What are the best music players for OSX ?

Question

27

Options
Considered

1.2K

User
Recs.

11 mins

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 26 OptionsWhy?

Best music players for OSX	Price	License	Release Date
90 Clementine	-	GPL-3.0-or-later	2016-19-04
88 IINA	-	-	-
76 VLC	-	-	August 19, 2019
74 Swinsian	$19.95	-	-
73 Musique	Free	-	-

See Full List

25 Other Options Considered

IINA

Top Pro

Like MPV with better GUI and settings

It's like mpv, just more user friendly GUI and more settings available via UI. See More

Top Con

No reason to use at all, unless you prefer less CPU usage when seeking, as compared to mvp

puzzyhunter84's Experience

It just work but I miss the sheer icon otherwise I love IINA See More

Top Pro

Rarely crashes for me, even in the beta

Top Con

Crashes every single time an album ends

This is neither acceptable nor usable. See More

FearlessNehebkau's Experience

its heavy for playing music but great for movies. i use it as my first movie player. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't black out other displays when doing full screen

It can black out other screens if you want, but out of the box it leaves your other displays alone. See More

Top Con

Unstable

I've had it crash on me a couple times, clicking on something in the subtitles section in the right-hand panel for example. See More

ColorfulTulloun's Experience

This is the best video player for mac, not sure about just audio though. It has all the good functions of VLC and none of the bloat or crashing. See More

Top Pro

Like MPlayerX but better

MPlayerX was the best player on macOS but not updated. IINA go even further. See More

Top Con

Crashes repeatedly when playing .avi files

PassionateGlaucus's Experience

quick, elegant, and light! See More

Top Pro

Support for lots of codecs

Supports lots of video codecs, like mp4, mkv, etc, and lots of audio codecs including opus. See More

Top Pro

Has a dedicated, headless music mode

This mode is used. See More

Top Pro

It's less than 90mbs

See All

VLC

Top Pro

Out of the box support for almost any audio or video file format

VLC reads almost all music and video without codec installation. It has a wide range of supported encodings. See More

Top Con

Lacks libraries and advanced music player features

VLC is a media player first and foremost. There is no library management, aside from playlists, usage of tags is very limited, no rating system and VLC is best at playing a file directly from a folder as opposed to helping you manage or find good songs in your music library. See More

AmiableCeraon's Experience

I've used VLC on Linux and Mac for over 15 years. It's not the prettiest UI, but it works reliably and makes very good use of the available hardware, producing excellent sound. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows/MacOS/Linux/Android/iOS/ChromeOS/AppleTV

Release Date:August 19, 2019

Top Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX and Linux with source code available here. See More

Top Con

VLC has issues playing some formats

Playing FLAC files produces a top end weird artifact or noise and some mp3 compression types also produce some weird glitches. Still happening in version 2.2.4. See More

FearlessNehebkau's Experience

bad user interface and its heavy for Mac. not designed for mac users. See More

Top Pro

Simple

An incredibly robust application but very simple on the surface. It makes playing music simple and puts the user in control. See More

Top Con

Very poor support for OSX

Yanis's Experience

Still a good player for music, use it :) See More

Top Pro

Doesn't lock you into any specific devices

Top Con

Contains some insignificant but irritating flaws

Despite all keyboard shortcuts, the width of the picture can't be controlled by trackpad. Besides that, the VLC start-up window doesn’t open at the same place or the same width at which it was previously closed. See More

江昱輝's Experience

need to create account for a lot of functions. See More

Top Pro

Has playlist

Top Con

Not really meant to be a music player

VLC is made to be a video player. Therefore, it won't carry out actions such as managing your music library. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't require additional codecs

Everything VLC needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. This makes it one of the most hassle-free music players as it can play virtually anything as soon as it's installed. See More

Top Pro

Tons of advanced settings

Besides basic configurations, video player has an extensive amount of adjustable settings. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't manage your music library for you

You organize your music into folders any way you want. Want to play an album? Drag and drop. No tags, no confusion, no fluff. Easy. See More

