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Musicola 1.0 works with Navidrome. Plex and other Subsonic servers are coming soon.

Just the address, without https://. Away from home, use your Navidrome server’s secure address, for example music.example.com. Musicola connects to it over HTTPS.

At home you can also use its local address, for example 192.168.1.20:4533 or nas.local:4533. A local address connects without encryption, so Musicola only allows it for addresses on your own network. On iPhone, allow Local Network access when Musicola asks.

Check the address opens in a web browser on the same device, and that your username and password work on Navidrome’s own web page. A local address only works while you’re on your home network. If you use a reverse proxy, make sure it passes Navidrome’s /rest/ path through.

Choose Look around first on the sign-in screen. Musicola fills itself with Apple Music’s charts as 30-second previews, with no Apple Music subscription or permission needed, plus an album that comes with the app. Connect your server whenever you’re ready.

One folder per artist, one folder per album inside it, and the track number at the start of each file name:

Music/Kate Bush/Hounds of Love (1985)/01 Running Up That Hill.flac

• Put albums by many artists (soundtracks, compilations) in their own folder, such as Music/Compilations/Now 80s (2019)/.
• Keep each album’s images and lyrics files in the same folder as its songs.
• Folder names help you, but your server reads the tags inside the files, so tags matter most.

Every song file carries tags. These are the ones worth getting right:

• Title, Artist and Album, spelled the same way on every track. “The Beatles” and “Beatles” become two artists.
• Album Artist: the same on every track of an album, even when a song has a guest. Use “Various Artists” for compilations. This is what keeps an album together.
• Track number and Disc number, so albums play in order and multi-disc sets are split into discs.
• Year (or Date), for album years, sorting and decades in the Mix Builder.
• Genre, for Genre mixes and the Mix Builder. A few broad genres work better than dozens of tiny ones.

The easiest way is to let a tagger match your albums against an online database and fill everything in, including the MusicBrainz IDs that help servers tell artists with the same name apart. MusicBrainz Picard is free and point-and-click (Picard user guide); beets suits people happy with the command line. Back up your music before retagging a whole library.

More help: Navidrome: tagging guidelines.

• Album cover: a square JPEG or PNG called cover.jpg in the album folder. About 1000–1500 pixels wide looks sharp on a TV without wasting space; under 500 looks soft on Apple TV.
• Artist photo: artist.jpg in the artist’s folder. Square or close to it, with the face in the middle, as Musicola shows artists in circles.
• Embedded artwork (a cover stored inside each file) works too, but a single cover.jpg per album is easier to change later.

Picard can download covers for you with its Cover Art Archive option. More help: Navidrome: artwork.

What you see: artwork on every album, and the soft colour behind each page, which Musicola takes from the cover.

How to add it: put an image called cover.jpg (or folder.jpg) in each album’s folder, or embed the artwork in the music files with a tagger. Albums with no artwork can get a cover from Last.fm once your server has a Last.fm key (see “Artist photos and biographies”).

More help: Navidrome: artwork.

What you see: a picture on each artist’s page and in Your artists, a short biography, and similar artists.

How to add it: Navidrome looks these up online by itself. Deezer works out of the box; adding a free Last.fm API key to your server’s settings (ND_LASTFM_APIKEY and ND_LASTFM_SECRET) adds Last.fm’s biographies, photos and similar artists. To use your own photo, put artist.jpg in the artist’s folder.

More help: Navidrome: external services and create a Last.fm API key (any application name will do).

What you see: the whole biography rather than a summary, notes about each album, and each artist’s top songs as people play them worldwide, including songs you don’t have yet (shown dimmed).

How to add it: your server only passes on Last.fm’s short summaries, so Musicola can ask Last.fm directly with your own free key. Create one at last.fm/api/account/create, copy the API key, and paste it into Musicola under Settings › Last.fm. On Apple TV, create it on your phone or computer and type it in. The key stays in your device’s Keychain and is sent only to Last.fm.

What you see: radio from any song, album or artist, autoplay that keeps going with music like what you just heard, and similar artists.

How it works: Musicola asks your server which songs and artists go together, and the server asks Last.fm, Deezer and ListenBrainz. These features work best when your server has a Last.fm key (see above) and your files have accurate artist names, so the online services recognise them.

What you see: lyrics in the player. Synced lyrics light up line by line, and you can tap a line to jump to it.

How to add it: save a lyrics file next to the song with the same name, for example 03 A Love Unknown.lrc beside 03 A Love Unknown.mp3. An .lrc file with timings gives synced lyrics. Lyrics embedded in the music file work too. The free desktop app LRCGET can download .lrc files for a whole library at once.

No files? When your server has no lyrics for a song, Musicola looks them up on LRCLIB, a free lyrics database. You can turn this off under Settings › Find lyrics online.

More help: the LRC format explained.

What you see: Genre mixes, the Genres shelf on Home, decades and genres in the Mix Builder, and album years.

How to add it: these come from the tags inside your music files. A tagger fills them in from online databases: MusicBrainz Picard is free and point-and-click; beets suits people happy with the command line. After retagging, your server picks the changes up on its next scan.

More help: Navidrome: tagging guidelines.

What you see: songs from different albums play at a similar loudness, so you don’t reach for the volume.

How to add it: Musicola uses ReplayGain tags in your files. Add them with rsgain or Picard’s ReplayGain plugin, then turn on Settings › Sound Check in Musicola. Songs without the tags play as they are.

What you see: your listening on your Last.fm or ListenBrainz profile, alongside everything else you play.

How to add it: Musicola reports each play to your server. Link your account once in Navidrome’s web page (your profile’s personal settings) and the server passes plays on. Plays made offline are sent when you’re back online.

More help: Navidrome: external services.

Your server has to rescan first. Navidrome watches your music folder and usually notices within a few minutes; an administrator can also start a scan from its web page. Then reopen the page in Musicola.

Tier 1 unlocks downloads on iPhone. Tier 2 adds the Mix Builder. Tier 3 adds picking up on another device where you left off, lossless streaming and downloads, and Your listening. Each tier includes the ones below it. Everything else in Musicola is free.

Open Settings › Musicola Plus and choose Restore Purchases, signed in with the same Apple Account. Purchases are shared with your family through Family Sharing.

Refunds are handled by Apple. Visit reportaproblem.apple.com and choose the Musicola purchase.