Thanks for your valuable insight @chikorita157! I'm also like you and only play my own local music files / not streaming. I'm deciding between Swinsian and Quod Libet (latest update is a bit more recent than Swinsian). I couldn't find out if Quod Libet supports M1 chips yet though, but if it does that should be a good alternative to Apple Music; plus it is open source and supposedly quite lightweight.
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Alternative to iTunes/Music for Offline Music
- Thread starter Apples555
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Regarding iTunes (Music.app) splitting titles in album view, there's a solution if it's the same issue I'm experiencing. I check all my newly-imported music in the Recently Added smart playlist. If I see two of the same album cover, I command click to select both. Right click Get Info and go to the Sorting panel. Copy the Artist entry into the Sort As field just below. When you click ok, the two covers should now only show as one. As of this date I'm using Monterey 12.5.1 with Music 1.2.5.7 on a Mac Mini M1.
Hi, did you wind up trying Swinsian?
I have found that the Music app in Ventura is a little better than the spaghetti that Apple had been throwing on the wall for the past 10 years. For our wedding last month I used the Music app, four HomePod Minis, and an old Apple AirPort to stream into a surround system w/sound bar and wireless subwoofer+2 rear speakers. Using the Music app on my MBA was the only way to go...things were too squirrelly and not robust when trying to work with my iPad Pro (IMHO the iPad will *never* be a laptop replacement, even for reasons as simple as ease of viewing what you want to control and then manipulating the software...), but there are still a few unnecessarily cumbersome things about the Music app due to Apple's "forced minimalism interface controls" that bug me, so I'm still considering a different software. Assuming only the Music app will be easiest for manipulating remote speakers via AirPlay, I'd want to retain both software apps, so any non-Apple music app would have to use the existing library structure.
Anyway, I was curious if you tried Swinsian and how things went?
Hi @Tozovac. I did try both QL and Swinsian! Swinsian was a clear winner and I happily bought a licence for it. It very rarely crashes (maybe once every few months), but it might be because I'm on relatively old hardware (MBA 2012, Catalina). It has inbuilt last.fm which I use regularly. I only use it to play music on my MBA > dac/amp > headphones and don't use any AirPlay so I can't comment on that. The transfer over of my library from the old iTunes folder structure to Swinian was an absolute breeze. All my ratings and even play count and import dates were all there after importing. QL wasn't able to read any of that from the iTunes data. I highly recommend Swinsian, you should definitely give it a shot! Hope that helped.
I recently tried transferring my iTunes library from a 13-year old MacPro laptop to my current 2020 Intel Macbook Air and it made the same mess described in this and the other MacRumors thread on this issue. It took me about 4 hours, but I was able to reconnect the scrambled songs and split up albums by going into 'Get Info' and doing some re-naming.
But I really miss the simple, column view of the old iTunes. Anyway to restore that in Apple Music? If not, can anyone suggest a free, no frills music player that is really simple to navigate? Although I'd prefer to drag and drop my library, I'd be happy to re-upload my CD collection if it will grant me access to a music player as functional as the old iTunes.
Cheers!
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Do you mean “songs” view? You can select that under “view.” text gonna leave a That’s the only view that makes sense to me. Anything else is just an excuse to give a programmer something to do.
Dopamine is also a good player.
https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine / releases are here(look at the Assets title) https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine/releases
Foobar2000 has a Mac version with easily accessible beta versions on the same page
JRiver Media Center - try out some of the themes for fun
https://jriver.com/download.html - scroll down the page a little
On the Mac App Store there's Colibri
apps.apple.com
On the Mac App Store there's Pine Player
apps.apple.com
On the Mac App Store there's Ionica
apps.apple.com
There's Tiny Player for macOS and iOS here
www.catnapgames.com
Some are small audio players and some are Windows versions ported developed for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms like the case with Dopamine
https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine / releases are here(look at the Assets title) https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine/releases
Foobar2000 has a Mac version with easily accessible beta versions on the same page
JRiver Media Center - try out some of the themes for fun
https://jriver.com/download.html - scroll down the page a little
On the Mac App Store there's Colibri
Colibri App - App Store
Download Colibri by Gabor Hargitai on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips and more games like Colibri.
apps.apple.com
On the Mac App Store there's Pine Player
Pine Player App - App Store
Download Pine Player by Siseong Ahn on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips and more games like Pine Player.
apps.apple.com
On the Mac App Store there's Ionica
Ionica
Small and convenient music player for Mac • Plays local files and music from your SoundCloud account • Spectrum Analyzer (24 bands, 50Hz - 11kHz, customizable colors) • Waveform Progress Bar • Graphic equalizer (10 bands) • ID3 Editor and Quick Rating Control • Playlist Editor (supports...
apps.apple.com
There's Tiny Player for macOS and iOS here
Tiny Player for Mac | Catnap Games
www.catnapgames.com
Some are small audio players and some are Windows versions ported developed for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms like the case with Dopamine
Thank you very much for these suggestions!Dopamine is also a good player.
https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine / releases are here(look at the Assets title) https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine/releases
Foobar2000 has a Mac version with easily accessible beta versions on the same page
JRiver Media Center - try out some of the themes for fun
https://jriver.com/download.html - scroll down the page a little
On the Mac App Store there's Colibri
Colibri App - App Store
Download Colibri by Gabor Hargitai on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips and more games like Colibri.
