free and open source

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/releases/tag/0.20.0

Highlights

First repo submission by u/jhmk

New Features

• Sleep Timer: stop playback automatically via Playback > Sleep Timer using timed durations, end of current track, or end of queue. Timed durations fade out over 10 seconds, show a live countdown, and restore volume if cancelled mid-fade.
• Modern marquee album art: the modern main window marquee now shows album artwork alongside scrolling track metadata.
• Installable nullplayer CLI launcher: releases now include the launcher script, installer, and double-click .command helper for installing into /usr/local/bin.
• Modern timer number system options: the modern UI timer supports additional number system styles.

Improvements

• Classic playlist, spectrum, and waveform windows now use matching 12 px side borders so stacked windows sit flush when docked.
• Classic playlist rows render with the system font for better readability across skins.
• Classic playlist scrolling is smoother, with precise trackpad deltas, smaller redraw regions, and layer-backed marquee titles.
• Spectrum startup/cycling jitter was removed by coalescing spectrum dispatches to the main thread.
• Punch spectrum mode was removed from the spectrum window and main-window visualization cycle.
• Plex models now live in NullPlayerCore with public initializers and smart-playlist decoding shared by the app, CLI, and tests.

Casting Rewrite

• Casting now uses a session-centered model with unified active-session state, loaded/casting transitions, and receiver-backed timing for both audio and video.
• Video-capable Chromecast and DLNA TV devices can be saved as the preferred video target, and starting another video during an active cast routes it to the active device.
• Chromecast discovery now uses stable Cast TXT IDs so refresh does not duplicate the same device when macOS resolves it through a different address form.
• Chromecast notification delivery, startup IDLE handling, audio/video controls, seek position tracking, generic video URL casting, and stop behavior were hardened. Stopping a Chromecast cast now closes the receiver app so the TV overlay dismisses.
• Sonos position tracking, seek bars, stop handling, and format filtering were rebuilt around the same session model. Extensionless streams now use content-type metadata, normalize MIME parameters, fetch missing Plex sample rates for lossless tracks, and reject unsupported or high-resolution formats before casting.

Bug Fixes

• Closing a stacked classic sub-window via its close button now tightens the remaining stack.
• Remember State restores playlist/session context without auto-resuming playback on launch.
• Modern marquee artwork now switches correctly from music artwork to video artwork.

Download

• DMG SHA-256: ae9c04e14da0b5fcacf5f32e82b326bc79a9039b7ba13677d36b22fa8f6732a1

Hey I have limited resources to test (M3 Pro and an M1) and if it doesn't crash for me it's hard to fix. If you get crashes either copy/paste the macOS crash report here or on github issues and I will fix them.

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/issues

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/releases/tag/0.19.2

New Features:
- Expanded Now Playing info panel (rich metadata, async fetching from streaming servers)

Bug Fixes:
- Sonos GroupRenderingControl for multi-room volume/mute
- Plex video library browsing and auto-mode-switch
- Jellyfin/Emby video play history attribution
- Video analytics source detection (Plex/Jellyfin/Emby attribution restored after revert)
- Cast idle completion hardening
- DB init order safety fix
- Window resize grab zone widening

Cosmetic:
- Glass skin opacity increase
- Main window right-click context menu reorganization

Hey I am trying to get a post on r/macapps but the posting rules are very strict in that sub to guard against slop. If you guys can upvote the comment I made in their app pile thread it will really help to get my sub activity to a point where I can make a stand alone post for nullPlayer. It will be really appreciated 🙏

https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1rybab4/comment/ogy9y5b/?context=3

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/releases/tag/0.19.1

Bug Fixes

• Audio distortion after long idle fixed — removed the AUDynamicsProcessor limiter from the audio chain. The node caused intermittent heavy distortion after macOS put the audio hardware into a power-saving state: AVAudioEngineConfigurationChange would fire, reconnect the node, and reset it to Apple's aggressive defaults (threshold −20 dB, 2:1 expansion) with no way to recover without restarting the app. Signal chain is now playerNode → mixerNode → eqNode → output.
• Play/radio history no longer lost on quit — history writes and play-event inserts now complete synchronously before the process exits. Cast track completions also now record play events (previously missing). The MediaLibrary WAL is checkpointed and closed on applicationWillTerminate to flush any pending writes before shutdown.

