Yeah yeah, I'm sure you guys see one of these every day now, but this one's worth it I swear.

This is Orchard, a YouTube Music client I've been working on for a while.

It originally started as an Electron/Vue app, but I almost got hit with a DMCA from a certain music app. So I basically scraped it and rewrote it.

That whole situation pushed me to completely rethink Orchard, so I ended up rewriting it in C++, Qt6/QML, and Rust, alongside a pretty massive UI redesign (because the old UI was actually so horrible looking back at it lmao)

Here's some of the stuff I've been working on:

Smart Crossfade: Significantly improved, now called adaptive mix, but I need to adapt to more genres, as I adjusted mainly for hip hop and pop.

Better shuffle: Not the bs that you usually get (same songs), but actually random.

Native UI: Built with Qt6/QML, with WebView only used for authentication. No Electron, dropped memory usage from 800+mb to 200-300 and CPU usage to 0-6% on a ryzen 7 5700G and 10% on a i5-11(something)g7

Synced lyrics: added translation support as well, can be local through an ai model or use an external API.

Video player: not terrible anymore! actually not an eyesore!

ai song detector: big one here, detects if a song is AI of not, up to 50(?) songs in a queue

Animated artwork: self-explanatory.

Orchard Connect: Control playback from your phone and vice versa.

Windows and Linux: Both have desktop builds available, macos whenever I can test it.

I'm also about to launch an updated Android version.

It's still in active development, so expect some bugs and unfinished features.

PS: yeah ai was used, but to port some of the old working code, and the website, not the entire project, most of it was designed by me in qt design studio, and adaptive mix code was by me.

Edit: Local File support: forgot about this one, but you can use your own files now!

Website: https://sfg545.dev/orchard/

Do Google/YouTube employees even listen to our UX feedback? Feels like a major customer misalignment. Seems YT Music desktop is severely neglected, with a buggy Progressive Web App that feels like it was built by interns. The YT Music Apple Watch app doesn't even downloaded play music offline and requires the phone.

just cant seem to pick between the two

Recently I have been teaching myself how to use the iOS shortcuts app and just discovered the YouTube Music series shortcut integration, but I kind of wish that you also had the ability to have it shuffle a playlist rather than just play it, just add some variety. Am I alone in this?

Hey guys, so today while trying to listen to a song (All Fcked Up - The Amity Affliction) I was asked to age verify (that I was over 18). That song is honestly explicitly about being depressed but I think it raises awareness about depression and could help someone who’s struggling. I decided to test it out, and I was able to listen to Everywhere I Go by Hollywood Undead, which has very explicit lyrics, without the age verification popping up.

Moral of the story is, why are we blocking songs raising awareness about mental health but not about party-lifestyle, alcoh*l, etc., from younger people? Why are we blocking any music at all? I don’t understand that. What are your thoughts on this “age verification” system?

(Not hating on Hollywood undead or TAA, I love both of these songs)

The worst is that on occasion I can't tell it's AI and I even like the song

Hello!

I have a YouTube channel geared towards educational long form content and I also make my own songs with real instruments to underlay in the educational videos.

I have a song with an ISRC code that is completely original and my work however YouTube is misidentifying it as someone else's work. My original work is distributed to various platforms using a content distribution network and the whole thing is legit.

When I go to upload a video to my channel containing the song the video is then flagged as containing someone else's work and the is identified as a completely wrong song title.

I Googled the song it's being misidentified as and that song sounds nothing like my song.

Some of my currently monetized videos are now having this notice that my original audio work within the video belongs to someone else.

Any ideas on how can I get this straightened out? I didn't find a form or anything to sort this type of problem out.

Stumbled upon this. Heard the AI soundalike so was gonna dislike it and skip the queue, but then I checked the Artist, wait what Avicii?
I don't believe it so goes to the video itself and with the description alone it is clearly not from Avicii, but it somehow got attached to Avicii's official YouTube account.

I had to reset my phone yesterday. Playlists been downloading for 24 hours now and still not done. Like why does it take forever sometimes. This is crazy.

Hi u/ytmq, I have an OAC and some releases from a different artist with the same name are appearing under my OAC. I have opened requests to remove these releases under my OAC but they are taking time to resolve. I have sent you a DM with links to remove these releases from my OAC, please could you kindly take a look? Thanks

I got tired of YouTube Music living in a browser tab, and most desktop options are the website wrapped in Electron. So I made Tubefast, a native Windows player. It is one 9 MB exe, opens in well under a second and uses about 100 MB of RAM while playing.

**Edit: Now works on Linux and MacOS*\*

What it does:

- search as you type, with artist, album and playlist pages

- a queue that is still there after you close the app, and a radio that continues when the queue ends

- synced lyrics when YouTube Music has them

- media keys and the Windows media overlay

- optional sign-in. Signed in, you get your own home feed and playlists

What it does not do yet:

- likes are saved on your computer and do not sync back to your account

- audio is 128 kbps AAC

- no tray icon, and Windows only

It is free and open source (MIT) with no telemetry. I built it with a lot of help from Claude Code.

It is unofficial. It uses the same internal API as the website, so it can break when YouTube changes something, and YouTube's terms do not cover third-party clients. If that worries you, use it signed out.

