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

https://github.com/kushalpandya/Petrichor

74•kushalpandya•7h ago

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!

Comments

keane•5h ago

Congratulations on the release! This looks really cool!

beschizza•5h ago

Without even looking at anything else, I love the name.

gpm•4h ago

Anyone want to let me in on the joke/reference/pun/pronunciation/why it's a clever name?

kushalpandya•4h ago

There you go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor

> Petrichor is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil.

johng•2h ago

It's actually my favorite scent in the world. I grew up in New Mexico.

dvdplm•5h ago

Does it have FLAC support (or other high res audio formats)?

leetrout•4h ago

OP 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•4h ago

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.

dlivingston•3h ago

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!

kushalpandya•2h ago

Yes, iPhone is target once mac stable release is complete as the core logic can be shared between 2 platforms.

newscracker•27m ago

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.

[1]: https://decoupled.app/

toomim•2h ago

How's this compare to the native macos music app formerly known as itunes?

darthcircuit•2h ago

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.

MangoToupe•1h ago

> Anything is better than that dumpster fire.

Nonsense, you could be using Spotify.

darthcircuit•47m ago

I’m going to try giving up on all of them and just growing my local collection monthly instead.

eviks•2h 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•9m ago

Ah, I guess he was talking to the person behind you

programmarchy•2h ago

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?

Cockbrand•42m ago

Bandcamp comes to mind. Not sure about artists who aren't on Bandcamp, though.

thek3nger•21m ago

I buy from Bandcamp and Qobuz (especially for classical and artists that are not on Bandcamp).

dewey•1h ago

If you are looking for a “old school iTunes” kind of player there’s also https://swinsian.com/

gpm•51m ago

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!

thek3nger•25m ago

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.

zdw•40m ago

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?

8mobile•34m ago

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

newscracker•24m ago

Two 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).

integricho•14m ago

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.

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