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.
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.
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.
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'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
Smart playlists will be coming soon as I've done all the infra work to support it, in fact current default playlists that app has (Favourites, Top 25 Most Played, Top 25 Recently Played) use smart playlists behind the scenes, just that I don't have a UI to edit the rules yet.
Search should already be very fast (and filter through matches across any metadata field) as the app uses FTS5 on SQLite db to search tracks. But let me know if you still notice performance issues or bugs around it.
There might be iOS app in future but no plans for Windows app as that's a separate project of its own.
For cloud storage syncing, I did consider it at one point but then scope of this app would be very large, and there are plenty good apps to sync cloud storage data, like I personally use https://maestral.app/ for syncing Dropbox.
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 :-)
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
Thanks for the recommendation! I gave it a try, but unfortunately this one doesn't have the stuff that I liked from old-school iTunes. At first glance: no smart lists; search doesn't work the way I want (I want a giant excel-like list that filters as I type); no volume leveling.
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.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll add it to Readme, although app lists supported formats (as supported by AVFoundation) on app UI where user can add folders.
No plans for iOS app in near future but once this one reaches a feature stability, I'll think about it, as the decision to use Swift & Swift UI was for sharing logic with iOS app in future.
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.
I'm in the same situation, but if we take a rational look at it those statistics don't really have any value. If you can make different playlists in your new player according to your old ratings, then that should be enough.
I would also add that what has stopped me from ever using an iTunes or Music alternative is the inability to directly transfer the "Date Added" data, along with the statistics you mentioned. I cannot express the value to me in being able to chronologically look at how (and in what direction) my music collection has grown.
Exactly. And the ability to create smart playlist that explore them, for example, songs I haven't heard in more than 2 years that I've never skipped. Things like that.
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?
it's possible to get a mostly-classic experience if you use Songs view and enable the column browser, but it just seems like so many small features are buggy, don't work the same or have been removed that the overall experience just doesn't stack up. iOS syncing is as terrible and slow as ever.
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.
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?
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!
I haven’t done a detailed comparison, but there’s been a free app called Decoupled [1] on iOS that supports various formats and loading music into it. The app hasn’t been updated in about four years though.
I agree. Although Swift / SwiftUI is not much fun if you can't use the latest features / APIs. The author mentions "learn Swift and macOS app development" as one of the motivations to make this, so I can understand that decision.
I started with only macOS 15 for starters, but I agree it might be possible to support even older versions so I'll check if this can be improved in future alpha or beta builds.
Anything is better than that dumpster fire. They changed the name but the ui is still straight out of the early 2000s. It’s an exercise in frustration to find the music you’re looking for, and if you subscribe to Apple Music, the radio suggestions rarely match what mood you set.
I was listening to some early 2000s alternative rock today and then randomly in the middle of my radio station it started playing a kids freeze dance song.
The best thing it has going for it is the lossless albums and native airplay casting. I got a free trial, but I’m not going to renew. I’d consider staying if they added native last.fm scrobbling, but even then I’m not sure.
I’m really bummed about the scrobbling because I lost several weeks of not a month of plays because my phone offloaded the scrobbler app and I didn’t notice. The official app for it on Mac says to use one or the other (macOS or iOS) because it will count twice.
Feels like none of what you wrote is about how the native app compares to the app being discussed, Petrichor, which is an offline music organizer/player.
I have been using itunes/music to do that and it honestly works just fine. I have hundreds of playlists from over 10 years ago that still works. Finding specific playlist or music to play is pretty easy, especially with Alfred.
The longevity is the biggest concern to me when considering the third party apps. If it stops being maintained in the future I would be stuck and need to do the chore of moving them properly to another application. With the native app I am sure it will work for the next 20 years.
My big gripe with Music is that big butt-ugly modal ad they prompt you with if you're one of the billions of humans that don't pay for Apple Music: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253368403
It's something I'd have expected out of Microsoft, but from Apple it's a particularly shitty gesture. A big warning sign to the user that "your" device hasn't been fully paid-off yet.
> The longevity is the biggest concern to me when considering the third party apps.
