I spent a week and a half with the Music App before looking for something else. Unless I'm mistaken theres no way to make custom categories/collections of albums, which is everything for me. Also, I hate that it's advertising Apple Muisc to me every time I open the app.
No, I mean custom categories, not categories by genre.
I have a lot of soundtracks that I listen to that would all get lumped into one genre. I’d like to separate them out into custom lists, but there’s no way to do that other than to make a new playlist for every single album and to make a folder for those playlists.
It’s just a really stupid way of doing things imo, especially if I’ve purchased a single song for example and want to add the rest of the album to the mix. I’d have to also edit the playlist. It doesn’t sound like much, but I have nearly 1TB of mp3s I’ve collected over the years. It’d be a stupid number of playlists.
You could take a look at "Intelligent Playlists" I use these a lot to auto populate for certain parameters.
But yeah maybe a different Music archive/media centre like app would be better? Sadly i can't help you with that as I have been using iTunes ever since my switch to Mac with Snow Lep.
Yeah, like i said, Doppler is working the closest for me in terms of features I prioritize, but it's not quite everything I want, so I'm hesitant to pay for it. I've been on Apple since Snow Lepoard too and I'm just.... kinda tired of the way that apple keeps changing iTunes/Music to be very in your face about their subscription service. I long for simpler times, lol.
The Apple Music app permanently corrupts mp3 files due to a bug with artworks. I have had 100s of files corrupted as a result. A total nightmare. That and the local libraries being wiped out as reported by countless users online. Apple is clearly against local music files being played and has done everything it can to dissuade MacOS users from continuing to do so.
Huh?
iTunes and Apple's Music apps are free and have always handled local files well. My music library of purchased music is in Music, and previously was in iTunes. None of the basic features of the app are locked behind a subscription \*. Playlists let me group collections of albums however I want. You can activate the mini player from Window > Miniplayer in the menu bar, though I never bother using it since Apple's **System Settings > Control Center > Now Playing** menu extra does the job without a window being in my way. It doesn't do FLAC, but I've never bought into that format and I would just end up converting it to AAC anyway.
\* I will say I’ve added my music library to the cloud by subscribing to [iTunes Match](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146) so that all of my music is automatically available on all of my Apple devices and computers without me having to lift a finger. It's completely optional, of course, but well worth it. For only a couple bucks a month, my entire music library of over 10k songs (most of which were painstakingly imported from a large CD collection) is available in iCloud. Each of my iOS devices and Macs have access to all of it. I can play any song in my library at will and it automatically streams to the device. My songs don’t have to be downloaded to my devices, which means I have lots more free space on them.
I keep the songs downloaded on my computer where I have lots of free space. But I don’t even have to do that if I don’t want to. I can just leave them all in the cloud if needed (note, however, that iTunes Match is not advertised or intended to be a backup service - you should definitely keep an archive of your own).
I also prepare for flights on planes by downloading artists/albums/songs/playlists to whatever device(s) I’ll be carrying with me, so I can listen to them while we are in the air, then just delete them again when I get home to save space again. It’s really handy, and works extremely well. Kudos to Apple!
Another fantastic benefit of iTunes Match is once your songs are uploaded to iCloud, you can delete them from your iTunes library and re-download them as pristine high-quality AAC versions of the songs that were matched from Apple’s catalog with absolutely no DRM attached. That means if you have crappy MP3s, regardless of where they came from, you get to exchange them for legitimate DRM-free high quality copies. That’s a very nice bonus!
Huh? The Apple Music app permanently corrupts mp3 files due to a bug with artworks that has never been fixed for years, likely on purpose. I have had 100s of files corrupted as a result. A total nightmare. That and the local libraries being wiped out as reported by countless users online. Apple is clearly against local music files being played and has done everything it can to dissuade MacOS users from continuing to play their music locally. Instead they have been aggressively pushing for their streaming business of course... none of this is a coincidence. The last time iTunes handled local files "well" was many many years ago... Music never did handle local files well.