Top Pro

Plenty of keyboard shortcuts

VLC includes keyboard shortcuts for most actions. The video player can be controlled with simple and customizable keyboard commands. See More

Top Pro

Free, open source, and cross-platform

VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX, and Linux with source code available here. See More

Top Pro

Includes Blu-Ray playback support

Blu-Ray playback support was added on July 13th, 2014. It allows playing back DRM-free Blu-Rays with the help of libbluray, libaacs and libbdplus. See More

Top Pro

Simple to setup and use

VLC is an incredibly robust application but very simple on the surface. It makes playing music simple, yet still manages to give the user all the tools he/she wants in a music player. See More

Top Pro

Very versatile and easy to use

Top Pro

Can easily stream music across your home network from any device on the network

Using sftp/ssh music (and videos) can be streamed from any server on the network to any device running VLC. VLC can also be used as a webcam for streaming and snapshots. Amazing all in one package See More

Top Pro

Can play every format video available (as of 2017)

Top Pro

Surprisingly Lightest on Resources

Yes. Lightest. Even better than the ones known to be light. Both when playing music, only a single song or when playing a video. Either in terms of Ram and Cpu. Compared with almost all, including the ones from Windows like mpc-hc .. or light ones from Linux like Alsa Player, Audacious, SmPlayer . See More

Top Pro

Can be almost completely keyboard-driven

VLC includes keyboard shortcuts for most actions. The video player can be controlled with simple and customizable keyboard commands. See More

See All

Swinsian

Top Pro

Works well with huge libraries

Top Con

Expensive

PracticalBieggolmai's Experience

Like this app. No feature bloat, just plays music and is quick and responsive. See More

Top Pro

.flac support

Top Con

No ReplayGain support

IntuitiveAbhcan's Experience

It´s not a free player but for me it´s the best one. I am usually listen to a lot of music because I am a radio manager and producer and I found Swinsian the best one, best quality sound, play all the audio formats, really good managing massive digital music libraries, like mine, really good managing tags and fetching artwork and also very light for the system. I've tried all the options for years, iTunes, Clementine, Vox, etc... all of them and Swinsian beat them all, not doubt about it to me. See More

Top Pro

Very light for the OS

Top Con

No dark mode (yet)

AssertiveOmfale's Experience

Great interface and options. Great for managing a library. See More

Top Pro

Album art fetching

Top Con

Cannot export to mp3 devices

Top Pro

Smart playlists

Top Con

Inexplicably refuses to play some files

Swinsian won't play ~1/3 of my flacs. Their support says "works for us". Tried rebuilding library etc, nothing worked. Eventually gave up and stopped using it. See More

Top Pro

Good value for money, paying is common sense

Spotify and others are music on the street and a sore for the eyes. See More

Top Pro

Clear interface with lists and words!

Top Pro

Playlist view customisation

Top Pro

DSD/DFF file support

Top Pro

Last.fm scrobbling

Top Pro

Can add lyrics

Top Pro

Watches any folders

See All

Musique

Top Pro

Consistent queue simplifies what's playing next

There is a queue on the right side of the player, which shows you what is coming up next. This makes it easy to add a new song or remove a song before it plays to be sure that you/your guests stay in the groove. You can also slowly transition to different genres, not to mention plan ahead and adapt as you need to. See More

Top Con

Doesn't resume from last close

Musique won't resume from the last time the app was closed. If you had a great music queue all set up, unfortunately it won't stay there if you close the app. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux

Price:Free

Top Pro

Minimal UI

The UI for Musique is pretty minimal. By not throwing every option in the book into the application, the developers are able to keep the interface clear of any clutter. See More

Top Con

No differentation between Album Artist / Track Artist

Albums are sorted via "Album Artist" but each deviating "Track Artist" creates a new album handle. Very bad when you have album tracks where the filename consists of the typical "Artist #1 feat. Artist #2" setting as each of these files creates another album entry. See More

