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Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS
I have a large collection of music files gathered over the years, so I was sorely missing a decent offline music player that can serve as a frontend for the collection. I tried several Mac apps over the years, but since streaming music is mainstream now, there aren't good offline music players that meet my needs. So I spent the last 3 months building Petrichor! The idea is to solve my problem and learn Swift UI development along the way, while giving back to the community with this open-source project! Here's a list of features it has, with more getting added in future;
- Everything you'd expect from an offline music player!
- Map your music folders and browse your library in an organised view.
- Create playlists and manage the play queue interactively.
- Browse music using folder view when needed.
- Pin anything (almost!) to the sidebar for quick access to your favourite music.
- Navigate easily: right-click a track to go to its album, artist, year, etc.
- Native macOS integration with menubar and dock playback controls, plus dark mode support.
- Search quickly through large libraries containing thousands of songs.
The app is still in alpha, so things may look unpolished, but I've been testing the alpha builds for the past few weeks and fixing issues as I find them for v1 release. I welcome any feedback (and contributions!) on GitHub repo. Please give it a try and let me know what you think!
- reader9274 1y agoWill 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?
- meta-level 1y agoImagine the title being "... a free, open-source, offline music player for <any other OS>"
- keane 1y agoCongratulations on the release! This looks really cool!
- beschizza 1y agoWithout even looking at anything else, I love the name.
- gpm 1y agoAnyone want to let me in on the joke/reference/pun/pronunciation/why it's a clever name?
- kushalpandya 1y agoThere you go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor > Petrichor is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil.
- johng 1y agoIt's actually my favorite scent in the world. I grew up in New Mexico.
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- pcardoso 1y agoAlso the name of a song by Ludovico Einaudi, quite popular. At least to me it was the first thing I thought when I saw this post.
- dvdplm 1y agoDoes it have FLAC support (or other high res audio formats)?
- leetrout 1y agoOP should put it up front in their README. But from the code, seems it does. static let supportedExtensions = ["mp3", "m4a", "wav", "aac", "aiff", "flac"]
- kushalpandya 1y agoThanks 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.
- dlivingston 1y agoBeautiful 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!
- kushalpandya 1y agoYes, iPhone is target once mac stable release is complete as the core logic can be shared between 2 platforms.
- newscracker 1y agoI 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. [1]: https://decoupled.app/ https://decoupled.app/
- carlosjobim 1y agoThere's already the excellent Doppler app for offline music on iOS.
- pwenzel 1y agoI use and recommend Evermusic for offline listening on iOS. It can fetch music from your cloud storage accounts too.
- toomim 1y agoHow's this compare to the native macos music app formerly known as itunes?
- darthcircuit 1y agoAnything 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.
- MangoToupe 1y ago> Anything is better than that dumpster fire. Nonsense, you could be using Spotify.
- darthcircuit 1y agoI’m going to try giving up on all of them and just growing my local collection monthly instead.
- mrheosuper 1y agothe 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.
- notpushkin 1y ago
- eviks 1y ago> Everything you'd expect from an offline music player! I'd expect winamp-level UI customization, cross-platform support, iTunes library smart playlist support...
- syspec 1y agoAh, I guess he was talking to the person behind you
- pinoy420 1y ago[dead]
- kergonath 1y agoI don’t expect customisation or cross-platform support. I’d love smart playlists, though. And an old-school visualiser. Anyway, I really like this app. I hope it will stick around, it is a joy to use.
- programmarchy 1y agoThis 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?
- dewey 1y agoIf you are looking for a “old school iTunes” kind of player there’s also https://swinsian.com/ https://swinsian.com/
- gpm 1y agoThe 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!
- thek3nger 1y agoFor 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.
- digital_voodoo 1y agoOh, 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.
- SloopJon 1y agoGemini 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.
- SloopJon 1y agoPetrichor 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.
- zdw 1y agoAny 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?
- 8mobile 1y agoCongrats 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
- newscracker 1y agoTwo 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).
- kushalpandya 1y agoYes, the app got enough traction already to warrant for Homebrew and MacPorts distribution, so I'll try to incorporate both! 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.
- integricho 1y agoFor 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.
- bcraven 1y agoThe 'Win' in Winamp was referring to Windows. This is a Mac application.