On the Mac App Store there's Pine Player
Pine Player App - App Store
Download Pine Player by Siseong Ahn on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips and more games like Pine Player.
On the Mac App Store there's Ionica
Ionica
Small and convenient music player for Mac • Plays local files and music from your SoundCloud account • Spectrum Analyzer (24 bands, 50Hz - 11kHz, customizable colors) • Waveform Progress Bar • Graphic equalizer (10 bands) • ID3 Editor and Quick Rating Control • Playlist Editor (supports...
There's Tiny Player for macOS and iOS here
Tiny Player for Mac | Catnap Games
Some are small audio players and some are Windows versions ported developed for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms like the case with Dopamine
Thank you very much!Dopamine is also a good player.
https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine / releases are here(look at the Assets title) https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine/releases
Foobar2000 has a Mac version with easily accessible beta versions on the same page
JRiver Media Center - try out some of the themes for fun
https://jriver.com/download.html - scroll down the page a little
On the Mac App Store there's Colibri
Colibri App - App Store
Download Colibri by Gabor Hargitai on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips and more games like Colibri.
On the Mac App Store there's Pine Player
Pine Player App - App Store
Download Pine Player by Siseong Ahn on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips and more games like Pine Player.
On the Mac App Store there's Ionica
Ionica
Small and convenient music player for Mac • Plays local files and music from your SoundCloud account • Spectrum Analyzer (24 bands, 50Hz - 11kHz, customizable colors) • Waveform Progress Bar • Graphic equalizer (10 bands) • ID3 Editor and Quick Rating Control • Playlist Editor (supports...
There's Tiny Player for macOS and iOS here
Tiny Player for Mac | Catnap Games
Some are small audio players and some are Windows versions ported developed for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms like the case with Dopamine
There's also Doppler - I don't know if it has been previously shared
brushedtype.co
Doppler Music Player for Mac and iPhone
Doppler is a powerful music player that makes owning music simpler
brushedtype.co
In addition to the players I mentioned above there's also this one;
github.com
GitHub - kartik-venugopal/aural-player: (Archived) An audio file player for macOS, inspired by Winamp.
(Archived) An audio file player for macOS, inspired by Winamp. - kartik-venugopal/aural-player
github.com
How about Musique then? Just to add one more to the list(if not already added)
apps.apple.com
Musique
Musique is a free music player built for speed, simplicity and style. Musique keeps you focused on what really matters: music. Musique supports most audio formats including FLAC, OGG Vorbis, Monkey's Audio (APE), Musepack (MPC), WavPack (WV), True Audio (TTA) and others. Browse by artist...
apps.apple.com
I'll add some alternatives and maybe @Apples555 could add all the ones mentioned so far in the first post
DeaDBeeF https://deadbeef.sourceforge.io/
Audacious https://audacious-media-player.org/
foobar2000 https://www.foobar2000.org/mac
DeaDBeeF https://deadbeef.sourceforge.io/
Audacious https://audacious-media-player.org/
foobar2000 https://www.foobar2000.org/mac
For me, I'm searching for an iTunes alternative that navigates the same way iTunes does with their album view. I don't want just a list with titles and text only. I like the cover grid, and when I click on the cover, a drawer opens to reveal the album. If a section needs to be text only, I'd be okay with that for playlists, but that's about it.
Anyone got any alternatives that fit *that* bill? So far Dopamine and JRiver are the only closest ones, but something like this has to exist if Bogdan's iTunes script somehow stops working in the future!
Anyone got any alternatives that fit *that* bill? So far Dopamine and JRiver are the only closest ones, but something like this has to exist if Bogdan's iTunes script somehow stops working in the future!
Check out Cider. Hope this helps! Edit: Doh! I totally missed the offline part. So sorry. In that case, take a look at Cog and Pine Player Pro.
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Loving the alternatives being posted here! Anyone got one that I may have overlooked that fits this bill?
There is another thread with suggestions for a "Simple MP3 Music player" https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/simple-mp3-music-player.2390888/