Top Pro

best sound

Top Con

Linux controls don't work

The Linux next/previous buttons don't do anything - you will need to open Musique in order to do anything with it (other than change the volume). See More

See All

Elmedia Player

Top Con

Some difficulties with library creating

Top Pro

Can download and play mp3 files from Youtube

Jassy Disson's Experience

Listening Online Music from YouTube without Ad See More

Specs

Top Con

Buggy, won't tell you about artists until you open the file, even things like shuffle don't work

Top Pro

Play online videos online without ads

You can open an online video with a URL and play it without Ads (like it usually happens on YouTube). See More

SuccessfulAlabandus's Experience

No real library functionality See More

Top Con

Freeze on startup

Top Pro

Handy Open URL option

Open URL option allows watching YouTube videos without ads. See More

FearlessNehebkau's Experience

its not best for music. See More

Top Con

Unable to creat playlists for mp3

Top Pro

Built-in web browser

The app features built-in web browser that allows you to watch online videos directly from the app, while Open URL enables you to do it without noisy ads. See More

RobustAlexaires's Experience

Brought it (Pro) mainly for MP3 player, but really geared for video only. Impossible to create playlist as it blanks out mp3 files when trying to select. Help menus next to useless. So £9.99 wasted See More

Top Pro

Allows you to get audio from YouTube videos

Elmedia player PRO allows to download music from YouTube or even download entire YouTube playlist. See More

Top Pro

Can stream the music from Mac to another Mac

Can stream music from Mac to another Mac with Elmedia Player installed with larger speakers connected. See More

Top Pro

Can play through AirPlay

Has native support for AirPlay directly to AppleTV. See More

Top Pro

Easy to create and manage playlist

Top Pro

Supports external audiotracks

With Elmedia it's possible to add external audio tracks (for example voice over in another language). See More

Top Pro

Can play video with subtitles

You can add external subtitles to video and edit their font, size, color etc. See More

See All

iTunes

Top Con

Very heavy application

Uses up a lot of power, CPU and memory when running. See More

Top Pro

Integrated Podcast support

Any audio file can be turned into a podcast file which than can be synced to mobile devices and listened there like a podcast. See More

AssertiveHecate's Experience

This app doesn't exist anymore. It's Music now and has different pros and cons. See More

Top Con

No FLAC support

Still no support for FLAC. See More

Top Pro

Access to a massive library of content

iTunes has one of the largest sources for media anywhere. It includes virtually every song every recorded, as well as movies, podcasts, and TV shows. See More

RespectableHehu's Experience

It's shit See More

Top Con

Heavyweight

With each update, iTunes appears to get bigger and bigger, though adding little more value, especially for the user who just wants to listen to and organize music. See More

Top Pro

Hooks up with Apple Music for unlimited streaming

Apple Music is tied into iTunes. Apple Music is a subscription service that allows you to stream and/or download unlimited songs. This can be significantly cheaper (and more convenient) than buying albums/songs individually. See More

FearlessNehebkau's Experience

how itunes manage music files is stupid! See More

Top Con

Buggy app

Immediately after the worldwide launch of Apple Music, a new version of iTunes was released (12.2). Many users have reported issues with this release, such as music lists getting mixed up, music having wrong metadata, etc. See More

Top Pro

Ability to create playlists from folders

You can simply create playlists in iTunes from your local folders. Just drag and drop the folder into the iTunes playlist area. See More

Electrux Redsworth's Experience

Quite good experience. You can even create a playlist from folder and works very well with iPhone. See More

Top Con

Duplicates media files by default (but you can change it in the preferences)

Top Pro

iCloud integration

Jordan Fischer's Experience

Bloated and heavy on CPU. See More

Top Con

Frequent UI/UX-Changes

With every update favorite functions are missing, moved or outsourced to another application. See More

Top Pro

Can auto-import CDs

The user can set up iTunes in such a way that media (from CDs) can be automatically imported once a CD is inserted. This also comes with customizable import settings (bitrate, codec). Additionally, iTunes can automatically fetch track names from the Internet. See More

