jmshrv/finamp 0.9.21-beta

Finamp Beta Update 0.9.21

on GitHub

Hi everyone!
In the last release notes, I lied to you :)
I stated that

while this update does not, the next update will include the new home screen

... which sadly is not the case. However, we have many other exciting features and bug fixes in store for you, so Finamp is definitely getting better!
We're just focusing on quality over quantity.
Read on for some important information, followed by a list of all changes, as always.

TL;DR

New Features:

• Radio (endless playback)
• Dynamic System Color Scheme
• Reorder when shuffled, fix loop, shuffle, and Next Up on Desktop
• Move tracks within the queue without duplicating
• Dismiss all error messages at once by long-pressing
• "Start Instant Mix" for all media types

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed "mdbx" startup errors
• Improved startup performance
• Fixed "Authorize Quick Connect" not working
• Previously played tracks can now be removed from the queue again
• Fixed issues with looping and shuffle on Desktop
• Fixed "Saved Queue" being shown for restored tracks
• Fixed issues when playing many tracks in offline mode
• Fixed missing covers in Android Auto

Keep in mind that not all of the text in the beta has been translated yet. If you're missing a translation, you can now contribute it on Weblate!

What's New

Bug Fixes

• Fixed "mdbx" startup errors (part 2 - electric boogaloo)
• Improved startup performance when lots of images have been downloaded
• Fixed "Authorize Quick Connect" menu not accepting any input and showing no keyboard
• In Jellyfin 10.11.0, Finamp would not play the tapped track by default, because of a bug in Jellyfin. @DhruvaSambrani was super quick to propose a workaround for this in Finamp, but luckily the bug was quickly fixed in Jellyfin itself in 10.11.1, so no workaround was needed. Still, thanks!
• The player screen now actually always shows the codec, instead of the container or random strings like MOV,MP4,M4A,3GP,3G2,MJ2 @ <bitrate>
• Previously played tracks can now be removed from the queue again
• Fixed issues with looping and shuffle on Desktop
• Fixed buffer not filling up to the buffer duration, even when 🔗 "Don't limit buffer size" is enabled
• Fixed wrong (off-by-one) indices on playlist edit screen
• Fixed "Saved Queue" being shown as the source for tracks after restoring a queue
• Fixed crashes and performance issues when trying to play a ton of tracks in offline mode
  • We're now limiting how many tracks are queued up at once, but you shouldn't really be able to tell
• When restoring a shuffled queue, it now restores shuffled and you can actually un-shuffle it
• Fixed buttons overlapping when editing playlists
• Fixed missing covers in Android Auto
• Improved color contrasts for the now playing bar and lyrics screen
• Added missing tooltips for some buttons

Radio (initiated by @hammy275!)

Everyone listens to their music differently. Some people listen to albums. Some to playlists, some to artists, some to genres, and some simply shuffle all their tracks. All of these are great ways to listen, and all of them are possible with Finamp already.

But what happens after you finish that album/playlist/artist/genre/queue?

Until now there were two scenarios. You either loop the queue, listening to the same tracks in the same order again, or the music stops.
But one thing that streaming services like Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, and YouTube Music have in common, is that if you don't want the music to stop, the music never stops.
This is something that has so far been missing from the Finamp experience: unless you manually added more things to play to the queue, the music would eventually stop or repeat. But if you want, this can now be a thing of the past!

Finamp's new radio feature bridges the gap between the queue and mixes. If you enable radio, the music will never^* stop. But of course you stay in control of what will play:

• Radio is completely optional, and disabled by default. Turn it on or off at any time, right from the queue panel or by long-pressing the loop mode icon
• Finamp's goal is not to let an algorithm decide what you listen to. Radio is simply meant as yet another way to listen, with full control, and specific to your library.
• Initially, Finamp offers 5 different modes:
  1. Similar Mode: This is the mode we recommend in most cases, and is close to what streaming services usually do. Finamp will keep adding tracks to the queue which are similar to the queue's source. The most similar tracks will be added first, and over time tracks will become less and less similar.
     This mode only works when playing from a specific item, so for sources like "Shuffle All" it will be unavailable. For those, consider a different mode:
  2. Continuous Mode: Finamp will continuously transition between genres, never staying in one place. Each track is similar to the previous track.
  3. Album Mix Mode: Finamp will try to queue up similar full albums (with at least two tracks). If none can be found, it first falls back to adding singles, then to adding random albums or singles.
  4. Reshuffle Mode: Once the queue reaches its end, all tracks within it are shuffled, and then appended as radio tracks in the new order. This way you can keep listening to the same tracks, but with some variety.
  5. Random Mode: Track are fetched from the queue's source fully randomly, and added as radio tracks. Duplicates and repeats are possible.

There are a few more things to note about the radio:

• You can also start a radio right-away via the menu for any item in your library. This will then generate a few radio tracks to get you started.
• If there are still track in your queue, those will always play before any new radio tracks are added.
• Any track that's added to the queue by the radio will be marked with a radio icon. If you turn off the radio, any upcoming radio tracks will be removed
• Radio currently doesn't respect library boundaries, so tracks from other libraries can end up in your radio, just like with Instant Mixes
• If the queue gets too long (which could lead to performance issues), Finamp will discard old radio tracks when restoring queues
• While radio is active, looping is not available, since the queue will never end
• You might be curious what the difference between radio and an Instant Mix is:
  • Instant Mixes generate a full queue (or playlist), based on a source. They will include tracks from the source itself
  • Radio generates tracks which are similar to a source, but are not part of the source itself
  • So if you start an instant mix, it will include tracks from the source, but if you start a radio, it won't include those tracks
  • There's an option to "Start Instant Mix" for each item type now, even for albums, playlists, artists, and genres
• In 0.9.21 there's a known issue where some radio modes aren't available at the end of an instant mix, sorry about that :)

@hammy275 originally just wanted a "random" mode that allowed repeating tracks from the existing queue fully randomly. After discussing requirements, alternative approaches, and ways to integrate AudioMuse into Finamp, we came up with the radio idea. Together with @hammy275 we got to work, implementing, testing, discussing, and iterating on the feature to get it ready for everyone!

^* Some radio modes prevent duplicates, so after you've listened to all tracks in your library, the queue will end.

Accent Color Based on System Color Scheme (thanks @flloschy!)

After custom accent colors arrived in the last update, we have how extended the functionality so that Finamp can automatically sync its accent color with the accent color of your system/device. This should work on Android, Windows, Linux, and macOS.
You can enable this via 🔗 Settings > "Layout & Theme" > "Use System Accent".
The system accent color will be preferred over both the default and custom accent colors.

Additionally, you can now use a tinted, colorful version of the Finamp logo throughout the app, for an even more consistent color scheme!

gdbus call \
    --session \
    --dest 'com.unicornsonlsd.FinampSettings' \
    --object-path '/com/unicornsonlsd/Finamp' \
    --method 'com.unicornsonlsd.Finamp.updateAccentColor'

gdbus call \
    --session \
    --dest 'com.unicornsonlsd.FinampSettings' \
    --object-path '/com/unicornsonlsd/Finamp' \
    --method 'com.unicornsonlsd.Finamp.setAccentColor' \
    '#ff0000' # you can also send "default" to clear the accent color

Reorder When Shuffled + Looping, Shuffle & Next Up Now Available on Desktop (thanks @Komodo5197!)

In this release we did some housekeeping on our internal playback code, and as part of that managed to finally properly enable reordering while shuffle is enabled (on all platforms), as well as enabling shuffle, looping queues, and appending tracks to Next Up (which we disabled just last release) on Windows and Linux.