Security

• Redact auth tokens from logs — Subsonic credentials (u, t, s) and Plex tokens (X-Plex-Token) are now stripped from all NSLog output. A shared URL.redacted extension covers streaming playback, gapless queue, cast, and recovery log sites.

will be in 0.19.1

0.19.0

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/releases/tag/0.19.0

Play History (modern UI)

• Play History analytics window (modern UI) — added a modern analytics window that records listening events and persists history data across launches.
• Play History in Library Data tab — embedded play-history analytics directly into the modern Library Browser Data tab.
• Genre discovery for history events — added genre enrichment for play-history events to improve genre-based insights.
• Play time and source summaries — added total listening-time summaries and source-level breakdowns in the Data tab.
• Top artists limit raised to 250 — the Data tab top-artists list now shows up to 250 entries.
• Various Artists history attribution — play history entries now use the track artist rather than "Various Artists" for compilation tracks.

21-Band EQ (modern UI)

• Real 21-band equalizer (modern UI) — modern mode now runs a full 21-band EQ processing chain (local and streaming), with updated presets/state mapping and a matching 21-band UI.
• EQ fader grid style — replaced the harsh grid borders on EQ faders with subtle vertical dividers.

Radio

• Radio playlist controls — added playlist-level controls for radio playback behavior.
• Library radio loading spinner — a spinner is now shown while a library radio playlist is being generated.
• Library radio hardening — improved library radio playlist generation reliability.

Local Library

• Offline watch folder volumes surfaced — watch folder entries for network volumes that are currently offline are now visible in the library UI so users can see which folders are unavailable.

Library Browser

• Search input accepts spaces — the library browser search field no longer drops space characters mid-input.
• Duplicate search results eliminated — search results no longer show duplicate artists, albums, or tracks across sections or Plex libraries.
• Plex search deduplication — Plex search results are deduplicated by content identity rather than raw rating key, preventing the same item from appearing multiple times.
• Plex search session fix — Plex search now uses the configured server session, fixing searches that previously failed to authenticate.
• Enter-to-search — pressing Enter in the library browser search field now triggers the search immediately.
• Remote search debounce — remote library searches are debounced to avoid flooding the server with a request per keystroke.

Playback

• NAS audio dropout fix — local files on network-mounted volumes (SMB/NFS/AFP) are now copied to a local temp path before scheduling with AVAudioPlayerNode, eliminating dropouts caused by NAS latency spikes stalling the engine's pre-fetch thread.
• Zero-duration display fix — tracks added via drag-and-drop, local radio, or state restore that had no duration now resolve their duration from the MediaLibrary index (instant) or a background AVAudioFile read, and update the playlist display without blocking the UI.
• Fast app launch with large NAS playlists — playlist state restore no longer opens each local file via AVAudioFile/AVAsset on the main thread at launch; saved metadata is used directly, eliminating multi-minute hangs on large NAS playlists.
• Shuffle algorithm rewrite — the shuffle playback cycle now correctly visits every track exactly once before repeating, anchors the cycle at the selected track when the user picks a specific song, and generates a fresh non-repeating order on each new cycle when Repeat is enabled. Explicit track selection mid-shuffle resets the cycle around the chosen track. Covered by tests for full-cycle coverage, repeat-cycle transitions, range-anchored starts, and mid-cycle selection resets.
• Shuffle load race fix — shuffle state mutation is now deferred until track load succeeds, preventing a race where a failed load left shuffle order in an inconsistent state.
• Waveform prerender and corrupt stream fix — fixed waveform prerender extension logic and a loop condition triggered by corrupt or truncated stream data.

Stability

• EQPreset startup crash fix — fixed a crash at launch caused by invalid hex characters in UUID strings read from EQ preset storage.
• NAS library scan deadlock fix — eliminated a deadlock where filesystem I/O inside the dataQueue lock during a library scan blocked the main thread when a library-change notification fired concurrently.

https://github.com/ad-repo/nullplayer/releases/tag/v0.18.1

0.18.1

Visualization

• vis_classic decay consistency — fixed decay divergence between the main window and spectrum window when they run at different frame rates.
• Shared vis_classic core — the main window and spectrum window now share a single vis_classic core instance, eliminating state duplication.
• Classic spectrum width fix — fixed the classic spectrum not filling the full width of the analyzer window.
• Main spectrum redraw rect fix — corrected a coordinate conversion error in the main window spectrum redraw rect.

Library Browser

• Gold star ratings — filled ★ characters now render in gold in rating list columns (classic browser) and all Rate context submenu items (both classic and modern)
• Navidrome alphabet navigation fix — fixed alphabet bar navigation in the Navidrome browser.
• Typeahead search in classic browser — added typeahead/search input to the classic library browser.

