We often talk about how powerful web browsers have become; from simple programs that let you access HTML pages, they have turned into very powerful apps that support many other file formats. The modern browser can open images, play videos, and allow you to read PDF documents. So what’s stopping us from taking advantage of the many file types that our browser can support? Case in point; what if you wanted to ditch your music player and use Chrome instead? With no additional apps or extensions installed, you can open an MP3 file in Chrome by dragging & dropping it on to a tab, or by using the Ctrl+O function and selecting it from your library and the file will play. But we want something better; a more feature rich player that supports our music library and here’s three ways to get all that.
Chrome Extension
It’s one of the most obvious and the easiest ways to play music in Chrome though the Chrome Web Store is littered more with extensions that play music from Spotify, YouTube, and Pandora. Achshar Player is a Chrome extension dedicated to your local music. Not only can does it support playlists but it also features support for directories, sorting by artists, songs, and albums, a search feature, and shuffle and loop features. The interface is lack luster though and it might take something away from your experience. The player opens in a tab and the tab must be kept open at all times.
If you want to separate the music player from any and all Chrome windows you have open, you can use a Chrome App and we found two amazing ones that support directories, shuffle, loop, and more with an amazing interface to boot.
Remo is available as both an HTML5 based web app, and as a Chrome App with an Android app that lets you control playback. Not only does it play music but also supports lyrics and an equalizer. The Chrome app does not fetch lyrics but instead supports them if they are embedded in the music file. It supports MP3 format files. To create a playlist, open a directory and select which songs you want to play. Remo does not allow you to save the playlist so you will have to recreate it each time you use the app. If you decide to rely on it, consider creating playlists by sorting songs into folders and then selecting them.
MP3 Player is another Chrome app that has fewer features compared to Remo but a more compact design that gives a clean look. It supports directories, shuffle, and loop features. All songs in a selected directory can be listed with the name of the artist and album. Sadly, this app does not support playlists.
You can use Remo’s web app to play local music files and it is by far the best and most aesthetically pleasing web app we found for playing local music. Alternatively, there is the MP3 Player by Antimatter. It can load your entire music library and lets you search for songs by name or artist. It supports track shuffling but not looping.
Fatima has been writing for AddictiveTips for six years. She began as a junior writer and has been working as the Editor in Chief since 2014.
Fatima gets an adrenaline rush from figuring out how technology works, and how to manipulate it. A well-designed app, something that solves a common everyday problem and looks
Remo is good, the best looking of these three, but the album art is too small.
Thanks, very useful.
You don’t need to keep achshar player’s window open at all times. It runs as a background app so you can even close all browser window and your music will keep running. PS I made the player, if you are facing any problems, you can always hit me up. Thanks for featuring it!
You didn’t described the most basci way. For ex if songs are stored in d drive simply type d:// and d rive will get opened and you could easily navigate.
But that can sadly only play 1 song at a time. That is unless you have found a way to play 1 song after another. If so, then could you please tell me that way?
I didn’t know this! Remo is great and your choice of music is not bad either 😀
Yeah Remo is perhaps the best audio player for Chrome/ChromeOS yet and AFAIK is the only one that features an equalizer. However I don’t like the playlist management though (at least on ChromeOS). I’m not sure if I’m doing it right but there seems to be no way to add new songs to the playlist if it was already populated. I found that the only way to add new songs is to re-add everything again (both songs that were already in the playlist and the new songs I wanted to add). Otherwise the newly added songs will replace the current playlist. I think the developer need to do something about it, though unless it’s a limitation in ChromeOS then the burden to fix it should be on Google.
Remo is good, the best looking of these three, but the album art is too small.
Thanks, very useful.
You don’t need to keep achshar player’s window open at all times. It runs as a background app so you can even close all browser window and your music will keep running. PS I made the player, if you are facing any problems, you can always hit me up. Thanks for featuring it!
You didn’t described the most basci way. For ex if songs are stored in d drive simply type d:// and d rive will get opened and you could easily navigate.
But that can sadly only play 1 song at a time. That is unless you have found a way to play 1 song after another. If so, then could you please tell me that way?
I didn’t know this! Remo is great and your choice of music is not bad either 😀
Yeah Remo is perhaps the best audio player for Chrome/ChromeOS yet and AFAIK is the only one that features an equalizer. However I don’t like the playlist management though (at least on ChromeOS). I’m not sure if I’m doing it right but there seems to be no way to add new songs to the playlist if it was already populated. I found that the only way to add new songs is to re-add everything again (both songs that were already in the playlist and the new songs I wanted to add). Otherwise the newly added songs will replace the current playlist. I think the developer need to do something about it, though unless it’s a limitation in ChromeOS then the burden to fix it should be on Google.