Swinsian for Mac: An In-Depth Look at a Professional Local Music Manager and Player

Step 1: Create/Add a Music Library

When launching Swinsian for the first time, you need to specify the folders it should monitor to build your music library.

1. Click the menu bar Swinsian > Preferences… (shortcut ⌘,).
2. Switch to the “Folders” tab.
3. Click the “+” button below to add the folder where you store your music files (e.g., “~/Music”).
4. Check “Monitor folders for new files” and “Copy files to the Swinsian media folder” (optional, for centralized management).
5. After adding, Swinsian will automatically scan all audio files in that folder and its subfolders, and import their metadata into the database. The scanning progress can be viewed in the status bar at the bottom of the window.

Step 2: Browse and Organize Music

After importing music, you can browse in several ways:

• Browse by Folder: Select the “Folders” view in the sidebar to browse exactly according to the directory structure on your disk.
• Browse by Metadata: Select views such as “Artists,” “Albums,” or “Genres” in the sidebar, and Swinsian will intelligently categorize based on the files’ ID3 tags.
• Use Filters: Enter keywords in the search box above the main content area for a global search. Or click the filter icon to the right of the search box to set combined conditions such as “Rating ≥ 4 stars,” “Year between 2000-2010,” etc.

Step 3: Edit Track Information (Metadata)

Swinsian supports directly editing the metadata of music files, and changes will be written to the files themselves.

1. Select one or more tracks in the main content area.
2. Right-click and select “Edit Info” (shortcut ⌘I).
3. In the pop-up editor, you can modify the title, artist, album, album artist, track number, disc number, year, genre, composer, rating, lyrics, etc.
4. For album artwork, you can drag an image directly onto the artwork area, or right-click and select “Get Album Artwork”.
5. When you’re done editing, click “OK” to save your changes.

Step 4: Create and Use Playlists

Playlists are key to a customized listening experience.

• Create a static playlist: Click the menu bar and choose “File” > “New Playlist” (shortcut ⌘N), or click the “+” button at the bottom of “Playlists” in the sidebar. Name it, then drag tracks from the main content area directly into it.
• Create a smart playlist: Click the menu bar and choose “File” > “New Smart Playlist” (shortcut ⌥⌘N). Set rules (such as “added in the last week” or “5-star rock songs”) to dynamically generate a list whose contents update automatically as your library changes.
• Play a playlist: Click any playlist in the sidebar, then double-click a track in the list to start playback, or select it and press the spacebar to play.

Step 5: Playback Controls and Listening

• Play/Pause: Press the spacebar, or use the play button in the bottom control bar.
• Previous/Next track: ⌘← / ⌘→, or use the corresponding buttons in the bottom control bar.
• Adjust Volume: Use the volume slider in the bottom control bar, or the system-wide volume keys.
• Skip Playback Progress: Drag the progress bar in the bottom control bar, or use the shortcuts ⌘⌥← / ⌘⌥→ to skip forward/backward 10 seconds.
• Switch Playback Mode: Click the repeat/shuffle buttons in the control bar, or use the shortcuts ⌘R (repeat) and ⌘S (shuffle).

Step 6: Export Playlists

Swinsian allows you to export playlists in standard formats for use on other devices or software.

1. Select the playlist you want to export in the sidebar.
2. Click the menu bar “File” > “Export Playlist…”.
3. In the save dialog, choose the export format (e.g., M3U, M3U8, PLS).
4. Choose a save location and click “Save”.

Tip: Exported playlist files only contain references to music file paths. Make sure the file paths on the target device match or the files have been synced.