The most issues I encounter with music players are related to my situation of NAS. My NAS is straightforward: I just connect a RAID to a Mac and share it, then let other Macs connect to this "server". This allows me to access it in Finder like any other directory. However, this setup presents two obvious problems for many players: First, since the directory is not always available (if I'm not at home), some players cannot properly handle the issue of the main directory not existing. Second, I need to easily synchronise playlists across different computers, but many players do not support saving playlists as files, specifying their save location onto NAS, and configuring themselves to read playlists from NAS. These issues have been causing me a great deal of frustration. Currently I use VOX, which is a fairly acceptable option. I hope I can find a better solution.
I find Synology's DS Audio pretty decent because it has mobile apps and local playback through a web interface, although very little confidence in them as a company.
> I have a large collection of music files that I’ve gathered over the years, and I missed having a good offline music player on macOS. I used Swinsian (great app, by the way!), but it hasn't been updated in years. I also missed features commonly found in streaming apps; so I built Petrichor to scratch that itch and learn Swift and macOS app development along the way!
Oh, is there a way to switch to the beta channel? I love and use Swinsian, I know they're actively working on the next major version, but can't get interim ones.
A friend of mine (sound engineer) has been using VLC player for audio playback since forever. I do the same.
The advantage is that you are forced to organize your music in your file system and that translates incredibly well to all other future systems. Want a special playlist? Just copy the files over and name them with a numeric prefix counting up. You can open that playlist ten years later on a different operating system.
Since I tend to listen to full albums, this has been a good way of doing things.
There’s a reason library based players were invented and that’s that you don’t need to batch rename files, or tag a file 3 times if it’s part of 3 different playlists.
Thanks for the recommendation! This one's the best "old school iTunes" program I've tried so far. I might stick with this one for now. I especially like how I can make smartlists with nested rules.
I always appreciate more iTunes / Music.app competitors but personally I don't like the look of Minimoon. It looks more like a Windows app and not really like a native macOS app, especially with the sidebar.
I've been searching for the perfect "old school iTunes" program for a while. I'm pretty sure it does not exist, maybe I'll try to make one someday unless someone beats me to it? Here's what I want:
* Smartlists, preferably with nested rules
* Proper search, the way iTunes did it: you have a huge excel-like list of songs that filters as you type
* Volume leveling
* Corresponding Windows/Mac/iPhone programs, with the ability to sync my collection like Dropbox
This sounds like a breath of fresh air as a disenchanted Spotify user. My only hesitation is that I’ve lost touch with collecting music. I used to rip CDs and download music and curate a library etc, but I’ve lost my collection and collecting habits since adopting streaming. How do people collect music nowadays? Is there a legit way (fairly compensating artists) to do it?
Congrats for Petrichor, really impressive work! I love the clean, modern UI. I’m currently using Swinsian (still solid in many ways), but Petrichor feels like a breath of fresh air, especially for those of us who still care about local libraries.
I truly hope you’ll bring this to iOS.
Thanks
I don't own a Mac, so I wont use it directly, but I use Macs from time to time, and it looks great! +1 (or +10) for being native code made with Swift and not the x-th HTML/JS-based program that eats your RAM :-)
I’ve been searching for something like this, I love the name!
I currently use iTunes, and I might be an idiot, but I don’t seem to be able to export/import my library between installs, so I lose my plays and settings, but I never lose music files!
I have a massive music library and mostly just listen on shuffle, but it would be cool to be able to sync to my iPhone.
Any thoughts on syncing against an external music library that uses the Subsonic API (like Navidrome or similar) so an offline/"away from home" laptop could still listen to music?
I've been looking for an alternative since Apple decided to turn iTunes into the mess that is Apple Music. But I still need to import the two decades of playing statistics (skips, last played, etc) along with ratings, date added, etc. Petrichor looks really good, congratulations, I'll try it out.
Be careful when you implement automatic updates. Done naievely it will grant you RCE on every one of your users’ computers. Learn from Solarwinds. You need user interaction, it can’t be touchless or it’s RCE.
I'm not in front of my laptop but I'm gonna download it later, as I've got a 128GB SD card filled with my middle aged white guy hipster music library that I also keep on an actual 5G iPod Classic (which I added SD storage to and keep meaning to also add a Bluetooth module to as well).
A thought, because of all the folks asking for volume limiting: if you're not into DSP, it might be easier to simply add a point in your audio output flow for AudioUnits and let people use one of the existing limiters for it - Apple just straight up includes one on every Mac in the AudioUnits library - or write one specifically and include it.
This would also allow not just limiting but EQ, compression or even simulated tube warmth if people wanted that. (Or, y'know, running everything through autotune and a bit crusher if they're psychopaths. :-D)
I've never coded in Swift but I imagine adding a point to route through AudioUnits is probably not hugely difficult and iirc Apple has example code for doing it, at least they used to.
