Questions, answered.

Musical is a music library and player for music you own — CDs you’ve ripped, downloads you’ve bought and records you’ve digitised. It brings everything into one beautiful library on your Mac, then lets you listen on your iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, in the car with CarPlay, and around the house with AirPlay.

No. There’s no catalogue, no subscription and nothing to rent. Musical plays the music you already own.

Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, plus CarPlay and AirPlay. Musical is built for Apple devices, so there’s no Windows or Android version at the moment. The Mac app also syncs albums and playlists to a classic iPod, and can act as a DLNA server, so smart TVs, hi-fi systems and other DLNA players around the house can play your library too.

There’s a full list of what each app can do on the home page.

A Mac is the best home for a big collection, and it can share your library with your other devices. But it isn’t required: your iPhone or iPad can be a standalone player with its own library. Apple TV and CarPlay play from another device, such as your Mac or iPhone.

No. There are no logins, emails, newsletters or subscriptions. You just install it and play.

The Mac app is free to download from this website. The iPhone, iPad and Apple TV apps are a single $4.99 purchase on the App Store, shown in your local currency. There’s no subscription.

One purchase gives you the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV apps, with CarPlay and AirPlay built in.

So it’s easy to start. Get your music organised for free, and if you enjoy it, add the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV apps to complete the picture.

The best support is using Musical and telling a friend who loves music. If you’d like to do more, you can buy us a coffee — it’s completely optional, and it helps keep Musical going. A review on the App Store, or an idea on the feedback board, helps too.

The Mac app is free, so there’s nothing to refund. App Store purchases are handled by Apple, who decide on refunds. We’ve put the steps on our returns & refunds page.

On your own devices and drives, wherever you choose to keep it. Musical never uploads your collection to a central music server, and we don’t store your music, library or listening history on any server.

Choose the folders and drives where your music lives and Musical brings it together into one library. You can also drag and drop files or artwork in. Musical watches your folders, so new or changed files show up on their own.

Put a disc in your Mac and Musical recognises it, brings in the artwork and lyrics, adds it to your library and starts playing it in full screen. You can choose “Just Play”, or “Ask to Import” to check the track list first, pick the format (for example Apple Lossless), and decide whether to eject the disc afterwards.

Most current Macs don’t have a built-in disc drive, so you’ll need an external USB CD drive.

Copying CDs isn’t allowed in every country — see our note on ripping, piracy and paying artists.

It depends on where you live. The law on copying CDs — including ripping a disc you own for your own personal use — differs from country to country, and in some countries it isn’t allowed. It’s your responsibility to know and follow the laws where you live, and to only use Musical with music you have the right to use. Nothing here is legal advice.

No. We don’t condone piracy, and Musical isn’t a way to get music you haven’t paid for. We love the music community and want people to get paid where they deserve — so buy the albums you love, see artists live, and back the musicians and labels behind your favourite music.

Musical is built to help with that: preview music, get suggestions, and keep a Hunt List of albums you want to buy. Read more in our privacy policy.

Yes. Musical fills in details automatically, and you can edit information and artwork by hand whenever you like.

Musical doesn’t own, host or supply any lyrics, artwork or other third-party content. If you turn on automatic lyrics or artwork downloads, your own device fetches them from third-party sources, for your own personal use. Timed lyrics for singing along are available depending on the song.

That content belongs to its respective owners, and you’re responsible for using it in line with their rights where you live. You can switch these downloads off in settings. See our privacy policy for more.

FLAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC), WAV, AIFF, AAC (M4A) and MP3, which covers ripped CDs, purchased downloads, old iTunes libraries and digitised records. Playback is bit-perfect: your files play exactly as they are, with no re-encoding, and you can see the format and bitrate of the track that’s playing.

If a file won’t play, tell us its format on the feedback board and we’ll look into it.

No. If you let Musical prepare lower-quality copies for slower connections, those are separate copies. Your originals aren’t modified.

Your devices connect to each other peer-to-peer. At home they connect locally; away from home they connect remotely. The only thing kept on a server is a set of encrypted connection IDs that let your devices find each other. Paired devices reconnect automatically.

To stream from your Mac, it needs to be awake with Musical open and sharing its library. Anything you’ve downloaded to another device plays without it.

Yes. Download the albums you want to your iPhone or iPad and play them with no connection at all.

You choose the quality for Wi-Fi and for mobile data, so a weak signal or a small data plan isn’t a problem. Musical also plays a copy that’s already on your device whenever there is one, which saves bandwidth automatically.

Yes, both are built in. Send music to speakers around your home with AirPlay, and browse and play your library on your car’s screen with CarPlay.

Yes. Any of your devices can act as a remote for the others: run your Mac, another Mac, your Apple TV or your iPhone from wherever you are, and switch where music plays from the device picker.

Yes, over DLNA. Turn on the DLNA server in Musical for Mac and your library appears on smart TVs, AV receivers, network speakers, games consoles and any other DLNA player on your home network. Browse and play from the device itself; nothing is uploaded anywhere.

Yes. See everything downloaded to the device in one place, check how much space it takes up, and remove albums you no longer need. Anything you remove stays in your library and can be downloaded again any time.

Yes. Plug a classic click-wheel iPod into your Mac over USB and Musical recognises it. Pick the albums and playlists you want to take with you and sync them across, and bring music that’s already on the iPod back into your library. Lyrics and playlists go with the music and play counts come back, just like a native sync. iPods running Rockbox work too.

iPod touch works differently (it syncs through Apple’s own software), so it isn’t supported. See how iPod sync works on the home page.

Musical can suggest artists and albums that fit your collection, show missing albums by artists you own, and let you preview music before you buy — powered by iTunes, so you can buy or download from there. Add anything you’re still looking for to your Hunt List, so it’s easy to pull up at the record shop. Everything is optional, and you can turn suggestions off.

No. Your play statistics are worked out and kept on your own device. The only thing we store on a server is encrypted connection IDs so your devices can find each other. Read the full privacy policy.

Post it on the feedback board. Others can vote, like and comment, and you can follow its progress.

The roadmap shows what’s planned, in progress and shipped, and it’s updated as things change.

Head to the contact page. We read every message.