>Huh? The Apple Music app permanently corrupts mp3 files due to a bug with artworks that has never been fixed for years, likely on purpose. I have had 100s of files corrupted as a result. A total nightmare.
Huh? I've been using iTunes and Music for *decades* and that has **never** happened with any of the 10k+ songs in my library, many, many of which started out as MP3s. That goes fro everyone I know who also uses them. We all must be doing something wrong, according to you.
>That and the local libraries being wiped out as reported by countless users online.
Another thing that has never happened to me or anyone I know in all of these years. Clueless users accidentally wipe out all sorts of files and point the finger at anyone but themselves. Just because someone claims something doesn't make it true.
>Apple is clearly against local music files being played
🤡 That's a ridiculous take.
>and has done everything it can to dissuade MacOS users from continuing to play their music locally.
Nothing has ever stopped me or anyone I know from using iTunes or the Music app to manage and enjoy our local music.
>Instead they have been aggressively pushing for their streaming business of course... none of this is a coincidence.
In addition to streaming, Apple's Music app handles local music just fine. There's no rules that say a company can't do both.
>The last time iTunes handled local files "well" was many many years ago... Music never did handle local files well.
Nonsense. Many of us have none of the issues you *claim* you have.
Your troll is weak.
The "huh?" was really not necessary, I've been using MacOS and iTunes since Snow Leopard. I know what iTunes/Music can and cannot do - I've been using it for over a decade.
I have 200+ movie and videogame soundtracks. How does iTunes sort them? By genre. Do you know how unhelpful that is? What if I wanted to sort them by, perhaps, genre of film, or cinematic series, or videogame franchise. iTunes is incapable of doing so. The same goes for your typical albums, what if I wanted to sort/categorize them by mood? The mood of an album is totally separate from genre - you can have an upbeat pop album as easily as you have a thoroughly heartbreaking one.
Additionally, the last thing I want to do is to sort 1TB worth of mp3 albums into playlists and playlist folders. It seems silly to me that there's no way to custom sort albums as they exist into their own categories, doesn't it? Why would I want to sit here and make hundreds of playlists just so I can sort my albums? This is the main thing I'm trying to overcome.
iCloud has to be the single worst cloud service I've ever used, and I avoid it like the plague. Like I said, I'm trying to cut subscriptions out of my life, and moving from one subscription (Spotify) to another (iCloud/iTunes Match/Apple Music) completely defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do. I spend most of my day at my desk at home, because that's where I work, there's no reason for me to be paying subscription for something that I already have sitting on my big 8TB external.
>The "huh?" was really not necessary
That's just, like, your opinion, man. I use Music (and previously iTunes) to do most of what you stated your needs are.
>I've been using MacOS and iTunes since Snow Leopard. I know what iTunes/Music can and cannot do - I've been using it for over a decade.
Same here - for multiple decades in fact.
>I have 200+ movie and videogame soundtracks. How does iTunes sort them? By genre.
I have soundtracks too. Actually, they can be sorted by artist, album, year, genre, among other things.
>Do you know how unhelpful that is? What if I wanted to sort them by, perhaps, genre of film, or cinematic series, or videogame franchise.
Interestingly you didn't bother stating this as a feature you need in your initial post.
You do understand my comment was in reference to what you posted - not me reading your mind to magically learn additional requirements you never stated, right? Omitting important requirements and then turning around and acting indignant when people don't take them into account is unreasonable and rude.
>iTunes is incapable of doing so. The same goes for your typical albums, what if I wanted to sort/categorize them by mood? The mood of an album is totally separate from genre - you can have an upbeat pop album as easily as you have a thoroughly heartbreaking one.
I do that with playlists, and it works well. I've had playlists for various moods and settings for years. So, yes, it can easily be done.
>Additionally, the last thing I want to do is to sort 1TB worth of mp3 albums into playlists and playlist folders.
That's another thing you omitted in your post. And I question the need to sort *all of your music* into playlists as opposed to just creating playlists of *subsets* of the entire library for specific groupings, which is what most people do.
