The best free music players for Windows PCs,A Final Note on VLC and Groove Music
WebJan 30, · Spotify – Best offline music player for Windows iTunes – Best music app for Windows 11 with iPhone/iPad/iPod sync. VLC – Best MP3 player for Windows WebOct 5, · Read: Best Free Music Player with Lyrics Downloader for Windows. Does Windows 11 have a music player? Yes, Windows 11 has a music player in the form WebFeb 22, · Download -- MusicBee (Free for personal use) 3. Winamp. If you can believe it, Winamp is even older than foobar -- by more than five years! Having launched in AdThe world's largest software site. The Best downloads for any device. New blogger.com has been visited by K+ users in the past month% Safe Download · No Malware Guaranteed · % Authentic Software ... read more
It's lightweight enough to let you listen to music on any system, no matter how old, without bogging down performance. And it's simple enough that you won't feel overwhelmed. Yet, it's extensible through plugins, so you can incorporate new functionality if you want. There's a reason why we have it on our list of Best Windows Software. And as long as it doesn't lose its way or make any huge mistakes, it will stay in that spot for years to come. Download -- foobar Free. MusicBee calls itself the ultimate music manager and player, and based on what I've seen, it deserves that description. This player really cares about delivering the best music experience it possibly can and giving you the tools to tweak everything to your liking. Perhaps the best thing about MusicBee, which seems to be missing from a lot of music players these days, is the lively and active community around it.
The forums have thousands of active members and hundreds of new posts every day -- not just for support, but also for user-contributed content like plugins, skins, tips, and tricks. Download -- MusicBee Free for personal use. If you can believe it, Winamp is even older than foobar -- by more than five years! Having launched in , the road has been bumpy at times, and Winamp nearly shut down altogether back in But the current version as of this writing is pretty good. If you ever gave up on Winamp, now might be a good time to try it out again.
That said, Winamp has always been a love-it-or-hate-it kind of program. It's packed full of features that are definitely useful, but the interface is unique and some consider it to be a bloated mess that received too many unnecessary additions over the years. But is it terrible? Not at all. Download -- Winamp Freemium. MediaMonkey is crazy useful for anyone who has a massive media library -- we're talking hundreds of thousands of songs. A lot of music players slow down and choke when trying to manage and process that much data, but MediaMonkey handles it with aplomb. The downside to MediaMonkey, if you can even call it a downside, is that it's perhaps too advanced for a lot of users. Not that it's tough to use, but the interface can be a bit overwhelming to navigate, especially if you're used to something more streamlined like foobar or Winamp.
Overall, however, MediaMonkey's feature set is impressive and worthwhile. Download -- MediaMonkey Freemium. You may not have heard of Dopamine before. Most people haven't, which is such a shame. Because this nifty little music player specifically targets Windows users. It aims to provide a solid music-playing experience with all of the essentials and none of the bloat. Dopamine has a dark and light theme as well as an accent color which can be set as a custom color or it can automatically match your Windows accent color. Point it to however many music library folders you have and it will automatically update based on changes therein. If you're still using a general purpose media player, you're missing out on a wealth of features that can make organizing, expanding and enjoying your music a breeze.
A clear winner emerged in our tests, but the other four free music players we've put through their paces are all superb in their own right and well worth a look — especially if your music collection is fairly small, or you really need a free player that can handle video as well. We update this guide frequently so you know you're always getting the latest information and the best advice. If you're interested in bulking up your music library, check our our guide to the best free YouTube to MP3 converters. Why you can trust TechRadar Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you.
Find out more about how we test. MusicBee is a free music player created for serious music lovers and includes everything you need to manage and enjoy your collection, no matter how large it's reportedly handled a library of over , tracks without a hiccup. This free music player is designed to make the most of your PC's hardware, including top-end soundcards and surround-sound setups, with upmixing for stereo sound. Continuous playback eliminates silences between tracks ideal for Pink Floyd fans , and you can choose to add silences or fades, normalize volume, and experiment with the equalizer. The free music player supports almost every audio format around and converting files is simplicity itself, with presets for different playback devices though for MP3 encoding you'll need to download the LAME codec opens in new tab.
If all of that isn't enough, there's even an Android app opens in new tab for controlling MusicBee remotely, and support for WinAmp plugins. You won't find a more comprehensive free music player, and although it's not open source, it's completely free to use and tinker with for personal use. Read our full MusicBee review. Like all the best free music players, AIMP makes organizing your songs a breeze — even if your collection is currently a sprawling mess of tracks in different formats and locations, with incomplete or missing metadata. Your AIMP library can be built using files from multiple directories and ripped from CDs, with automatic track numbering and tag filling to help you get it in shape. AIMP supports a huge number of formats, and additional encoders are available as user-created add-ons. opens in new tab Most music player extensions are extra visualizations and skins that, although cool, have little practical use. By contrast, AIMP's plugins include some real gems. Some of the highlights are a YouTube extension that lets you build playlists from multiple videos, an add-on for streaming music from SoundCloud opens in new tab , and an extension for controlling the player remotely opens in new tab.
