notifications: allow those too, as your lock screen and Bluetooth controls come from the notification.
- PICK A MUSIC FOLDER reads only the folder you choose, with no music permission. See All music, or only some folders.
While it reads your music, the screen counts READING MUSIC n / total.
3. Keep playing when you close the phone
The CD player plays on the outside (cover) screen with the phone shut. On some foldables Android pauses apps when you fold the phone. If the app disappears or the phone locks when you close it:
- Galaxy Z Fold: open Settings › Display › Continue apps on cover screen and turn it on for Foldman - CD player.
- Pixel Fold: set the same option to Always. On other foldables, look in Display settings for something similar.
That's it. Every album on your phone is now a disc in the CD bag. Drag one into the player, close the phone, and press PLAY.
How the CD player works
The hinge is the lid. Like a real portable CD player, the disc only spins with the lid shut.
Open: the CD bag and the open player
The inner screen is the player with its lid up. Your discs are in the CD bag on the left page, one disc to a leaf, and the open player is on the right with its track list. You choose and load discs here, edit their details and change settings.
Closed: the player
The cover screen is the player itself: the disc turning under the lid, the LCD and the keys. This is where you press PLAY.
What happens when you open and close
- Opening the phone while a disc plays fades the music out and stops the disc, as if you'd lifted the lid. The disc keeps its place.
- Closing the phone doesn't start the disc by itself. Press PLAY.
- Half open counts as open: the disc waits until the lid is shut.
Your music becomes discs
The CD player reads the tags in your music files (artist, album, title, track number, length) and burns each album onto its own disc.
All music, or only some folders
With music access allowed, the bag holds all music on this phone, the same songs Android's other music apps see.
To use only certain folders, open Settings and tap ADD FOLDER under MUSIC. Add as many as you like, including folders on an SD card; REMOVE takes one off. When at least one folder is picked, only those folders are read. RESCAN reads them again after you've copied in new music.
- File types: MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC, OGG, OPUS and WAV.
- A file with no tags takes its folder name as the album and its file name as the title.
- Cover art embedded in the files is printed on the disc.
- While folders are being read, the bag's header counts READING n / total.
How discs are made
- One disc per album, labelled with the album and its artist. Choose PER ARTIST in Settings to get one disc per artist instead, with their albums in year order.
- Compilations (album artist "Various Artists") always stay one disc per album.
- Songs with an artist but no album go on that artist's disc. Songs with neither go on one UNTITLED disc at the back of the bag.
- A disc plays its tracks in order, from track 01 to the last, with no sides to turn.
- Tracks under 20 seconds (voice notes, ringtones, skits) are left out. Turn on Include short tracks to keep them.
- The bag is in A–Z order. If you share a library with the cassette player and arranged its rack by hand, the bag follows that order. See Keep it with your music.
The CD bag and the open player
With the phone open, your discs sit in the CD BAG, a wallet of fleece leaves, one disc to a leaf. The header counts them.
Turn the leaves
- Swipe left or right across a leaf to turn it over the spine, like a real CD wallet. A quick flick turns several.
- ‹ and › under the bag turn one leaf at a time.
- The scrubber between them runs through the whole bag: drag along it, or tap a spot, and the disc's name shows above it.
Each leaf shows the disc, its title and artist, how many tracks, the running time and the year. The number at the top right says where you are, such as 1 / 10. The disc in the player leaves its sleeve empty with IN THE PLAYER in the window.
Load a disc
Put your finger on the disc in its sleeve and drag it out to the player. It lifts out of the bag as you go, and the player's header says DROP THE DISC HERE when it's over it. Let go and the disc settles on the spindle. Let go anywhere else and it slides back into its sleeve.
The disc that was in the player goes back into the bag and remembers where it was. Loading never starts the music: close the phone and press PLAY.
The open player
- The LCD shows the track and the time, the same as the cover. An empty player says DRAG A DISC HERE.
- The track list under it shows the disc's title, artist and running time, then every track. The current one is lit. Tap a track to cue it: the pickup slides there, ready for PLAY.
- Double-tap the disc to put it back in the bag.
