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

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

#101

Post by kergonath »

darthcircuit wrote: post #14
toomim wrote: post #10

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

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 fre…

> They changed the name but the ui is still straight out of the early 2000s.

You’re unfair. iTunes’ UI was much better in 2003 than Music.app’s in 2025.

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

#102

Post by kergonath »

integricho wrote: post #30

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.

Winamp 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.

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

#103

Post by afewscribbles »

tambourine_man wrote: post #74
carlosjobim wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'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.

On the contrary, I find them priceless.

Ditto.

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.

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

#104

Post by tambourine_man »

afewscribbles wrote: post #103
tambourine_man wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I find them priceless.

Ditto. 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.

Exactly. 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.

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

#105

Post by carlosjobim »

afewscribbles wrote: post #103
tambourine_man wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I find them priceless.

Ditto. 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.

I 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.

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

#106

Post by arkensaw »

I'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.

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

#109

Post by dewey »

cageface wrote: post #108
dewey wrote: post #20

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

You could give my app a shot too: https://www.plastaq.com/minimoon

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.

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

#110

Post by atoav »

dewey wrote: post #81
atoav wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

I didn't claim there was no reason.
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