Thank You for the Music, iTunes

Thank You for the Music, iTunes — A 2026 Update

This article started life as a post about finally giving up on iTunes and Apple Music in favour of Plexamp. That journey is still worth telling, but enough has changed since then to warrant a proper revisit.

TL:DR – The short version: Plexamp served me well for a while, but I have since moved on again — this time to AIMP on Android. The longer version is below.

Where it all began

A few years ago I wanted to buy a single track — Kometenmelodie 2 by Kraftwerk, from the Autobahn album — to complete a gap in my music library. I had the CD in a box somewhere, but I thought it would be quicker and cheaper to buy it digitally. I was emotional about the passing of Florian Schneider, and this was a track that had mattered to me since boyhood. What I discovered was that buying a single track on Apple Music had become a genuinely difficult thing to do.

Every path through the app led to a subscription prompt for Apple Music. As someone who has always cared about owning my music rather than renting it, I had Apple Music's streaming features switched off in preferences. That meant the app was increasingly working against me rather than for me. I concluded that iTunes — in any form — was effectively dead for my purposes, and started looking for a replacement.

The case against subscription streaming

I want to be clear about what I was looking for, because it shapes every decision that follows. I was not interested in Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, Tidal, or any other subscription streaming service. I have a library of music I own — ripped CDs, purchased downloads, vinyl digitised over the years, and the odd oddity like The Beatles USB stick. I want to play that library, on multiple devices, without a monthly fee and without handing control of my collection to a platform that might change its terms or disappear.

I create mobile apps for a living, so I run an unusually wide range of devices: iOS, Android, macOS, and Linux. Whatever I chose had to work credibly across all of them.

Neutron Player

I had long used Neutron Player, which still has genuinely excellent audio quality thanks to its 32/64-bit audio rendering engine. But its interface remains idiosyncratic, and it lacks the kind of multi-device library curation I was after. It is a brilliant tool for serious listening on a single device; it is not a whole-library management solution.

Plexamp — the middle chapter

I already ran a Plex Media Server for films, and when I looked more closely at Plexamp I found it described as:

My first encounter had put me off because the release notes promoted a Tidal integration — another subscription I had no need for. On closer reading, though, Tidal was optional. All you actually needed was a Plex Media Server and an active Plex Pass, both of which I already had. The server just had no music on it.

That meant a project: sorting through twenty years of accumulated music files. My Music folder was a genuine mess. Ripped CDs sat alongside purchased downloads and files from outside the Apple ecosystem, all spread inconsistently across nested folders with names like /Music/iTunes/Apple Music/ and /Music/iTunes/Apple Music/iTunes/Apple Music Music/. Plex expects a clean hierarchy: Music/ArtistName/AlbumName/TrackNumber - TrackName.ext. Getting there took hours, but it was worth it.

Once the library was in order, Plexamp was excellent. The audio quality was high, the automatic curation of artwork and band information was impressive, offline playlist support worked well, and it had a proper visualiser — something Apple Music had buried so deeply it might as well not have existed. It ran on iOS, Android, macOS, and Linux, which ticked every box.

X Lossless Decoder — XLD

Replacing iTunes also meant replacing its CD ripper. I settled on X Lossless Decoder (XLD), which rips to lossless formats including FLAC, is well documented, open source, and works reliably on macOS. For Blu-ray and DVD I use MakeMKV as before. Apple has never provided a Blu-ray importer — ripping CDs is tolerated; ripping films is not — and that position has not changed.

Backups

With a library that took hours to build, backups matter. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the Plex music library to an external drive, in addition to Time Machine. The external drive also serves as a portable copy of the whole collection if I ever need it away from home.

2026 update — what has changed

Plexamp served me well for a good stretch. But over time I found myself using it less on Android, and more often reaching for something else. Plex as a platform has continued to evolve in directions that suit film and TV libraries more than music collections, and the Plex Pass subscription — while reasonable — is another ongoing cost. For my Android devices in particular, I have now settled on AIMP.

AIMP is a local music player developed by Artem Izmaylov. It is free, carries no advertising, and plays from local storage or a network share without requiring any server infrastructure or subscription. On Google Play it has accumulated over 50 million downloads and a 4.3-star rating across nearly half a million reviews — numbers that reflect a genuinely large and loyal user base rather than casual installs. The most recent Android release at the time of writing is version 5.40, updated in April 2026, with a further release in May 2026.

The audio quality is strong, the interface is straightforward without being dumbed down, and it handles large local libraries without complaint. For Android, it does everything I need. The honest caveat is that I have not found an iOS equivalent that works the way I want — that search continues. On macOS and Linux, my Plex setup remains in place.

The broader picture in 2026 is that the landscape for local music playback has actually improved. There are now more credible options for people who want to own their libraries and play them without a subscription than there were when iTunes was the only serious game on the Mac. The streaming services have grown larger and more dominant, but so has the quiet counter-movement of people who prefer to own what they listen to.

Deleted Apple Music

I did delete Apple Music from my main machine. It may be a token gesture, but the analytics will show I have moved on. The app that Steve Jobs introduced in 2001 as a simple CD ripper and music organiser became something quite different — a storefront that treated my existing library as an inconvenience. That is not a criticism of streaming as a concept; it is just not what I want.

Where things stand

The current setup, for anyone who wants the summary:

• CD ripping (macOS): XLD to FLAC
• Library server: Plex Media Server with Plex Pass
• Playback on macOS and Linux: Plexamp
• Playback on Android: AIMP (free, no ads, local library)
• Playback on iOS: Still looking for the right answer
• Backups: Carbon Copy Cloner plus Time Machine

None of this requires a monthly subscription. All of it plays the music I own, at the quality I ripped it at, on the devices I actually use. That was the goal from the start.

What next

The LP collection still needs digitising. That really is another story — and one that has been waiting long enough.

See also:

This article was originally published on LinkedIn and has been substantially updated for 2026.

Note: iTunes, Apple Music, Mac and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc. Plex, Plexamp and Plex Media Server are trademarks of Plex. AIMP is developed by Artem Izmaylov. MakeMKV, XLD, Carbon Copy Cloner and other product names are used for reference only and remain the property of their respective owners.