DedicatedAccaLarentia's Experience

Too proprietary See More

Top Con

Unfortunately required to fully manage iPods

Top Pro

Sleek interface

The interface of iTunes presents a flat, clean design with playback controls at the top-left, search at the top-right, and a row of ways to categorize available media beneath that. It can also be minimized to take up much less space. The minimized interface is called the Mini Player and it can be set to display on top of all other windows. It's possible to show iTunes on top of all other windows when playing movies as well. See More

UnderstandingManannanMacLir's Experience

Sounds the best. See More

Top Con

Ads play between locally stored mp3s

Ads play between locally stored mp3s - iTunes has literally started playing ads during music converted to mp3 15 years ago from the CDs purchased over 20 years ago! Beyond unacceptable. See More

Top Pro

Can create a playlist based on rules

There is a feature included in iTunes called Smart Playlists that allows the user to create playlists based on criteria such as BPM, Genre, Artist, Album, Plays, Rating, etc. See More

InfluentialLadon's Experience

It has been playing adds between songs from my own local hard drive. See More

Top Con

No export to mp3 players

Only Apple devices. See More

Top Pro

Airplay support

Streaming audio to all Airplay enabled devices within WiFi range is permitted by iTunes. It's also possible to select more than one device to play a song at the same time. See More

ExcellentHuitaca's Experience

Takes a ton of time to update id3 tags. Takes even more if it is currently playing, that is, unless it fails to update altogether. See More

Top Con

No wma support

DevotedMaetsill's Experience

no burning mp3 as data files See More

Top Con

Album organization can be fragmented

Songs purchased from the same album at different times will be added as separate albums. See More

江昱輝's Experience

doesn't support flac See More

Top Con

Duplicates media files

Top Con

Authorization limit

See All

Pine Player

DiligentBaalshamin's Experience

Je dobrej! See More

Winamp

Top Pro

Good sound quality

The sound quality of Winamp is good, especially with DSP plugins like enhancer. See More

IntellectualMerope's Experience

I see it here in the list, but where is the download?? All I can find via the link is an .exe See More

Top Pro

Functionality can be extended via plugins

A wide variety of DSP, input, and visualization plugins have been created by the community. See More

CourteousZisa's Experience

I have used WinAMP for over a decade, small footprint with bags of features, and still FREE! Even better there is a stable OSX version! Ding dang do! See More

Top Pro

A huge selection of skins are available

Winamp allows skinning the interface and there are thousands of community created skins available. See More

See All

Cog

Add Video or Image

RadioTray

Top Con

Not usable for locally stored media

Radio Tray is intended to be a simple way to stream online music. As such, it doesn't work as a music play for locally stored music. See More

Top Pro

Super easy to use

Because it's designed to be extremely minimal, Radio Tray is extremely easy to use. The entire UI consists of a dropdown menu where you can hover over the genre you wish to listen to, and then you can choose a specific radio station to listen to. See More

Top Con

Possibly abandoned

The last release (0.7.3) was back in August 2012, and the last commit is listed as January 2015. See More

Top Pro

Plugins available

You can extend the utility of Radio Tray through plugins. See More

See All

Strawberry Music Player

Top Con

Constantly beachballs

I tried this on M1 and non M1 Macs. Beachballs after a couple of minutes. See More

Top Pro

Scrobbler with support for Last.fm, Libre.fm and ListenBrainz

PassionateUranus's Experience

Unusable See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Open source

ColorfulAbhean's Experience

Constantly beachballs on Mac M1. Unusable See More

Top Pro

Free

RobustMomus's Experience

Great fork of Clementine that has a lot of customization options See More

Top Pro

Alive Clementine fork

See All

Vox

Top Con

Premium cost for basic functions like EQ

They upgraded to a "premium" model. Try and find an old version 2.8.x if you want a usable player. See More

Top Pro

Supports external DACs & HiRes audio

LearnedPachamama's Experience

high quality playback and support for WAV (still the best format out there) See More

