The best free music players in 2022: organize and bask your music collection

Woman listening to music on laptop
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

All music libraries are different, and the correct gratuitous music player can assist you get the well-nigh out of yours – particularly if you have a large collection.

If you're nevertheless using a general purpose media actor, you're missing out on a wealth of features that tin can brand organizing, expanding and enjoying your music a breeze.

A clear winner emerged in our tests, merely 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 drove is fairly minor, or yous really need a free player that can handle video as well.

We update this guide ofttimes and so you know you're always getting the latest data and the best communication. If you lot're interested in bulking up your music library, bank check our our guide to the best free YouTube to MP3 converters.

  • Want to take your music on the go? Read our guide to the best MP3 players

The all-time free music players at a glance

  1. MusicBee
  2. AIMP
  3. MediaMonkey
  4. foobar2000
  5. VLC Media Actor

MusicBee

(Epitome credit: Steven Mayall)

1. MusicBee

The best gratuitous music player overall

Specifications

Operating organisation: Windows

Reasons to buy

+

Supports huge music libraries

+

Advanced metadata editing

+

Playback optimization

MusicBee is a gratis music player created for serious music lovers and includes everything you lot need to manage and enjoy your collection, no affair how large (information technology's reportedly handled a library of over 500,000 tracks without a hiccup).

This gratis music player is designed to brand the most of your PC's hardware, including top-end soundcards and surround-audio setups, with upmixing for stereo audio. Continuous playback eliminates silences between tracks (ideal for Pink Floyd fans), and you tin 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 demand to download the LAME codec).

If all of that isn't enough, there's fifty-fifty an Android app for controlling MusicBee remotely, and support for WinAmp plugins. You won't find a more than comprehensive complimentary music player, and although it'southward not open up source, it'south completely free to use and tinker with for personal use.

Read our full MusicBee review

AIMP

(Image credit: AIMP DevTeam)

ii. AIMP

Manage fifty-fifty the messiest library with superior tagging options

Specifications

Operating system: Windows, Android

Reasons to buy

+

Works with multiple directories

+

Automated tagging

+

Web interface

Like all the all-time costless 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 tin be built using files from multiple directories and ripped from CDs, with automatic rail numbering and tag filling to assist yous go it in shape.

AIMP supports a huge number of formats, and additional encoders are bachelor equally user-created add-ons. Most music player extensions are extra visualizations and skins that, although absurd, have little practical utilise. By dissimilarity, AIMP'due south plugins include some real gems. Some of the highlights are a YouTube extension that lets you lot build playlists from multiple videos, an add-on for streaming music from SoundCloud, and an extension for decision-making the thespian remotely.

The app besides features some unusual congenital-in tools, including an alarm clock role that starts playing at a certain time, a wind-downwardly setting that shuts down your PC at the end of a playlist, and a voice remover for making your own karaoke tracks.

Information technology's non every bit characteristic-filled as MusicBee, just its thoughtful design and carefully curated feature-fix earn this free music player a respectable 2nd identify.

Read our full AIMP review

MediaMonkey

(Image credit: Ventis Media)

three. MediaMonkey

Automatic tagging tools make this a nifty complimentary player for all media

Specifications

Operating arrangement: Windows

Reasons to purchase

+

Finds missing metadata

+

Logical arrangement of tracks

Reasons to avoid

-

Some features are paid-but

MediaMonkey plays and organizes both music and video, and unlike some dual-purpose media players, information technology does an excellent task 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.

Y'all can as well tag music during playback, which is a great selection that avoids the need to preview snippets of tracks earlier 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 engagement as you add, edit and remove files. It works well, but if y'all desire full transmission control y'all'll need a third-party plugin.

Every bit a slightly trimmed-downwardly version of a premium product, MediaMonkey'southward 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

foobar2000

(Epitome credit: Peter Pawlowski)

4. foobar2000

A customizable modular actor suited to small music collections

Specifications

Operating organisation: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

Reasons to buy

+

Erases duplicated tracks

+

File conversion tool

Reasons to avoid

-

No real-time updating

foobar2000'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 gratuitous music player will wait up metadata for untagged tracks when yous rip an audio CD, and can identify and erase duplicated tracks. foobar2000's library doesn't update in real time, simply information technology can detect changes and remove dead links.

foobar2000 supports all common audio formats, and includes a Quick Catechumen tool with diverse presets and options for creating your own profiles. If you encounter a file that information technology tin't open, extra codecs are available every bit user-created plugins, which are installed via the Preferences menu.

Rather than flashy skins, foobar2000 features a customizable modular interface that gives you the information you lot want in a format that's user-friendly for you. Modules include anthology fine art, search box, playlist manager and various visualizations, with optional tabs for easier navigation. Custom layouts can be saved as themes for time to come utilise, and you tin can experiment with dissimilar settings using a built-in scratchbox.

All in all, foobar2000 is an extremely lightweight and adaptable option that suits smaller music libraries.

Read our full foobar2000 review

VLC Media Player

(Epitome credit: VideoLAN; Shutterstock)

5. VLC Media Player

It's chiefly for video, just VLC is also a superb free music player

Specifications

Operating arrangement: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android

Reasons to purchase

+

Astonishing format support

+

Highly customizable

Reasons to avert

-

Tagging tin be tricky

Open source VLC Media Player is best known for its video-treatment chops, but information technology's likewise a superb music manager that can play virtually any format without installing any additional codecs – and convert betwixt them, too.

VLC can too stream music from a local network or the internet, including net radio stations, which y'all can gear up as a playlist for quick admission.

Managing your music is easy – only elevate files and directories into the Media Library, and VLC Media Actor volition sort them all into folders. Y'all can organize tracks by album, artists, genre of any other metadata, and use the congenital-in search tool to find the vocal y'all want.

VLC as well supports extensions. Well-nigh of these are designed to optimize video playback, merely a few – including ones for silencing ads 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 bachelor. If you're looking for a single app to handle both music and video so it's hard to crush, but for music alone, the defended tools higher up volition serve you lot better.

Read our full VLC Media Actor review

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Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, at present 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 former and new on his PC and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app or one that'southward about to launch, drop him a line.

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