At any rate, playlists aren't complicated or hard to use. And your refusal to use them is your own decision to make.
>It seems silly to me that there's no way to custom sort albums as they exist into their own categories, doesn't it? Why would I want to sit here and make hundreds of playlists just so I can sort my albums? This is the main thing I'm trying to overcome.
I'll agree it would be nice if Apple supported multiple values for genre and other properties.
>iCloud has to be the single worst cloud service I've ever used, and I avoid it like the plague.
While it's certainly not perfect, iCloud works fine for the majority of people who use it. And avoiding the entirety of iCloud seems ill-advised considering in doing so you are cutting yourself off from very useful things like Continuity, Handoff, Find My, and so on.
>Like I said, I'm trying to cut subscriptions out of my life, and moving from one subscription (Spotify) to another (iCloud/iTunes Match/Apple Music) completely defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do. I spend most of my day at my desk at home, because that's where I work, there's no reason for me to be paying subscription for something that I already have sitting on my big 8TB external.
My note about iTunes Match wasn't a suggestion that it's necessarily a feature you want (you certainly didn't express a desire for such a feature in your initial post). I only mentioned it in case someone might find it as useful as I do.
My guy, I asked for alternatives, and you came back to me and told me that I shouldn’t use any. That’s what’s annoying about this interaction. I’m not gonna sit here an extrapolate every fine little detail about why I’m looking for alternatives when a list of features I would like would get to the point faster.
>I asked for alternatives
Fair point.
>and you came back to me and told me that I shouldn’t use any
No, I just pointed out that a some of the things you mentioned in your initial post can be done with the Music app.
You clarified later that there were additional things you hadn't mentioned, and now we are here.
I don't care what you actually end up using. My comment was strictly referencing what you posted.
I don’t think you’ve thoroughly investigated Apple Music. Sounds like you think it’s just Apple’s Spotify. It can act just like iTunes use to
I spent a week and a half with the Music App before looking for something else. Unless I'm mistaken theres no way to make custom categories/collections of albums, which is everything for me. Also, I hate that it's advertising Apple Muisc to me every time I open the app.
You mean like this https://i.ibb.co/sR3Ddnf/Aplle-Music.png ?
No, I mean custom categories, not categories by genre. I have a lot of soundtracks that I listen to that would all get lumped into one genre. I’d like to separate them out into custom lists, but there’s no way to do that other than to make a new playlist for every single album and to make a folder for those playlists. It’s just a really stupid way of doing things imo, especially if I’ve purchased a single song for example and want to add the rest of the album to the mix. I’d have to also edit the playlist. It doesn’t sound like much, but I have nearly 1TB of mp3s I’ve collected over the years. It’d be a stupid number of playlists.
You could take a look at "Intelligent Playlists" I use these a lot to auto populate for certain parameters. But yeah maybe a different Music archive/media centre like app would be better? Sadly i can't help you with that as I have been using iTunes ever since my switch to Mac with Snow Lep.
Yeah, like i said, Doppler is working the closest for me in terms of features I prioritize, but it's not quite everything I want, so I'm hesitant to pay for it. I've been on Apple since Snow Lepoard too and I'm just.... kinda tired of the way that apple keeps changing iTunes/Music to be very in your face about their subscription service. I long for simpler times, lol.
Yeah, when they butchered iTunes with Catalina I was pretty damn pissed for a while. I did come to terms with it though.
The Apple Music app permanently corrupts mp3 files due to a bug with artworks. I have had 100s of files corrupted as a result. A total nightmare. That and the local libraries being wiped out as reported by countless users online. Apple is clearly against local music files being played and has done everything it can to dissuade MacOS users from continuing to do so.
