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Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS

(github.com)
198 points kushalpandya | 4 comments | 09 Jul 25 22:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source

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!

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toomim ◴[10 Jul 25 02:33 UTC] No.44516665[source]▶
How's this compare to the native macos music app formerly known as itunes?
replies(1): >>44516840 #
darthcircuit ◴[10 Jul 25 03:16 UTC] No.44516840[source]▶
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.

replies(4): >>44516937 #>>44517899 #>>44518036 #>>44522715 #
1. MangoToupe ◴[10 Jul 25 03:35 UTC] No.44516937[source]▶
> Anything is better than that dumpster fire.

Nonsense, you could be using Spotify.

replies(1): >>44517246 #
2. darthcircuit ◴[10 Jul 25 04:38 UTC] No.44517246[source]▶
I’m going to try giving up on all of them and just growing my local collection monthly instead.
replies(1): >>44517904 #
3. mrheosuper ◴[10 Jul 25 06:24 UTC] No.44517904[source]▶
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.
replies(1): >>44521646 #
4. notpushkin ◴[10 Jul 25 14:41 UTC] No.44521646{3}[source]▶
I think Last.fm provides recommendations? And maybe ListenBrainz does, too.