The app also features some unusual built-in tools, including an alarm clock function that starts playing at a certain time, a wind-down setting that shuts down your PC at the end of a playlist, and a voice remover for making your own karaoke tracks. It's not as feature-filled as MusicBee, but its thoughtful design and carefully curated feature-set earn this free music player a respectable second place. Read our full AIMP review. MediaMonkey plays and organizes both music and video, and unlike some dual-purpose media players, it does an excellent job of both. It identifies tracks with missing metadata and searches for the information online, and like MusicBee, its superb tagging tool lets you tag files using industry-standard formats.
You can also tag music during playback, which is a great option that avoids the need to preview snippets of tracks before labelling them with a mood or genre to generate playlists. MediaMonkey arranges your music library in a logical hierarchy, and its File Monitor ensures everything is kept up to date as you add, edit and remove files. It works well, but if you want full manual control you'll need a third-party plugin opens in new tab. As a slightly trimmed-down version of a premium product, MediaMonkey's interface has a little more gloss than its open-source competitors, but at the expense of some features. The paid-for Gold version includes a party mode that locks the interface to prevent guests messing with your carefully curated playlist, built-in conversion for TVs and mobile devices, and MP3 encoding for ripped CDs.
None are essential, but their absence pushes MediaMonkey to third place. Read our full MediaMonkey review. foobar's advanced tagging tool makes light work of cleaning up a messy library, with options including batch processing, automatic metadata completion and track numbering, and copying and pasting data between fields. This free music player will look up metadata for untagged tracks when you rip an audio CD, and can identify and erase duplicated tracks. foobar's library doesn't update in real time, but it can detect changes and remove dead links. foobar supports all common audio formats, and includes a Quick Convert tool with various presets and options for creating your own profiles. If you encounter a file that it can't open, extra codecs are available as user-created plugins, which are installed via the Preferences menu. Rather than flashy skins, foobar features a customizable modular interface that gives you the information you want in a format that's convenient for you.
Modules include album art, search box, playlist manager and various visualizations, with optional tabs for easier navigation.
All music libraries are different, and the right free music player can help you get the most out of yours — particularly if you have a large collection. If you're still using a general purpose media player, you're missing out on a wealth of features that can make organizing, expanding and enjoying your music a breeze. A clear winner emerged in our tests, but the other four free music players we've put through their paces are all superb in their own right and well worth a look — especially if your music collection is fairly small, or you really need a free player that can handle video as well. We update this guide frequently so you know you're always getting the latest information and the best advice. If you're interested in bulking up your music library, check our our guide to the best free YouTube to MP3 converters. Why you can trust TechRadar Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
MusicBee is a free music player created for serious music lovers and includes everything you need to manage and enjoy your collection, no matter how large it's reportedly handled a library of over , tracks without a hiccup. This free music player is designed to make the most of your PC's hardware, including top-end soundcards and surround-sound setups, with upmixing for stereo sound. Continuous playback eliminates silences between tracks ideal for Pink Floyd fans , and you can choose to add silences or fades, normalize volume, and experiment with the equalizer.
The free music player supports almost every audio format around and converting files is simplicity itself, with presets for different playback devices though for MP3 encoding you'll need to download the LAME codec opens in new tab. If all of that isn't enough, there's even an Android app opens in new tab for controlling MusicBee remotely, and support for WinAmp plugins. You won't find a more comprehensive free music player, and although it's not open source, it's completely free to use and tinker with for personal use.
Read our full MusicBee review. Like all the best free music players, AIMP makes organizing your songs a breeze — even if your collection is currently a sprawling mess of tracks in different formats and locations, with incomplete or missing metadata. Your AIMP library can be built using files from multiple directories and ripped from CDs, with automatic track numbering and tag filling to help you get it in shape. AIMP supports a huge number of formats, and additional encoders are available as user-created add-ons. opens in new tab Most music player extensions are extra visualizations and skins that, although cool, have little practical use.
By contrast, AIMP's plugins include some real gems. Some of the highlights are a YouTube extension that lets you build playlists from multiple videos, an add-on for streaming music from SoundCloud opens in new tab , and an extension for controlling the player remotely opens in new tab. The app also features some unusual built-in tools, including an alarm clock function that starts playing at a certain time, a wind-down setting that shuts down your PC at the end of a playlist, and a voice remover for making your own karaoke tracks. It's not as feature-filled as MusicBee, but its thoughtful design and carefully curated feature-set earn this free music player a respectable second place.