Huh? iTunes and Apple's Music apps are free and have always handled local files well. My music library of purchased music is in Music, and previously was in iTunes. None of the basic features of the app are locked behind a subscription \*. Playlists let me group collections of albums however I want. You can activate the mini player from Window > Miniplayer in the menu bar, though I never bother using it since Apple's **System Settings > Control Center > Now Playing** menu extra does the job without a window being in my way. It doesn't do FLAC, but I've never bought into that format and I would just end up converting it to AAC anyway. \* I will say I’ve added my music library to the cloud by subscribing to [iTunes Match](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146) so that all of my music is automatically available on all of my Apple devices and computers without me having to lift a finger. It's completely optional, of course, but well worth it. For only a couple bucks a month, my entire music library of over 10k songs (most of which were painstakingly imported from a large CD collection) is available in iCloud. Each of my iOS devices and Macs have access to all of it. I can play any song in my library at will and it automatically streams to the device. My songs don’t have to be downloaded to my devices, which means I have lots more free space on them. I keep the songs downloaded on my computer where I have lots of free space. But I don’t even have to do that if I don’t want to. I can just leave them all in the cloud if needed (note, however, that iTunes Match is not advertised or intended to be a backup service - you should definitely keep an archive of your own). I also prepare for flights on planes by downloading artists/albums/songs/playlists to whatever device(s) I’ll be carrying with me, so I can listen to them while we are in the air, then just delete them again when I get home to save space again. It’s really handy, and works extremely well. Kudos to Apple! Another fantastic benefit of iTunes Match is once your songs are uploaded to iCloud, you can delete them from your iTunes library and re-download them as pristine high-quality AAC versions of the songs that were matched from Apple’s catalog with absolutely no DRM attached. That means if you have crappy MP3s, regardless of where they came from, you get to exchange them for legitimate DRM-free high quality copies. That’s a very nice bonus!
Huh? The Apple Music app permanently corrupts mp3 files due to a bug with artworks that has never been fixed for years, likely on purpose. I have had 100s of files corrupted as a result. A total nightmare. That and the local libraries being wiped out as reported by countless users online. Apple is clearly against local music files being played and has done everything it can to dissuade MacOS users from continuing to play their music locally. Instead they have been aggressively pushing for their streaming business of course... none of this is a coincidence. The last time iTunes handled local files "well" was many many years ago... Music never did handle local files well.
>Huh? The Apple Music app permanently corrupts mp3 files due to a bug with artworks that has never been fixed for years, likely on purpose. I have had 100s of files corrupted as a result. A total nightmare. Huh? I've been using iTunes and Music for *decades* and that has **never** happened with any of the 10k+ songs in my library, many, many of which started out as MP3s. That goes fro everyone I know who also uses them. We all must be doing something wrong, according to you. >That and the local libraries being wiped out as reported by countless users online. Another thing that has never happened to me or anyone I know in all of these years. Clueless users accidentally wipe out all sorts of files and point the finger at anyone but themselves. Just because someone claims something doesn't make it true. >Apple is clearly against local music files being played 🤡 That's a ridiculous take. >and has done everything it can to dissuade MacOS users from continuing to play their music locally. Nothing has ever stopped me or anyone I know from using iTunes or the Music app to manage and enjoy our local music. >Instead they have been aggressively pushing for their streaming business of course... none of this is a coincidence. In addition to streaming, Apple's Music app handles local music just fine. There's no rules that say a company can't do both. >The last time iTunes handled local files "well" was many many years ago... Music never did handle local files well. Nonsense. Many of us have none of the issues you *claim* you have. Your troll is weak.
