Music Player Overview
Homecrate is a personal music player built around your own collection. You import tracks from your device, a local network (via Plex), or ZIP archives — and they live in your library, playable offline, enriched with AI metadata, and organized the way you want.
This page gives you a map of the full player experience before you dive into any single feature.
The Four Tabs
The app is organized into four main tabs at the bottom of the screen:
| Tab | What it does |
|---|---|
| Library | Browse and manage your music collection by artist, album, playlist, or all tracks |
| Now Playing | Full-screen playback controls, artwork, lyrics, track info, and audio tools |
| Analytics | Listening stats, charts, trivia, and achievements |
| Settings | Plex connection, analytics tiers, Pro features, and account |
The Library Screen
[SCREENSHOT: Library screen — header button row, filter tabs, artist grid]
The Library screen has three zones:
Header button row — Quick-access tools: Record (opens the studio), Amp (opens homecrate amp), Tuner, Games, and Plex import. These are all Pro features.
Filter tabs — Switch between Artists, Albums, Playlists, and All tracks. The active tab is highlighted in green.
Content grid — The browseable content for the selected filter. Artists and Albums display as a two-column card grid; All Tracks and Playlists display as a scrollable list.
＋ button — Opens the import flow. See Importing Music.
The Now Playing Screen
[SCREENSHOT: Now Playing screen — artwork, controls, track info]
The Now Playing screen has three zones:
Artwork area — The album art, displayed as a large rounded card. Tap it to flip to the album track list. Synced lyrics (karaoke mode) overlay the artwork when enabled.
Track info + controls — Title, artist, quality badge, and action buttons (lyrics, spatial audio, spectral 3D, equalizer). Below that, the seek bar and playback controls.
Metadata panel — Scroll down below the thin separator line to reveal full track metadata: album, year, quality, ISRC, lyrics, Shazam identification, and music theory analysis.
How Music Gets In
There are three ways to add music to your library:
- Import from Files — Tap ＋ in the Library header and pick audio files or a ZIP archive from Files, iCloud Drive, or any connected storage. See Importing Music.
- Import via Plex — Connect to a Plex Media Server on your local network to stream or download your Plex library. Requires Pro. See Importing via Plex.
- ZIP archives — Drop a
.zipof audio files from AirDrop or a Files app share and Homecrate will detect it and offer to import its contents automatically.
What Gets Stored
When you import a track, Homecrate copies it into its own private storage so it’s always available regardless of where the original file came from. The database stores:
- Title, artist, album, track number, disc number
- Duration, quality (e.g. FLAC 24-bit/96kHz)
- Album art (extracted from the file’s embedded tags)
- Lyrics and synced lyrics (if embedded)
- Genre, year, ISRC, comment
- Shazam match data (after identification)
- Music theory analysis (after running Analyze Key & Mood)
- Listening history and analytics
Next Steps
- Ready to add music? See Importing Music.
- Already have music and want to play it? See The Now Playing Screen.
- Want to connect Plex? See Importing via Plex.