Top Con

Miss-reads iTunes databases

Reads compilations as multiple seperate albums. Creating a unique album for each artist in the compilation. See More

Top Pro

WAV support

CharmingEshu's Experience

Premium cost for basic functions like EQ See More

Top Con

Buggy and hangs often

Top Pro

Very high-quality playback

ProfessionalAmunet's Experience

I used to love that app but since they integrated loop I didn't like how they are pushing you to use Loop. To the point that I have trashed it. I would rather pay a one time fee to buy the app for a reasonable price, I can simply use dropbox to share my libraries. See More

Top Con

Interface can be confusing and unintuitive

Playlists and collections are sometimes interchangeable. Many interactions do not have the option to play music and the app is very centred around it's Loop subscription. See More

Top Pro

YouTube playlist/channel support

Youtube URLs can be directly pasted to Vox. See More

DynamicPiltzintecuhtli's Experience

Music organisation is not convenient like other music player software I am using. Finding See More

Top Con

Cloud storage has hefty monthly fee

Top Pro

SoundCloud integration

Top Con

Uses almost as much CPU and memory as iTunes

While the interface is cleaner, the code is not. See More

Top Pro

Last.fm scrobbling

Top Con

Collections and Playlists not good enough. Too simple.

When you have a big library you need a little more than just a bunch of names gathered. Adding folders to a collection put all files in a column and that's it. No sign of which album the song is from, cover etc... you have to play the file in order to see more info... Too simple. See More

Top Con

GUI too small for HI Res screens

Not resizable and everything looks tiny including covers and texts. See More

See All

Fidelia

DignifiedZaden's Experience

Abandoneware! See More

HilariousCaerus's Experience

Sounds great! See More

Visual Cue Pro Audio Player & Library

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Clementine

Top Con

Crashes on startup in macOS Mojave and later

Top Pro

Plays any file

Clementine supports all popular lossless and lossy audio formats including Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, AAC. See More

CalmYuqiang's Experience

Crashes on start up Big Sur Mac M1 See More

Specs

License:GPL-3.0-or-later

Release Date:2016-19-04

Development:Open Source

Top Con

Buggy

Sometimes crashes and experiences occasional memory leaks that can slow down your system. Also, loses user settings. See More

Top Pro

Free, open-source and cross-platform

Works on Linux, OSX and Windows. See More

DecorousAtabey's Experience

Crashes on startup. Catalina 10.15.7. 1.3.1 version Not working on Mac 64 bit system. See More

Top Con

Slow development

Very little development work has been going on for a while as of mid-2017. Nobody is responding to bug reports. See More

Top Pro

Supports most common playlist formats

Clementine can export playlists to M3U, XSPF, PLS and ASX. See More

ReliableRaediengiedte's Experience

can't play network music files on osx See More

Top Con

Eats lot of memory

Top Pro

Tag editing

Clementine features competent tag managing for all music files, be it album art or just simple text entries. See More

IndependentKresnik's Experience

will not load with Big Sur See More

Top Con

Goes crazy with CPU and RAM

Takes its toll on your system's CPU and RAM. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with internet radio servers

Clement integrates with Spotify, Grooveshark, SomaFM, Magnatune, Jamendo, SKY.fm, Digitally Imported, JAZZRADIO.com, Soundcloud, Icecast and Subsonic servers. See More

KnowledgeableToutatis's Experience

Crashes on startup under Catalina See More

Top Con

Default settings aren't great

Although this is subjective, you might have to do some tweaking before you like it. See More

Top Pro

Sensible UI

A fork of the 1.X line of Amarok, Clementine favours usability over design trends. See More

SociableCronus's Experience

Crash See More

Top Con

Horrible user interface and confusing layout

Top Pro

Can automatically fetch meta information

Clementine is capable of editing and fetching tags, artworks, lyrics, artist biographies and photos. See More

SophisticatedCalleis's Experience

Uses between 30-50% of the cpu. My white macbook goes hot for just playing a bloody mp3 file... :) See More

