A library-first music player driven by search queries
Quod Libet is a music player and library manager for Windows, macOS and Linux, written in Python with the GTK toolkit and released under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. Its organising idea is that a large collection is best navigated by asking questions of it rather than by clicking through folders. Instead of a fixed tree of artists and albums, you write queries, save the ones you use often, and treat the results as a view you can return to whenever you like.
Browsing by query instead of by folder
The library scans your music folders and indexes the tags it finds, and from then on the collection is available through search expressions such as a genre, a date range, a bitrate or a combination of several conditions. Those queries can be saved and appear alongside albums, artists and genres in the browser pane. The approach takes an evening to appreciate and then becomes hard to give up, because questions like every track added this year that is longer than ten minutes are answered instantly rather than by manual searching.
Playlists, playback and tag editing
Playlists come in the ordinary kind and the automatic kind, where a playlist is defined by a query and updates itself as the library changes. Playback is handled by GStreamer, which covers the usual formats including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, WAV, WavPack, Opus and Speex, and ReplayGain support keeps the volume consistent across an album or a shuffled mix. Internet radio streams can be added as ordinary entries. Tag editing is built in through the bundled Ex Falso editor, which can also rename files from tag patterns, so correcting metadata and tidying file names happen in the same place.
Practical configuration and limits
The project publishes a Windows installer and a portable executable, and the same program runs on macOS and Linux with the same library concepts. Indexing a large collection takes time on the first run, and a library kept on a network share will always feel slower than one on a local disk. Some behaviour depends on GStreamer plugins being present, so unusual formats may need extra components. Plugins add features such as scrobbling, lyrics, notifications and better integration with the desktop, and most of them are enabled from a preferences dialog.
Who should choose something else
foobar2000 and MusicBee remain the more configurable choices for Windows users who want deep control over columns, conversion and device output. If you only ever play a file at a time, VLC or MPC-HC opens faster than a library application. And for a fully automated, scripted library built from the command line, beets takes the same database-first approach further than a graphical player can.
- Best for
- People with large local music collections who want fast query-based browsing, automatic playlists, consistent volume and integrated tag editing.
- Good to know
- The Windows build ships as an installer and a portable executable. The first library scan takes time on a big collection, and tag edits are written straight into your files, so keep backups while learning the editor.
Quod Libet treats a music collection as something you query, not something you click through.
How to get started
- Run the Windows installer, or use the portable build if you prefer to keep everything in one folder.
- Point the library at your music folders in the preferences and let the first scan finish; a large collection takes a few minutes.
- Type a search such as an artist, a genre or a year in the browser, then save the ones worth keeping as a view.
Open the tag editor when metadata is wrong, and turn on ReplayGain scanning so shuffled playback does not jump between loud and quiet tracks.
Questions & answers
What does the name mean?
Quod libet is Latin for "whatever pleases", a phrase also used for a musical form that combines borrowed melodies. The player's flexible views follow the same spirit.
Can I edit tags as well as play music?
Yes. The bundled Ex Falso editor handles tag changes and can also rename files using patterns built from those tags.
Does it work with a very large library?
Yes, that is the point of query-based browsing, though the initial scan and any library stored on a network share will be noticeably slower than a local one.