Looks great! Impressive that it looks so slick and feature complete. It’s been a while since I used iTunes, so don’t fully understand where iTunes today is failing. Can you elaborate?
Beautiful app, well done. Pleaaaaaaaase make this available on iOS. Bonus points if the desktop version could do syncing with my iPhone. I could finally treat my iPhone like an iPod!
Will it support playing lossless files in FLAC or ALAC format? Will it be able to change the audio sampling rate per song to match the song's sampling rate?
For me, the ideal music player UI started and ended with Winamp, and I never liked any of the higher level ones, no need for music libraries etc. Recursive directory scan, delete what is not needed, flat playlist, can save any, the end. Also, the minimalistic window of Winamp is just perfect.
The most issues I encounter with music players are related to my situation of NAS. My NAS is straightforward: I just connect a RAID to a Mac and share it, then let other Macs connect to this "server". This allows me to access it in Finder like any other directory. However, this setup presents two obvious problems for many players: First, since the directory is not always available (if I'm not at home), some players cannot properly handle the issue of the main directory not existing. Second, I need to easily synchronise playlists across different computers, but many players do not support saving playlists as files, specifying their save location onto NAS, and configuring themselves to read playlists from NAS. These issues have been causing me a great deal of frustration. Currently I use VOX, which is a fairly acceptable option. I hope I can find a better solution.
My setup uses Jellyfin, Finer and Tailscale. I can access all my music even out of home and playlists/metadata are synced across all devices.
I find Synology's DS Audio pretty decent because it has mobile apps and local playback through a web interface, although very little confidence in them as a company.
If you are looking for a “old school iTunes” kind of player there’s also https://swinsian.com/
The Readme mentions that app under "Motivation"
> Motivation
> I have a large collection of music files that I’ve gathered over the years, and I missed having a good offline music player on macOS. I used Swinsian (great app, by the way!), but it hasn't been updated in years. I also missed features commonly found in streaming apps; so I built Petrichor to scratch that itch and learn Swift and macOS app development along the way!
For the people interested, Swinsian has a beta version that is actively developed. I got an update a couple of weeks ago. So it is not abandoned.
Oh, is there a way to switch to the beta channel? I love and use Swinsian, I know they're actively working on the next major version, but can't get interim ones.
Gemini says: pressing Option on the Swinsian menu changes the "Check For Updates..." menu option to "Check For Updates (Beta)..."
I don't have specific complaints about the current version, but I'm going to give it a try. If nothing else, it's probably ARM native.
Petrichor shows my albums as a single track. CUE sheet support is a must.
I also have a hard time seeing myself using a desktop music player without an iTunes-style column-mode browser.
A friend of mine (sound engineer) has been using VLC player for audio playback since forever. I do the same.
The advantage is that you are forced to organize your music in your file system and that translates incredibly well to all other future systems. Want a special playlist? Just copy the files over and name them with a numeric prefix counting up. You can open that playlist ten years later on a different operating system.
Since I tend to listen to full albums, this has been a good way of doing things.
There’s a reason library based players were invented and that’s that you don’t need to batch rename files, or tag a file 3 times if it’s part of 3 different playlists.
I didn't claim there was no reason.
Thanks for the recommendation! This one's the best "old school iTunes" program I've tried so far. I might stick with this one for now. I especially like how I can make smartlists with nested rules.
The main thing I'm missing is volume leveling.
quodlibet comes highly recommended for Windows/Linux users that want a more retro media player: https://github.com/quodlibet/quodlibet
You could give my app a shot too:
https://www.plastaq.com/minimoon
I always appreciate more iTunes / Music.app competitors but personally I don't like the look of Minimoon. It looks more like a Windows app and not really like a native macOS app, especially with the sidebar.
Swinsian is 100% worth the $24.95. It's really nice to have a good system for offline music purchases.
I just want to point out that the .app is only 14MB. This is the way. Nice work, OP
I've been searching for the perfect "old school iTunes" program for a while. I'm pretty sure it does not exist, maybe I'll try to make one someday unless someone beats me to it? Here's what I want:
* Smartlists, preferably with nested rules
* Proper search, the way iTunes did it: you have a huge excel-like list of songs that filters as you type
* Volume leveling
* Corresponding Windows/Mac/iPhone programs, with the ability to sync my collection like Dropbox
I would gladly pay $100 for this.
This sounds like a breath of fresh air as a disenchanted Spotify user. My only hesitation is that I’ve lost touch with collecting music. I used to rip CDs and download music and curate a library etc, but I’ve lost my collection and collecting habits since adopting streaming. How do people collect music nowadays? Is there a legit way (fairly compensating artists) to do it?