And that's why I had to stop using MacOS entirely. It's absurd for a culture of paid software to have such horrible runtime compatibility. Meanwhile on Windows, you don't ever buy software that stops working. Even Linux has largely circumvented it's own ABI woes with sandboxed packaging. MacOS's statically linked app framework has every advantage in pushing out support timelines as far as Apple wants - they just don't want to push it very far, sadly.
the best-selling point in Spotify for me is discovering/suggesting new music. Sadly, it's not possible to do that when hosting local music, at least for now.
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?
No there's no limit on number of songs but there's a bug where if any track's metadata violates db constraints, scanning doesn't go past it. I've fixed it already and will include the fix in next alpha. I also need to get that auto-updates sorted now that folks are actually using it! :D
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.
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.
Winamp was annoying to use and the vast majority of the themes were butt ugly. iTunes’ single window streamlined UI was much better. It was perfectly happy with whatever recursive folder structure you wanted and its mini player window was just fine and was not an eye sore.
The big advantage of Winamp was that it ran on Windows, and on ancient PCs at the time.
> 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!
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.
I also have a hard time seeing myself using a desktop music player without an iTunes-style column-mode browser.
https://www.plastaq.com/minimoon
The main thing I'm missing is volume leveling.
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.
* 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.
Search should already be very fast (and filter through matches across any metadata field) as the app uses FTS5 on SQLite db to search tracks. But let me know if you still notice performance issues or bugs around it.
There might be iOS app in future but no plans for Windows app as that's a separate project of its own.
For cloud storage syncing, I did consider it at one point but then scope of this app would be very large, and there are plenty good apps to sync cloud storage data, like I personally use https://maestral.app/ for syncing Dropbox.
> 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).
Audiobooks support looks like a neat idea, I'll see if I can accommodate it in future, for now, I'm keeping it limited to music files only.
https://www.plastaq.com/minimoon
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!
> Petrichor is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil.
But from the code, seems it does.
http://ssrubin.com/img/musiclibrary/iTunes.png
https://www.tech-recipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/itun...
https://cpng.pikpng.com/pngl/s/556-5568070_flower-boy-itunes...
I would also add that what has stopped me from ever using an iTunes or Music alternative is the inability to directly transfer the "Date Added" data, along with the statistics you mentioned. I cannot express the value to me in being able to chronologically look at how (and in what direction) my music collection has grown.
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!
[1]: https://decoupled.app/
I'd expect winamp-level UI customization, cross-platform support, iTunes library smart playlist support...
Anyway, I really like this app. I hope it will stick around, it is a joy to use.
That’s a pretty high bar for a Mac app assuming some hardcore offline music lovers might use older OS versions.
I was listening to some early 2000s alternative rock today and then randomly in the middle of my radio station it started playing a kids freeze dance song.
The best thing it has going for it is the lossless albums and native airplay casting. I got a free trial, but I’m not going to renew. I’d consider staying if they added native last.fm scrobbling, but even then I’m not sure.
I’m really bummed about the scrobbling because I lost several weeks of not a month of plays because my phone offloaded the scrobbler app and I didn’t notice. The official app for it on Mac says to use one or the other (macOS or iOS) because it will count twice.
I have been using itunes/music to do that and it honestly works just fine. I have hundreds of playlists from over 10 years ago that still works. Finding specific playlist or music to play is pretty easy, especially with Alfred.
The longevity is the biggest concern to me when considering the third party apps. If it stops being maintained in the future I would be stuck and need to do the chore of moving them properly to another application. With the native app I am sure it will work for the next 20 years.
It's something I'd have expected out of Microsoft, but from Apple it's a particularly shitty gesture. A big warning sign to the user that "your" device hasn't been fully paid-off yet.
> The longevity is the biggest concern to me when considering the third party apps.
And that's why I had to stop using MacOS entirely. It's absurd for a culture of paid software to have such horrible runtime compatibility. Meanwhile on Windows, you don't ever buy software that stops working. Even Linux has largely circumvented it's own ABI woes with sandboxed packaging. MacOS's statically linked app framework has every advantage in pushing out support timelines as far as Apple wants - they just don't want to push it very far, sadly.
You’re unfair. iTunes’ UI was much better in 2003 than Music.app’s in 2025.
There was a lot of great UI back then! None of it in iTunes, but still.
Nonsense, you could be using Spotify.
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.
https://www.foobar2000.org/mac
Also, I'd like to ask if it currently supports smart playlists?
Congratulations on your work!
The big advantage of Winamp was that it ran on Windows, and on ancient PCs at the time.