Read our full AIMP review. MediaMonkey plays and organizes both music and video, and unlike some dual-purpose media players, it does an excellent job of both. It identifies tracks with missing metadata and searches for the information online, and like MusicBee, its superb tagging tool lets you tag files using industry-standard formats. You can also tag music during playback, which is a great option that avoids the need to preview snippets of tracks before labelling them with a mood or genre to generate playlists. MediaMonkey arranges your music library in a logical hierarchy, and its File Monitor ensures everything is kept up to date as you add, edit and remove files. It works well, but if you want full manual control you'll need a third-party plugin opens in new tab. As a slightly trimmed-down version of a premium product, MediaMonkey's interface has a little more gloss than its open-source competitors, but at the expense of some features.
The paid-for Gold version includes a party mode that locks the interface to prevent guests messing with your carefully curated playlist, built-in conversion for TVs and mobile devices, and MP3 encoding for ripped CDs. None are essential, but their absence pushes MediaMonkey to third place. Read our full MediaMonkey review. foobar's advanced tagging tool makes light work of cleaning up a messy library, with options including batch processing, automatic metadata completion and track numbering, and copying and pasting data between fields. This free music player will look up metadata for untagged tracks when you rip an audio CD, and can identify and erase duplicated tracks.
foobar's library doesn't update in real time, but it can detect changes and remove dead links. foobar supports all common audio formats, and includes a Quick Convert tool with various presets and options for creating your own profiles. If you encounter a file that it can't open, extra codecs are available as user-created plugins, which are installed via the Preferences menu. Rather than flashy skins, foobar features a customizable modular interface that gives you the information you want in a format that's convenient for you. Modules include album art, search box, playlist manager and various visualizations, with optional tabs for easier navigation.
Custom layouts can be saved as themes for future use, and you can experiment with different settings using a built-in scratchbox. All in all, foobar is an extremely lightweight and adaptable option that suits smaller music libraries. Read our full foobar review. Open source VLC Media Player is best known for its video-handling chops, but it's also a superb music manager that can play almost any format without installing any additional codecs — and convert between them, too. VLC can also stream music from a local network or the internet, including internet radio stations, which you can set up as a playlist for quick access.
Managing your music is easy — just drag files and directories into the Media Library, and VLC Media Player will sort them all into folders. You can organize tracks by album, artists, genre of any other metadata, and use the built-in search tool to find the song you want. VLC also supports extensions. Most of these are designed to optimize video playback, but a few — including ones for silencing ads opens in new tab on internet radio stations — are specifically for music-lovers. VLC is lightweight and works happily on all versions of Windows from XP onwards. Versions for Mac, Linux, Android and iOS are also available.
If you're looking for a single app to handle both music and video then it's hard to beat, but for music alone, the dedicated tools above will serve you better. Read our full VLC Media Player review. Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time he's written a book, 'The Making of Tomb Raider', alongside podcasting and usually found playing games old and new on his PC and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that's about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.
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15 BEST MP3 Music Players for Windows 10 PC (Free) in 2023,TechRadar Newsletter
AdThe world's largest software site. The Best downloads for any device. New blogger.com has been visited by K+ users in the past month% Safe Download · No Malware Guaranteed · % Authentic Software WebFeb 22, · Download -- MusicBee (Free for personal use) 3. Winamp. If you can believe it, Winamp is even older than foobar -- by more than five years! Having launched in WebJan 30, · Spotify – Best offline music player for Windows iTunes – Best music app for Windows 11 with iPhone/iPad/iPod sync. VLC – Best MP3 player for Windows WebOct 5, · Read: Best Free Music Player with Lyrics Downloader for Windows. Does Windows 11 have a music player? Yes, Windows 11 has a music player in the form ... read more
Modules include album art, search box, playlist manager and various visualizations, with optional tabs for easier navigation. Simple and straightforward. You can also change the theme shade to whatever color makes it easiest for you to see songs at a glance. No problem — Aimp can handle that too, as well as provide editing options for all your audio tags and scheduling options for setting timers or shutdown times if you like mixing music and sleep. Why did we exclude them? Its wide compatibility with lossless and high-quality audio formats, such as FLAC, WAVPack, and Opus, makes it the perfect option for the most music-loving users. MediaMonkey plays and organizes both music and video, and unlike some dual-purpose media players, it does an excellent job of both.
US Edition. Specifications Operating system: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android. Need to convert audio? Privacy Policy Use a different email. It aims to provide a solid music-playing experience with all of the essentials and none of the bloat. Poweramp: the best music player for Android. It is a very simple player to use in its basic functions.
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