- Tap a leaf in the bag to open that disc's details. See Make a disc yours.
Playing on the cover screen
Close the phone. The cover screen is your player. This is the CD-01 Studio, the body it starts in; the other bodies have the same keys in their own places.
- Disc window. The disc turns on its bare board, and the pickup slides out across it as the disc plays.
- LCD. The track number and the time into the track, the title, the volume (V0 to V9) and the repeat sign, with a line for how far through the disc you are.
- 01 PREV. Back to the start of the song, or to the song before if you're within its first three seconds. Hold it to search back.
- 02 PLAY / PAUSE. Starts the disc; press again to pause. It's lit while the disc plays.
- 03 NEXT. The next track. Hold it to search forward.
- 04 STOP / EJCT. Stops the disc where it is. Once it's stopped the key reads EJCT: press it again to take the disc out and put it back in the bag.
- 05 RPT. Repeat: off, then one track (↻1), then the whole disc (↻). The key turns blue while repeat is on.
- VOL − and VOL +. The phone's media volume. Hold to keep going.
- SPEAKER or PHONES at the top shows where the sound is going: PHONES when headphones are in use, wired or Bluetooth.
Search through a song
Hold PREV or NEXT. The disc jumps along in short hops you can hear, and goes faster after a moment. Let go to carry on playing from there. Searching forward past the last track ends the disc.
At the end of the disc
With repeat off, the disc stops after the last track and goes back to the start, ready to play again. ↻1 plays the same track over and over; ↻ starts the disc again from track 01.
Every disc remembers its place
Put a disc back halfway through track 6 and it's still there next time, even after a restart. If Android closes the app, your disc is back in the player when you return, stopped. A disc you played to the very end starts from the top.
With nothing loaded, the LCD says NO DISC · UNFOLD · PICK A DISC. Open the phone and drag a disc from the bag.
Five bodies and their finishes
The cover screen can wear any of five bodies, each in three finishes. Every body plays, skips, searches, repeats and changes the volume; only the controls differ. See them all on the Foldman - CD player page.
Swipe on the cover
- Three fingers right or left: the next or previous body.
- Three fingers up or down: the next or previous finish of this body.
The new name shows for a moment, for example D-84 HERITAGE. Three fingers never press a key, so you can swipe anywhere. You can also pick in Settings › BODY.
| Body | Finishes | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| CD-01 STUDIO | GREY · CREAM · GRAPHITE | The disc as big as the case allows, on its bare board, with one row of numbered round keys. Described key by key above. |
| D-84 HERITAGE | SILVER · BLACK · CHAMPAGNE | After the first portable CD player: a round window in a square body and flat tab keys along the front edge, ◀◀ SEEK, PLAY (PAUSE while playing), SEEK ▶▶, STOP (OPEN once stopped, to eject) and REPEAT. Tap SEEK to skip, hold it to search. Slide the VOL control on the right up and down. |
| OP-CD FIELD | WHITE · BLACK · SAND | A black screen with the track, time, title and a tick for every track. Turn the four knobs: TRACK skips, VOLUME, SEARCH moves through the song, MODE changes repeat. Square keys below: previous, play/pause, stop/eject and next. |
| BX-90 BOOMBOX | BLACK · SILVER · PASTEL | A top-loading boombox. Chunky keys along the top (previous, play/pause, next, stop/eject, repeat), LED meters beside the disc, speakers that pump with the music and a big VOLUME dial to turn. |
| J-1 JOG | BLACK · WHITE · RED | A DJ deck. The disc is the jog wheel: turn it to search, about 8 seconds a turn. CUE goes back to the start of the track and holds there; big PLAY; small track keys, REPEAT and STOP/EJECT; a fader for the volume. The screen shows the track's waveform with the time played and the time left. |
Make a disc yours
Open the phone and tap a disc's leaf in the bag. Its DISC card opens. DONE, Back or a tap outside closes it.
Write the label
Under LABEL, fix the Artist and Album and tap SAVE LABEL. Leave a field empty to keep what the files say. Once a label has been edited, RESET goes back to the files' own tags.
