How Does My Media Choose Audiobook vs Album?

My Media uses the metadata embedded in your audio files to decide whether content is music or an audiobook. This classification affects how Alexa queues and plays the tracks — music is queued as an album, while audiobook/spoken-word tracks may be played as individual items.

Classification Rules

Genre Tag

If the Genre ID3 tag on a file is set to Audiobook, Audiobooks, Spoken Word, or Podcast, My Media classifies the track as non-music. Alexa then treats it differently from a regular album track and may only queue the single track rather than grouping it with others.

Media Kind (M4A / M4B)

Apple-format files (.m4a, .m4b) contain a Media Kind field written by iTunes and Apple Music. My Media reads this field when indexing:

iTunes / Apple Music Classification

When using the iTunes / Apple Music integration, My Media imports the library classification set by iTunes. Tracks placed in the Audiobooks section of iTunes or Apple Music are treated as audiobooks regardless of their file extension.

Fixing Incorrectly Classified Tracks

MP3 Files

1. Open the files in a tag editor such as MusicBrainz Picard, Mp3tag, or foobar2000.
2. Change the Genre field to the correct music genre (e.g., Classical, Rock, Jazz).
3. Save the files.
4. Trigger a rescan in My Media from the Watch Folders page.

M4A / M4B Files

1. Open iTunes or Apple Music.
2. Right-click the track and choose Get Info.
3. Open the Options tab.
4. Change Media Kind to Music.
5. Click OK.
6. Trigger a rescan in My Media.

Without Editing the Files

If you cannot edit the source files, use My Media's Overrides feature to re-map the spoken phrase for that title to the correct track or album, bypassing the classification issue.