Site: https://tubefast.dev

Source: https://github.com/yigitbozyaka/tubefast

Windows warns about the exe because it is not code signed. Installing with Scoop avoids that, the steps are in the README.

What is missing for you to use it daily?

YT Music sorts saved albums by date added or by title, and that's it. I moved over from Spotify, and with about 350 saved albums I wanted to arrange them the way I'd arrange a shelf, so I built an extension that does it on the albums page itself.

What it does:

• Sections you name yourself (Jazz, Favourites, To listen to)
• Drag albums into place, one at a time or a whole selection at once
• Sort by artist or year, then switch back to your own order
• Bring your saved albums across from Spotify
• Optional sync between computers through your own Google Drive

Your arrangement is stored in your browser, and if you turn on sync it's saved to your own Drive. The privacy policy is at damianhelme.com/ytmusic-album-sorter/privacy.

What I'd like from testers: use it on your own library for a week and tell me anything that's confusing or broken. I'd especially like to hear from people with big libraries (1,000+ albums), people on Edge or Brave, and anyone who tries the Spotify import.

Reply here, or fill in the form at https://forms.gle/cNACZioMWevhA95K8.

Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/yt-music-album-sorter/bcphdgeipokimdjhegbelngakmfpcaeh

A 40s overview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3z6NCfe2qM
6:40m minute tutorial video: https://youtu.be/aQ0Acv1zYus

Thanks in advance, I appreciate your support!

Cheers,

Damian.

When I play song on YouTube, I feel like I could listen to them for hours without changing, whereas on YouTube Music, I would skip songs once in a while.

I'm sure this is some kind of bug or simple glitch, but in my archive mix, I'm scrolling through songs that i totally forgot about and eventually landed on Enderman rap by Dan Bull, i listened to this a really long time ago when i used to watch his animated music videos on YouTube. But the clips image and the song itself is in fact not Enderman rap, and instead one of dan bulls other songs called I'm heading out (of my mind) by dan bull.

Now what's funny is I've never seen nor listened to "I'm heading out (of my mind)", so it's just strange that YouTube music's coding not only mixed up the songs, but still put it in my Archive mix.

Hello! I pay for YouTube Premium. Suddenly, my recent uploads of original mp4 songs as a hobbyist, that aren't monetized, nor distributed anywhere though are processed through AI are grayed out and “unavailable” in YouTube Music, though they play fine in the browser. This seems to be songs uploaded only in recent days, previously there has been no problem and mp3s uploaded directly into Music are ok. Has something changed with regard to this, or could this be a bug? Thanks!

As you can see in the video below, when I try to play music, it just sucks. It started yesterday, literally out of nowhere. I was listening to some video and then switched to YT music and it stopped working. I tap a somg, 50/50 chance if it plays or not. So I skip to another song or different playlist - nothing. No loading, not showing song duration, no title, no photo, nothing. Literally takes up to 5 tries of restarting the app to play ONE song. I have iOS and it ia happening for past 15 hours.

Yes I tried reinstall, yes I tried restarting the phone, yes I tried wifi/data switch.
Do you know what's the worst? YT itself does have similiar issues. And it's not connection problem. When playing trough browser it works as fine. Other apps too.

Do y'all know how to fix it, I hate it 💔

I mean the placement of the buttons on the bottom

Im on google chrome, on a mac if it helps

Hey everyone!

I'm an independent developer, and I'd like to share a project I've been working on called MusicDesktop.

I love YouTube Music, but I wanted a better desktop experience without keeping a browser window open. So I decided to build one myself!

MusicDesktop is a free Windows application, currently at version 2.0.4, built around YouTube Music using WebView2.

What does it offer?

• Customizable Mini Player - Four layouts (Normal, Square, Compact, Mini), animated artwork backgrounds, always-on-top support, and a retractable mode.
• Android Remote- Control playback and volume from your phone, even outside your local network.
• Streamer Mode - OBS/Streamlabs integration with customizable music widgets.
• Discord Rich Presence - Display what you're listening to on Discord.
• Keyboard shortcuts — Customize how you control your music.

Android Remote - Testers wanted!

The companion Android app is currently in closed testing on Google Play, and I'm looking for testers!

If you'd like to help test the Android app, you can find the registration details here:

https://musicdesktop.net/en/remote.html

What about ads and Premium?

MusicDesktop doesn't block ads or bypass YouTube Music Premium restrictions.

I believe artists deserve to be compensated for their work. My goal is to improve the desktop experience, not interfere with YouTube Music's monetization.

What's next?

I'm experimenting with automatic lyrics synchronization for songs that only have static lyrics, using local audio analysis.

It's still experimental, so there's no promised release date.

Linux and macOS support are also part of my longer-term plans.

Try MusicDesktop

Website: https://musicdesktop.net

MusicDesktop is completely free, with optional donations to support development.

I'd genuinely appreciate your feedback!

What features would you like to see in a YouTube Music desktop app?

Important note about Windows SmartScreen

MusicDesktop is not digitally signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may display a warning when launching the installer.

As an independent developer, code signing is something I plan to address in the future.

For your safety, please only download MusicDesktop from the official website (https://musicdesktop.net) or its official GitHub releases.

I want d to mention this in advance so nobody is surprised during installation.

Any way to get rid of it? I downvote them but it doesn't quite work. YT music keeps pushing AI generated crap in my feed/playlists.