Top Con

Doesn't allow gapless playback

Top Pro

CUE sheet support

ModestDaramulum's Experience

crush on cataline See More

Top Con

Bit perfect output no longer configurable

Audiophiles want to play their expensive HD albums. See More

Top Pro

Built-in transcoding support

Can transcode Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, AAC. See More

NonchalantCharon's Experience

Crashes on startup in Mojave... See More

Top Con

Resource exhaustive

Clementine uses up to two orders of magnitude more CPU than VLC and takes up about 180 MB of memory, plus additional memory for spawned processes (tag-readers), while VLC uses 80 MB with no other processes. See More

Top Pro

Decent library management

Clementine allows the user to move and organize audio files easily. Some examples include the following: It's easy to find a specific album song (find artist, select album, select song). It's easy to add songs to a playlist and queue the songs. It's easy to rename files from their metadata (artist, album, song number, etc). It's easy to add cover images. There are options to find duplicates, untagged songs, etc. See More

ArtisticMictlanpachecatl's Experience

No longer maintained See More

Top Pro

Looks Good and is really Responive

Unlike some other players in this list, Clementine doesn't seem to go unresponsive in the Ubuntu 16.04 system and looks really good with options for Visualization too. See More

ExcellentHuitaca's Experience

Crashes as soon as I open it, every time. For those interested: macOS 10.14.3 MacBookPro13,3 See More

Top Pro

Can play songs directly from some cloud storage services

Clementine can be set up to play audio files from Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. See More

LuckyHebe's Experience

It won't run on Mojave. Crashes as soon at it launches. See More

Yanis's Experience

Funny name yet very powerful ! See More

HumorousDeverra's Experience

Has not been released since 2016. You have a generous notion of "active" See More

See All

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The Best 1 of 26 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Clementine

My Recommendation for Clementine

Crashes on startup in macOS Mojave and later

Plays any file

Buggy

Free, open-source and cross-platform

Slow development

Supports most common playlist formats

Eats lot of memory

Tag editing

Goes crazy with CPU and RAM

Integrates with internet radio servers

Default settings aren't great

Sensible UI

Horrible user interface and confusing layout

Can automatically fetch meta information

Doesn't allow gapless playback

CUE sheet support

Bit perfect output no longer configurable

Built-in transcoding support

Resource exhaustive

Decent library management

Looks Good and is really Responive

Can play songs directly from some cloud storage services

25 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for IINA

My Recommendation for IINA

Like MPV with better GUI and settings

No reason to use at all, unless you prefer less CPU usage when seeking, as compared to mvp

Rarely crashes for me, even in the beta

Crashes every single time an album ends

Doesn't black out other displays when doing full screen

Unstable

Like MPlayerX but better

Crashes repeatedly when playing .avi files

Support for lots of codecs

Has a dedicated, headless music mode

It's less than 90mbs

My Recommendation for VLC

My Recommendation for VLC

Out of the box support for almost any audio or video file format

Lacks libraries and advanced music player features

Free, open source and cross-platform

VLC has issues playing some formats

Simple

Very poor support for OSX

Doesn't lock you into any specific devices

Contains some insignificant but irritating flaws

Has playlist

Not really meant to be a music player

Doesn't require additional codecs

Tons of advanced settings

Doesn't manage your music library for you

Plenty of keyboard shortcuts

Free, open source, and cross-platform

Includes Blu-Ray playback support

Simple to setup and use

Very versatile and easy to use

Can easily stream music across your home network from any device on the network

Can play every format video available (as of 2017)

Surprisingly Lightest on Resources

Can be almost completely keyboard-driven

My Recommendation for Swinsian

My Recommendation for Swinsian

Works well with huge libraries

Expensive

.flac support

No ReplayGain support

Very light for the OS

No dark mode (yet)

Album art fetching

Cannot export to mp3 devices

Smart playlists

Inexplicably refuses to play some files

Good value for money, paying is common sense

Clear interface with lists and words!

Playlist view customisation

DSD/DFF file support

Last.fm scrobbling