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

(github.com)
198 points kushalpandya | 14 comments | 09 Jul 25 22:17 UTC | HN request time: 1.296s | source | bottom

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!

1. dewey ◴[10 Jul 25 03:51 UTC] No.44517016[source]▶
If you are looking for a “old school iTunes” kind of player there’s also https://swinsian.com/
replies(6): >>44517217 #>>44518208 #>>44518906 #>>44521033 #>>44521850 #>>44527351 #
2. gpm ◴[10 Jul 25 04:35 UTC] No.44517217[source]▶
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!

replies(2): >>44517376 #>>44522559 #
3. thek3nger ◴[10 Jul 25 05:00 UTC] No.44517376[source]▶
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.
replies(1): >>44521447 #
4. bigyabai ◴[10 Jul 25 07:13 UTC] No.44518208[source]▶
quodlibet comes highly recommended for Windows/Linux users that want a more retro media player: https://github.com/quodlibet/quodlibet
5. Meekro ◴[10 Jul 25 09:03 UTC] No.44518906[source]▶
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.

6. atoav ◴[10 Jul 25 13:46 UTC] No.44521033[source]▶
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.

replies(1): >>44521291 #
7. dewey ◴[10 Jul 25 14:08 UTC] No.44521291[source]▶
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.
replies(1): >>44529840 #
8. digital_voodoo ◴[10 Jul 25 14:22 UTC] No.44521447{3}[source]▶
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.
replies(1): >>44522607 #
9. pwenzel ◴[10 Jul 25 14:59 UTC] No.44521850[source]▶
Swinsian is 100% worth the $24.95. It's really nice to have a good system for offline music purchases.
10. SloopJon ◴[10 Jul 25 16:08 UTC] No.44522559[source]▶
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.

11. SloopJon ◴[10 Jul 25 16:13 UTC] No.44522607{4}[source]▶
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.

12. cageface ◴[11 Jul 25 00:48 UTC] No.44527351[source]▶
You could give my app a shot too:

https://www.plastaq.com/minimoon

replies(1): >>44528589 #
13. dewey ◴[11 Jul 25 05:10 UTC] No.44528589[source]▶
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.
14. atoav ◴[11 Jul 25 08:54 UTC] No.44529840{3}[source]▶
I didn't claim there was no reason.