This only changes how the disc is named in the app. Your music files are never modified.
Print a cover photo on the disc
- FROM GALLERY uses any photo on your phone.
- FIND ONLINE looks the album up and shows the covers it finds, sure matches first. Tap one to print it on the disc. Nothing is looked up until you press the button, and only the artist and album names are sent, to MusicBrainz (Cover Art Archive) and Apple Music. Pressing it the first time turns on Look up covers online. Nothing found? Fix the spelling under LABEL and try again.
- REMOVE takes the photo off again.
With a photo on, drag and pinch the disc on the card to move and size the picture. RESET FIT centres it again. The fit is the CD player's own: the same photo can sit differently on the cassette player's shell.
Take a disc out of the bag
TAKE OUT OF THE BAG hides the disc without touching its files. Hidden discs are listed at the bottom of Settings under TAKEN OUT OF THE BAG; tap PUT BACK to return one.
Settings
Open the phone and tap SETTINGS at the top of the bag. CLOSE or Back closes it again. Changes apply as soon as you tap them. MANUAL next to CLOSE opens this guide.
| Setting | Choices | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| BODY | five bodies · ALL FINISHES · a finish | Tap a body to put it on the cover, then a finish under it. ALL FINISHES shows every body in every finish to tap. See Five bodies. |
| MUSIC | ADD FOLDER · REMOVE · RESCAN | Which music goes in the bag. With no folders, all music on the phone. See All music, or only some folders. |
| Discs | ONE DISC PER ALBUM default · PER ARTIST | One disc per album, or one per artist. |
| Include short tracks | off default · on | Tracks under 20 seconds. |
| SHARED WITH THE CASSETTE PLAYER | CHOOSE FOLDER · CHANGE | Keeps labels, cover photos and where each disc was left in a Foldman.json file next to your music. See Keep it with your music. |
| Key sounds and haptics | on default · off | The clicks of the keys, the latch of the lid and the eject, and their vibration. |
| Look up covers online | off default · on | Lets FIND ONLINE look covers up. Even when on, nothing is sent until you press FIND ONLINE. |
| Usage stats | on default · off | Anonymous counts of discs played and features used. Never your music, labels or folders. See Privacy. |
Outside the app
Notification, lock screen, Bluetooth and headphones
While a disc is in the player, the CD player shows a media notification with the song and artist. Its controls, the lock screen's, and the buttons on headphones, smartwatches and car stereos all work the player:
- Play and pause are PLAY and PAUSE.
- Next and previous skip tracks, the same as NEXT and PREV (see Playing).
- Tap the notification to open the app.
These controls follow the lid rule too. On a foldable that's open, play and skip do nothing until you close it.
Headphones: pulling out wired headphones or disconnecting Bluetooth ones pauses the disc, so it never suddenly plays out loud. So does an incoming call or another app playing sound. Press PLAY to carry on.
Keep it with your music
Your labels, cover photos, hidden discs and where each disc was left can live in a small file, Foldman.json, in your music folder. Copy the folder to a new phone and everything comes with the songs.
Open Settings
Open the phone and tap SETTINGS at the top of the bag.
Choose the folder
Under SHARED WITH THE CASSETTE PLAYER, tap CHOOSE FOLDER and pick the folder your music lives in. Android asks you to allow the app to use it.
Done
The folder's name shows there, with CHANGE beside it. Before you choose, it says No folder chosen.
- The file is saved a few seconds after you change a label, a photo or what's in the bag. Where each disc is up to is saved about once a minute, and when you leave the app.
- Cover photos are kept beside it in a Foldman/shells folder.
- Changes made elsewhere, such as on another phone or in the cassette player, are merged, not overwritten.
Shared with Foldman - Cassette player
Pick the same folder in Foldman - Cassette player and both apps share one library: labels, cover photos, hidden items and the order of the rack. A cover found in one shows up in the other.
What each app does with an album stays apart. Each keeps its own place in it, so playing the disc here doesn't move the tape there, and each fits the cover photo its own way.
Phones that don't fold
On an ordinary phone there's no hinge, so you open and shut the player's lid by touch. Everything else in this guide works the same.
