System Requirements

Swinsian can be used on any Mac running macOS 10.8 or later.

What file formats are supported?

Most popular audio formats are supported: MP3, AAC, ALAC, WAV, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AIFF, Opus, AC3, APE WavPack, MusePack, DSF, and WMA.

Swinsian also supports albums ripped as a single file together with a cue file, and FLAC, Ogg Vorbis and WavPack files with embedded cue information.

How do I disable notifications?

Notifications can be disabled in the Notifications panel of the System Preferences. Select Swinsian in the list of applications on the left and change the alert style to 'None'.

Why is importing tracks creating new playlists?

If the folders of tracks you are importing contain M3U files they will be imported as new playlists in Swinsian. To prevent this, disable the 'Import M3U files as playlists' option in the preferences.

Does Swinsian write edited tags to the original files?

Yes, Swinsian will write any tags you edit back to the original files. You can customise this behaviour in the preferences if you would prefer to leave the files unchanged. For albums ripped as single files with cue sheets Swinsian will attempt to update the cue file or embedded cue sheet if found.

How do I make Swinsian recognise multiple genres per track?

Turn on the 'Recognise multiple genre tags per track' option in the Tags tab of the Swinsian preferences and Swinsian will show tracks under more than one genre if the genre tag value is a list of comma separated values. For example a track with the genre 'Rock, Pop' will be shown under both 'Rock' and 'Pop' in the browser.

How do I ensure bit perfect playback?

Make sure that both the system wide and Swinsian volume settings are set to maximum. Check that 'Automatically adjust device sample rate' is enabled in the Swinsian preferences. To prevent other applications playing sounds on the same device you may wish to change the audio output device in Swinsian to be different from the system wide output device that is set in the System Preferences.

Can I import my existing iTunes or Music library?

Swinsian can import libraries from iTunes and from the new Music app on Catalina. Playlists and track metadata like play counts will be copied to Swinsian. Automatically syncing changes back to iTunes/Music is not possible.

How do I import my iTunes or Music library?

If you are running macOS Catalina

On Catalina iTunes has been replaced by the new Music application. Swinsian can import the library directly. Either click the import button in the welcome window when you first run Swinsian or use the 'Import Music App Library' command in the File menu.

The 'Import Music App Library' command does not support importing smart playlist rules. If you have smart playlists that you wish to import you will need to export the Music library as an xml file and use the 'Import iTunes Library…' command described below. To export the Music library select 'Export Library…' from the 'Library' section of the 'File' menu in Music.

When importing a Music library Swinsian will not make a new copy of the audio files so it's advisable to disable the 'Keep Music Media folder organised' option in the 'Files' section of the Music preferences so that files aren't moved once they have been imported into the Swinsian library.

If you are running an older version of macOS that comes with iTunes

Make sure that 'Share iTunes Library XML with other applications' is turned on in the Advanced tab of the iTunes preferences. Then use the 'Import iTunes Library…' command in the File menu in Swinsian and select the 'iTunes Library.xml' file in your iTunes folder.

It's also a good idea to disable the 'Keep iTunes Media folder organised' option in iTunes so that it won't move or rename any files once they have been imported into the Swinsian library.

Does Swinsian replace iTunes/Music?

For managing and listening to the music on your Mac Swinsian can replace iTunes/Music entirely. If you use an iOS device you will still need to use iTunes or Music to sync music to the device.

Which iPod models are compatible?

‘Classic’ iPod models are supported (including Mini, Shuffle, Video and older Nanos). Devices running iOS are only partially supported; copying tracks from them onto your computer may be possible for some devices, but changing the library on the device is not possible. This is due to encryption of the database file checksum by Apple. All iOS devices require FUSE for macOS to be installed before they can be read. The newest iPod Nanos are not supported.

Can I copy files from my iPods to my computer?

Yes, Swinsian supports copying music files from iPods to the local library, or directly from one connected iPod to another connected iPod (as long as the target device can be written to, see above).

Adding music to my empty iPod didn't work - why not?

Some newer iPod models need to be initialised by iTunes before Swinsian can add music to them. Add at least one track using iTunes before adding music with Swinsian.

Why isn't my iPod shown in Swinsian when I plug it in?

Classic style iPods need to be set to allow disk use before Swinsian can read them. This can be done by enabling the ‘Enable disk use’ checkbox in the iPod settings in iTunes. This only needs to be done once.

Does Swinsian support ripping CDs?

No, Swinsian does not currently support burning or ripping CDs. For ripping CDs you may want to try Max.

How many computers can I install Swinsian on?

Swinsian licenses are per user rather than per computer, so you can use the same license on as many computers as you own.