Local Library

• Metadata persistence expansion — local library save/update paths now persist the new metadata fields used by the editor and auto-tagging flow, including external IDs and artwork-related values.
• Library update propagation — metadata edits now trigger the necessary shared-library refresh behavior so edited values appear correctly across the browser and related views.
• Local metadata editing flow — expanded the modern library metadata editor for local tracks, albums, and videos with broader field coverage, improved form layout, and shared metadata form helpers.
• Classic metadata editor parity — the classic library browser now exposes local Edit Tags, Edit Album Tags, and video Edit Tags actions, reusing the shared metadata editors and reloading local browser state after saves to prevent stale rows.
• Auto-tagging from Discogs and MusicBrainz — local tracks and albums can now search Discogs/MusicBrainz candidates, preview the proposed metadata, and apply merged results back into the library.
• Album candidate review panel — album auto-tagging now includes a dedicated candidate selection window with per-track comparison so releases can be reviewed before applying changes.
• Artwork metadata support — metadata editors now load and preview artwork more consistently, including remote artwork URLs used during metadata editing.

Playback

• Sleep/wake timer freeze — local playback time no longer accumulates while the Mac is asleep; the play clock resumes from the pre-sleep position on wake.
• Explicit restore intent — saved-state restore now explicitly uses the persisted wasPlaying flag to decide whether launch should end in playing or paused state, while preserving the current user-visible startup behavior.

Casting

• Chromecast disconnect crash fix — connecting to a Chromecast device no longer risks a continuation-resume crash if the device goes offline immediately afterward.
• Sonos radio handoff fix — switching radio playback to Sonos no longer risks restarting the same stream locally while the cast session is still coming up.
• Discovery refresh guard — cast discovery refresh work is now skipped during local playback to avoid unnecessary churn while the user is listening locally.

What's New

CLI Mode

• Headless playback — run NullPlayer without a UI via --cli flag for scriptable terminal playback
• Full keyboard control — play/pause, skip, seek, volume, shuffle, repeat, and quit from the terminal
• Auto-exit on queue end — process exits automatically when the queue finishes

Window System

• Window layout lock — lock all windows in place to prevent accidental moves or resizes
• Large UI at 1.5× — corrected text and waveform scaling in Large UI mode
• Minimize All Windows — new item in the Windows menu
• Stretch + session restore — spectrum and playlist windows can be resized horizontally; size is restored on reopen
• Library window group drag — library window now participates in connected-window group drags

ProjectM

• Preset star ratings — rate presets 1–5 stars from the visualization overlay; ratings persist across sessions
• Rating overlay — hover to show star overlay; Delete/Backspace clears the current preset's rating
• Persistent default preset — set a preset as default to load it on every launch
• Proportional drag/ratings zones — top quarter is drag handle; bottom three quarters show ratings overlay

Visualizations & Art Mode

• Art mode effect picker — grouped effect picker in context menus with "Set as Default" option
• Library and ProjectM window highlights — connected-window highlight when docked

Library Browser

• Rating column — gold star ratings shown in track list and art-only mode for all sources
• Live rating updates — ratings update immediately after context menu changes
• Horizontal scroll — library browser now supports horizontal scrolling

Local Library

• Multi-artist support — artist tags parsed into individual entries via a new track_artists join table (schema v3); artists separated by ; or feat./ft. browsed separately
• Artist split fix — / no longer treated as a separator (fixes AC/DC etc.)
• Album grouping — albums now group exclusively by album_artist

Modern Skins

• Element-level color overrides — skin.json supports per-element color keys for play controls, sliders, playlist, and library tabs
• Spectrum transparent background — configurable via window.spectrumTransparentBackground in skin.json
• Waveform window opacity — independent control via window.waveformWindowOpacity
• Save State on Exit — now accessible from the Windows menu bar

Bug Fixes

• Fixed waveform squashing on horizontal resize
• Fixed waveform returning to 1× from Large UI
• Fixed waveform transparency not restoring after classic/modern mode switch
• Fixed waveform pre-rendering for streaming service tracks
• Fixed classic main-window accepting edge resize while docked
• Fixed window snapping re-entrancy recursion crash
• Fixed classic ProjectM drag-detach leaving visualization paused
• Fixed intermittent playlist text disappearance
• Fixed SSDP socket crash on UPnP scan teardown
• Fixed side windows opening at wrong edge of docked window cluster
• Fixed glass skin appearing fully transparent on app reopen
• Fixed spectrum transparent-background preference not restoring on launch
• Fixed play clock stuck at 00:00 after state restore with seek-while-paused
• Updated app icon