- Open the lid: tap the disc window. The empty player says TAP TO LOAD. Like a real player, the lid stays locked while the disc turns: stop it first. Ejecting a disc also pops the lid open.
- Load: drag a disc from the bag onto the player. The lid shuts by itself a moment later.
- Close the lid: tap CLOSE ▼, or press Back. The lid also shuts when you leave the app, so the notification can play.
- On a short phone, the open player leaves out the track list. The cover's LCD shows the track anyway.
Privacy and usage stats
- Your music stays on your phone. The CD player doesn't upload songs, tags, labels, folder names or anything you type.
- Usage stats are anonymous counts that help us improve the app: discs played, keys pressed, features used, minutes listened. They never include your music, labels or folders. No advertising ID is used, and nothing more precise than your country is kept. Turn them off with Usage stats in Settings.
- Cover search sends only the artist and album names, and only when you press FIND ONLINE.
- Editing a label never changes your music files.
The full details are in the privacy policy.
All gestures at a glance
| Where | Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Bag | Swipe left or right | Turns the leaves |
| Bag | Drag along the scrubber, or tap ‹ › | Runs through the bag |
| Bag | Tap a leaf | Opens the disc's card |
| Bag | Drag a disc out of its sleeve | Drop it on the player to load it |
| Open player | Double-tap the disc | Puts it back in the bag |
| Open player | Tap a track | Cues it |
| Cover | Three fingers left or right | Previous or next body |
| Cover | Three fingers up or down | Next or previous finish |
| Cover | Tap PREV or NEXT | Skips a track |
| Cover | Hold PREV or NEXT | Searches through the song |
| Cover | STOP, then EJCT | Stops, then ejects the disc to the bag |
| J-1 Jog | Turn the disc | Searches, about 8 seconds a turn |
| OP-CD, BX-90 | Turn a knob or dial | Track, volume, search or repeat, as printed |
| Disc card | Pinch or drag the disc | Resizes or moves the cover photo |
| Phone | Tap the disc window | Opens the lid (when stopped) |
Questions and fixes
The music stops when I open the phone.
That's the lid doing its job: on a portable CD player, opening the lid stops the disc. Close the phone and press PLAY to carry on from the same place.
Nothing plays when I close the phone, or the app disappears.
Continue apps on cover screen is off for the app, so Android locks the phone when you close it. On a Galaxy, open Settings › Display › Continue apps on cover screen and turn on Foldman - CD player; on a Pixel, set the same option to Always. Then press PLAY on the cover. Closing the phone never starts the disc by itself.
PLAY does nothing.
Check that a disc is loaded (the LCD doesn't say NO DISC). With the phone open, PLAY waits until you close it.
The bag is empty.
The app needs music files on the phone and permission to read them. Tap ALLOW MUSIC ACCESS. If Android doesn't ask any more, go to Android Settings › Apps › Foldman - CD player › Permissions › Music and audio and allow it. Or add your music folders with ADD FOLDER in Settings, which needs no permission. Songs from streaming apps can't be played: they stay locked inside those apps.
Some songs or albums are missing.
Tracks under 20 seconds are left out: turn on Include short tracks. Check TAKEN OUT OF THE BAG at the bottom of Settings. If you picked music folders, only those folders are read; tap RESCAN after copying in new music.
An album is split across two discs, or two albums share one.
Discs are grouped by the album and album artist tags. Fix them in your music files, or rename a disc under LABEL. For compilations, set the album artist to "Various Artists".
The music stopped by itself.
The disc reached its end (turn on repeat to keep going), headphones were unplugged or disconnected, a call came in, or another app started playing. Press PLAY to carry on.
Can I play a disc with the phone open?
No: like a real portable, the disc only spins with the lid shut. With the phone open you can cue a track in the track list, ready for when you close it.
How do I move everything to a new phone?
Choose a folder under SHARED WITH THE CASSETTE PLAYER before you move, copy the music folder (with Foldman.json and Foldman/shells) to the new phone, install the app, and choose the same folder.
Still stuck? Write to hello@appxygen.com or use the contact page.
back to the top ↑