This means the desktop versions of Finamp should now have feature-parity with the mobile versions, aside from some platform-specific differences in available settings!
The mobile apps are still a bit more polished and easier to install than the desktop ones, so don't expect a bug-free experience just yet :)

Moving Tracks Within Queue

After @bsfreq suggested this over on the Finamp Beta Testers Discord server, we decided implement a way to move tracks in the queue right away!
Before this change, you could only create copies of the tracks within the queue and add those copies to Next Up or the end of the queue. Now, if you long-press a track in the queue, there will be an option to "Move Within Queue", which gives you options to "Play next", "Move to Next Up", and "Move to End".
The old behavior of creating a copy is also still available, just switch to the "Play" tab/page for that.
Finamp will remember which page you last used if 🔗 "Remember Last Playback Mode" is enabled.

Other Changes

• Swapped the position of loop mode and shuffle mode buttons on the player screen
  • They were positioned exactly the other way around everywhere else, so it's now consistent. Sorry about the confusion. but this is what a beta is for!
• You can now long-press any (error) message shown in Finamp to dismiss all current messages at once, instead of having to swipe them away one-by-one
• Each item type now has a "Start Instant Mix" option now, even albums, playlists, artists, and genres
  • Those still keep their "Add to Mix" option in addition to the regular instant mix and radio options
• Added warning that downloading all playlists will download all items within those playlists, no matter which library they're in
  • The behavior has always been like this, we just added the warning
• Finamp is now more restrictive about what custom download locations can't be added (thanks @Komodo5197!)
  • If writing to a download location fails, you won't be able to use that location
• We've re-enabled the "Impeller" rendering engine on Android
  • It should be stable enough now, and give modern devices a nice performance boost
• If there are network errors and a track fails to play, Finamp will no longer skip to the next tracks and try loading those
  • Instead, playback stops at the current track, and you can manually skip to the next track or try to restart playback
• Audio offloading is not disabled by default, after our audio plugin received many reports of devices offloading audio even if the device's hardware doesn't support that
  • If you want to go back to offloading, there's a new 🔗 "Force Audio Offloading" setting for that
• Made the tappable area of the player screen back button larger
• Increased the maximum width of track titles on the player screen before the text starts to wrap
• Shrunk floating action buttons for scrolling on the queue panel and lyrics screen

New Settings

• Use the system accent color for Finamp's color scheme
  • 🔗 Settings > "Layout & Theme" > "Use System Accent"
  • Default is disabled (unchanged)
• Use a tinted, monochrome version of the Finamp logo instead of the default one
  • 🔗 Settings > "Layout & Theme" > "Use Monochrome Logo"
  • Default is disabled (unchanged)
• "Duck" (reduce volume) on temporary audio interruptions (notifications, calls, etc.)
  • 🔗 Settings > "Audio Service" > "Reduce Volume on Interruptions"
  • Default is disabled (unchanged)
• Enable audio offloading to dedicated audio DSP hardware
  • 🔗 Settings > "Audio Service" > "Force Audio Offloading"
  • Default is disabled (changed)
• The 🔗 "Max Concurrent Downloads" setting is now available on iOS

Changed Settings

• Default of "Start Instant Mixes for Individual Tracks" changed
  • Default is now disabled
  • This was done because the Instant Mix was unexpected for many people, and the radio is a more deliberate and flexible workaround to fill the queue with related tracks
  • 🔗 Settings > "Interactions" > "Start Instant Mixes for Individual Tracks"

Upcoming Features

We have a lot of features planned for the future, and we're always open to new ideas. Here are some of the things that we're planning to add:

• A proper home screen
• CarPlay support
• ???

You can take a look at the full list and current progress in the Redesign project.
We also have a more up-to-date hackathon project board: https://github.com/users/jmshrv/projects/5

Alright, and that's the last update of 2025!
Unless we have to push out some urgent fixes, of course.
There's a lot in store for next year, when we'll be officially releasing the current beta version as the default version, and of course add many new features and improvements.
Thanks for spending the year with us, thanks for reading through these release notes, and of course:
Thank you for using Finamp!

- Chaphasilor

New Contributors

• @brumik made their first contribution in #1443
• @hammy275 made their first contribution in #1313

Download Links

• Google Play: Join the beta
• TestFlight: Join the beta
• Android .apk: see below
• F-Droid: not available, see above
• Flathub: Download the alpha
• macOS .app: see below for the alpha version