Congrats for Petrichor, really impressive work! I love the clean, modern UI. I’m currently using Swinsian (still solid in many ways), but Petrichor feels like a breath of fresh air, especially for those of us who still care about local libraries. I truly hope you’ll bring this to iOS. Thanks
Two suggestions, if you have the time to look at the effort and difficulty to implement them:
> P.S. I plan publish it on Homebrew soon.
1. Please consider publishing on MacPorts too.
2. Please consider supporting m4b audiobooks (it’s a different file extension from the common m4a, but also supports chapters).
I don't own a Mac, so I wont use it directly, but I use Macs from time to time, and it looks great! +1 (or +10) for being native code made with Swift and not the x-th HTML/JS-based program that eats your RAM :-)
If you’re looking for a “iTunes before it went to shit” vibe I can also recommend Doppler: https://brushedtype.co/doppler/
I can suggest Cog (https://cog.losno.co/) as simple but powerfull music player that plays flac
I’ve been searching for something like this, I love the name!
I currently use iTunes, and I might be an idiot, but I don’t seem to be able to export/import my library between installs, so I lose my plays and settings, but I never lose music files!
I have a massive music library and mostly just listen on shuffle, but it would be cool to be able to sync to my iPhone.
I’ll try all the recommendations in this thread!
Without even looking at anything else, I love the name.
Does it have FLAC support (or other high res audio formats)?
Any thoughts on syncing against an external music library that uses the Subsonic API (like Navidrome or similar) so an offline/"away from home" laptop could still listen to music?
Looks fantastic, I used to love using iTunes for my music library until they screwed up queuing albums. Will there be mobile apps too?
I've been looking for an alternative since Apple decided to turn iTunes into the mess that is Apple Music. But I still need to import the two decades of playing statistics (skips, last played, etc) along with ratings, date added, etc. Petrichor looks really good, congratulations, I'll try it out.
Be careful when you implement automatic updates. Done naievely it will grant you RCE on every one of your users’ computers. Learn from Solarwinds. You need user interaction, it can’t be touchless or it’s RCE.
I'm not in front of my laptop but I'm gonna download it later, as I've got a 128GB SD card filled with my middle aged white guy hipster music library that I also keep on an actual 5G iPod Classic (which I added SD storage to and keep meaning to also add a Bluetooth module to as well).
A thought, because of all the folks asking for volume limiting: if you're not into DSP, it might be easier to simply add a point in your audio output flow for AudioUnits and let people use one of the existing limiters for it - Apple just straight up includes one on every Mac in the AudioUnits library - or write one specifically and include it.
This would also allow not just limiting but EQ, compression or even simulated tube warmth if people wanted that. (Or, y'know, running everything through autotune and a bit crusher if they're psychopaths. :-D)
I've never coded in Swift but I imagine adding a point to route through AudioUnits is probably not hugely difficult and iirc Apple has example code for doing it, at least they used to.
Keep up the awesome work, either way!
Looks great! Impressive that it looks so slick and feature complete. It’s been a while since I used iTunes, so don’t fully understand where iTunes today is failing. Can you elaborate?
Is the alpha currently limited to max 200 songs? Because I can't seem to get it to add more.
Also, I'd like to ask if it currently supports smart playlists?
Congratulations on your work!
Beautiful app, well done. Pleaaaaaaaase make this available on iOS. Bonus points if the desktop version could do syncing with my iPhone. I could finally treat my iPhone like an iPod!
Will it support playing lossless files in FLAC or ALAC format? Will it be able to change the audio sampling rate per song to match the song's sampling rate?
I don't have my own music collection, but because of this I'd consider finding a way to have it to switch away from online providers.
> Everything you'd expect from an offline music player!
I'd expect winamp-level UI customization, cross-platform support, iTunes library smart playlist support...
> macOS 14 or later
That’s a pretty high bar for a Mac app assuming some hardcore offline music lovers might use older OS versions.
Get a malware warning when trying to open disk image, Sequoia refuses to open it :(
How's this compare to the native macos music app formerly known as itunes?
Congratulations on the release! This looks really cool!
foobar for Mac
https://www.foobar2000.org/mac
I've been looking for exactly this for the longest time. Using Foobar2000 right now but looking for something better and I think this might be it.
HOWEVER.
I can't run it. I get a message. '"Petrichor.app" can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software'
I've tried the release dmg and also the homebrew version.
Airplay is kind of a must
Looks clean. Good work
I use Roon.
[dead]
Imagine the title being "... a free, open-source, offline music player for <any other OS>"
For me, the ideal music player UI started and ended with Winamp, and I never liked any of the higher level ones, no need for music libraries etc. Recursive directory scan, delete what is not needed, flat playlist, can save any, the end. Also, the minimalistic window of Winamp is just perfect.