- eviks 1y agoThere is a mac clone https://re-amp.ru/ https://re-amp.ru/
- notpushkin 1y agoNeat, but source code would be nice.
- integricho 1y agoThe platform is irrelevant, that UI design would apply to most platforms (MacOS for sure).
- kushalpandya 1y agoWinamp is OG, so why not both!
- kergonath 1y agoWinamp 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.
- yborg 1y agoGet a malware warning when trying to open disk image, Sequoia refuses to open it :(
- kushalpandya 1y agoRight-click and select open as the app is currently signed using ad-hoc signing as Apple notarization costs money. :(
- HnUser12 1y agoIf it's just a signing thing that Apple checks, you open run it by doing `xattr -d com.apple.quarantine filename` first.
- rock_artist 1y ago> 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.
- fainpul 1y agoI 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.
- kushalpandya 1y agoI 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.
- haunter 1y agofoobar for Mac https://www.foobar2000.org/mac https://www.foobar2000.org/mac
- brnt 1y agoomg how have I missed this. thanks!
- notpushkin 1y agoI think it’s a fairly recent port.
- tetrisgm 1y agoLooks clean. Good work
- uldos 1y agoI can suggest Cog (https://cog.losno.co/ https://cog.losno.co/) as simple but powerfull music player that plays flac
- Cenk 1y agoIf you’re looking for a “iTunes before it went to shit” vibe I can also recommend Doppler: https://brushedtype.co/doppler/ https://brushedtype.co/doppler/
- Meekro 1y agoThanks 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.
- cageface 1y agoYou could also try my app: https://www.plastaq.com/minimoon https://www.plastaq.com/minimoon
- dwiehoff 1y agoAirplay is kind of a must
- carlosjobim 1y agoOr you're gonna kick his ass?
- lowbloodsugar 1y agoI use Roon.
- v5v3 1y agoRoon is well regarded but it's paid for and not open source.
- Meekro 1y agoI'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.
- kushalpandya 1y agoSmart 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/ https://maestral.app/ for syncing Dropbox.
- sweesama 1y ago[dead]
- jzellis 1y agoI'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!
- kawsper 1y agoI’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!
- sneak 1y agoBe 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.
- blef 1y agoI 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.
- carlosjobim 1y agoIs 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!
- kushalpandya 1y agoNo 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
- tianqi 1y agoThe 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.
- benoau 1y agoI 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.
- senorrib 1y agoMy setup uses Jellyfin, Finer and Tailscale. I can access all my music even out of home and playlists/metadata are synced across all devices.
- ale42 1y agoI 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 :-)
- tambourine_man 1y agoI'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.
- carlosjobim 1y agoI'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.
- tambourine_man 1y agoOn the contrary, I find them priceless.
- afewscribbles 1y agoDitto. 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.
- tambourine_man 1y agoExactly. 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.
- carlosjobim 1y agoI mean, it's very nice and that's also what's keeping me on iTunes. But the value of it is 6-7 dollars at most.
- tbeseda 1y agoI just want to point out that the .app is only 14MB. This is the way. Nice work, OP
- mkirsten 1y agoLooks 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?
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoit'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.
- benoau 1y agoLooks fantastic, I used to love using iTunes for my music library until they screwed up queuing albums. Will there be mobile apps too?
- kushalpandya 1y agoNo 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.
- benoau 1y agoBTW the feature I most-loved from iTunes was when they added the colour analysis to albums, it made each album feel more unique. http://ssrubin.com/img/musiclibrary/iTunes.png http://ssrubin.com/img/musiclibrary/iTunes.png https://www.tech-recipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/itunes-album-view.jpg https://www.tech-recipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/itun... https://cpng.pikpng.com/pngl/s/556-5568070_flower-boy-itunes-download-itunes-album-color-clipart.png https://cpng.pikpng.com/pngl/s/556-5568070_flower-boy-itunes...
- seec 1y agoYes so much. I miss those years, it had personality, it was so cool and at the same time so functional. Alas Apple is now chasing money at all costs they couldn't make good software if their life depended on it.
- arkensaw 1y agoI'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.
- mickelsen 1y agoNice work! Will try. Also just dropping a Winamp-like app I use on the Mac, it has quick access to AU Audio Units, which I like: https://github.com/kartik-venugopal/aural-player https://github.com/kartik-venugopal/aural-player UPDATE: Oh, the developer discontinued it.