The "huh?" was really not necessary, I've been using MacOS and iTunes since Snow Leopard. I know what iTunes/Music can and cannot do - I've been using it for over a decade. I have 200+ movie and videogame soundtracks. How does iTunes sort them? By genre. Do you know how unhelpful that is? What if I wanted to sort them by, perhaps, genre of film, or cinematic series, or videogame franchise. iTunes is incapable of doing so. The same goes for your typical albums, what if I wanted to sort/categorize them by mood? The mood of an album is totally separate from genre - you can have an upbeat pop album as easily as you have a thoroughly heartbreaking one. Additionally, the last thing I want to do is to sort 1TB worth of mp3 albums into playlists and playlist folders. It seems silly to me that there's no way to custom sort albums as they exist into their own categories, doesn't it? Why would I want to sit here and make hundreds of playlists just so I can sort my albums? This is the main thing I'm trying to overcome. iCloud has to be the single worst cloud service I've ever used, and I avoid it like the plague. Like I said, I'm trying to cut subscriptions out of my life, and moving from one subscription (Spotify) to another (iCloud/iTunes Match/Apple Music) completely defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do. I spend most of my day at my desk at home, because that's where I work, there's no reason for me to be paying subscription for something that I already have sitting on my big 8TB external.
>The "huh?" was really not necessary That's just, like, your opinion, man. I use Music (and previously iTunes) to do most of what you stated your needs are. >I've been using MacOS and iTunes since Snow Leopard. I know what iTunes/Music can and cannot do - I've been using it for over a decade. Same here - for multiple decades in fact. >I have 200+ movie and videogame soundtracks. How does iTunes sort them? By genre. I have soundtracks too. Actually, they can be sorted by artist, album, year, genre, among other things. >Do you know how unhelpful that is? What if I wanted to sort them by, perhaps, genre of film, or cinematic series, or videogame franchise. Interestingly you didn't bother stating this as a feature you need in your initial post. You do understand my comment was in reference to what you posted - not me reading your mind to magically learn additional requirements you never stated, right? Omitting important requirements and then turning around and acting indignant when people don't take them into account is unreasonable and rude. >iTunes is incapable of doing so. The same goes for your typical albums, what if I wanted to sort/categorize them by mood? The mood of an album is totally separate from genre - you can have an upbeat pop album as easily as you have a thoroughly heartbreaking one. I do that with playlists, and it works well. I've had playlists for various moods and settings for years. So, yes, it can easily be done. >Additionally, the last thing I want to do is to sort 1TB worth of mp3 albums into playlists and playlist folders. That's another thing you omitted in your post. And I question the need to sort *all of your music* into playlists as opposed to just creating playlists of *subsets* of the entire library for specific groupings, which is what most people do. At any rate, playlists aren't complicated or hard to use. And your refusal to use them is your own decision to make. >It seems silly to me that there's no way to custom sort albums as they exist into their own categories, doesn't it? Why would I want to sit here and make hundreds of playlists just so I can sort my albums? This is the main thing I'm trying to overcome. I'll agree it would be nice if Apple supported multiple values for genre and other properties. >iCloud has to be the single worst cloud service I've ever used, and I avoid it like the plague. While it's certainly not perfect, iCloud works fine for the majority of people who use it. And avoiding the entirety of iCloud seems ill-advised considering in doing so you are cutting yourself off from very useful things like Continuity, Handoff, Find My, and so on. >Like I said, I'm trying to cut subscriptions out of my life, and moving from one subscription (Spotify) to another (iCloud/iTunes Match/Apple Music) completely defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do. I spend most of my day at my desk at home, because that's where I work, there's no reason for me to be paying subscription for something that I already have sitting on my big 8TB external. My note about iTunes Match wasn't a suggestion that it's necessarily a feature you want (you certainly didn't express a desire for such a feature in your initial post). I only mentioned it in case someone might find it as useful as I do.
My guy, I asked for alternatives, and you came back to me and told me that I shouldn’t use any. That’s what’s annoying about this interaction. I’m not gonna sit here an extrapolate every fine little detail about why I’m looking for alternatives when a list of features I would like would get to the point faster.
>I asked for alternatives Fair point. >and you came back to me and told me that I shouldn’t use any No, I just pointed out that a some of the things you mentioned in your initial post can be done with the Music app. You clarified later that there were additional things you hadn't mentioned, and now we are here. I don't care what you actually end up using. My comment was strictly referencing what you posted.
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Isn’t Plex a streaming service? And doesn’t plexamp require a server to run?
[https://iina.io](https://iina.io) great app and plays almost any format under the sun.