Hey everyone,
For anyone who hasn't tried it yet, Harmony Music is a free, open-source music streaming app powered by YouTube Music. It gives you a clean, ad-free experience without needing to log into a Google account.
Since the original developer (anandnet) stopped updating the project, search and playback broke for a lot of people. I started maintaining this fork to keep the app working. My last release passed 2,000+ downloads, and I just put out v1.23.0 with a lot of fixes.
How Harmony Music compares to other FOSS music apps (like RiMusic, OuterTune, or Spotube):
- Works on Desktop and Mobile: Most open-source YouTube Music apps are Android-only. Harmony Music runs natively on Android, Windows, and Linux while staying lightweight on RAM and battery.
- No login or ban risk: You don't need to sign into your Google or Spotify account, so there is zero risk of your account getting flagged or banned.
- Offline downloads and caching: You can download songs for offline listening (including to an SD card on Android) or let the app automatically cache tracks as you stream to save mobile data.
What makes my fork different from other Harmony Music forks:
- 1-click in-app updates: You don't have to keep checking GitHub manually. The app tells you when a new update is out and lets you update in one click without installing a duplicate app or losing your data.
- Ready-to-install files for all OSes: You don't have to compile the code yourself on Linux or Windows. I set up automated builds for Android (.apk), Windows (.exe), and Linux (.AppImage, .deb, and .rpm).
- Fixed playback and endless radio: Playing a song from search or starting a radio station now properly loads upcoming tracks instead of stopping after 2 or 3 songs. I also fixed the YouTube streaming blocks that caused tracks not to load.
- Fixed Windows video search: The missing "Videos" tab when searching on the Windows version is back.
- Smoother UI and lyrics: Fixed the lag and screen flickering when synced lyrics are scrolling or when the mini-player updates.
Other features included in the app:
- Real-time synced lyrics and plain lyrics
- Android Auto support, sleep timer, built-in equalizer, and skip silence
- Audio quality selector (Low, Medium, High)
- Import playlists from Piped, or share links directly from the YouTube app into Harmony Music
- Local playlist backup/restore and CSV export
- Quick buttons to open any playing track directly in YouTube or YouTube Music
- Material You dynamic colors (matches the album art), gesture player mode, and desktop system tray support
Downloads and Links:
- GitHub Repo: https://github.com/NPP-exe/Harmony-Music
- Latest Release (v1.23.0): https://github.com/NPP-exe/Harmony-Music/releases/tag/v1.23.0
Note for Android users: If you are updating from the old broken version, back up your playlists in Settings first, uninstall the old app, and install this one. After that, all future updates will install directly inside the app.
Credits:
All credit for the original app design goes to anandnet. Also a big thanks to 'jaxenisr' and 'BandhanPramanik' for helping me set up the Linux packages (.AppImage, .deb, .rpm) and automated build workflows.
Let me know if you run into any bugs or have feature requests!