Frequently asked
questions

Three ways. (1) Wi-Fi Transfer: open Settings → Import from Wi-Fi, scan the QR code on your Mac, and drag audio files from Finder into the browser page that opens in Safari. (2) Files app: on iPhone or iPad, long-press audio files in the Files app and choose Share → Plinth. (3) On Mac: drag audio files or folders directly onto the Plinth window. All three methods copy the files locally so they're available offline.

No. Plinth is a local player — it always copies files to your device on import. This means your music plays instantly with no buffering, works on a plane, and isn't affected by your internet connection or a streaming service going down.

FLAC, WAV, ALAC (Apple Lossless), AIFF, MP3, M4A, and AAC. OGG Vorbis and Opus are not supported — AVFoundation, the Apple audio framework Plinth is built on, does not decode these formats natively.

Yes. Plinth is a universal purchase — one App Store payment gives you the same app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. On Mac, you can drag audio files and folders directly onto the app window to import them.

Research Mode is a unique playback mode that automatically seeks to the midpoint of each track, plays 15 seconds, then advances to the next song. It's designed for rediscovering large libraries — you can work through hundreds of albums in a single evening without committing to full listens. Enable it from the playback mode button in the mini player or Now Playing screen.

Yes to both. Gapless playback is enabled by default — there's no silence inserted between tracks. Crossfade duration is configurable in Settings → Playback.

Plinth reads the actual bit depth and sample rate from your audio files. A "Lossless" badge appears for FLAC, ALAC, WAV, and AIFF files. A "Hi-Res Lossless" badge appears when the file is also 96 kHz or higher. These are informational — Plinth doesn't apply any additional processing.

Yes. Connect your iPhone to a CarPlay-compatible head unit and Plinth appears automatically. You can browse Albums, Artists, and Songs, and all playback modes — including Shuffle and Research Mode — are available via the Now Playing controls on your dashboard.

Completely. Once your music is imported, nothing requires an internet connection for playback. The AI DJ needs a connection only when using a cloud provider (Grok or an OpenAI-compatible endpoint) — Apple Intelligence and Ollama both work fully offline.

When you enable AI DJ, Plinth builds a prompt from your current track, your recent listening history, and your full library (grouped by artist and album). It sends this prompt to your chosen AI provider and asks for song suggestions from your own library. Matched tracks are added to your queue automatically. The AI never gains access to your actual audio files — only text metadata.

Three options: Apple Intelligence (fully on-device, iOS/macOS 26+), Ollama (a locally-running model server — your hardware, your model, zero data leaves your machine), and any OpenAI-compatible API endpoint, including Grok, OpenAI, and self-hosted alternatives. You bring your own API key for cloud providers.

When using Apple Intelligence or Ollama, everything runs on your device — nothing is transmitted externally. When using a cloud provider (OpenAI, Grok, etc.), the prompt Plinth sends contains only your track metadata (artist names, album titles, song titles, and genres). No audio, no usage analytics, no account information is included.

The AI is asked to suggest tracks from your library, but language models can occasionally hallucinate titles that don't exist in your collection. Plinth filters suggestions against your actual library before queueing anything — if a suggested track can't be matched, it's silently skipped. If the queue is often empty after an AI fetch, try improving the metadata of your library (artist names, album titles) so the AI's suggestions can be matched more accurately.

After importing albums with incomplete tags, Plinth queries MusicBrainz and the iTunes Search API concurrently to find release information — title, year, genre, and album artwork. You review each suggestion in a sheet before anything is applied. Accepted changes are written back to the audio files themselves so your tags are portable.

Yes. Long-press any track or album to open the Edit Metadata sheet. You can change the title, artist, album artist, album, genre, year, track number, disc number, and artwork. Changes are written back to the audio file immediately.

Album Artist is the grouping key. If a compilation album has 12 different track artists but one Album Artist ("Various Artists"), Plinth treats it as a single album under that Album Artist. Without an Album Artist tag, Plinth groups by the track-level Artist field, which can cause compilation albums to split into many single-track "albums" — one per artist.

Yes. In Now Playing, tap the ellipsis (⋯) menu and choose Search Lyrics. Plinth searches the LRCLIB database and shows results. Tap any result to attach it to the song — lyrics are stored in the app and shown in a dedicated view during playback.

Yes, locally. Plinth records play counts, skip counts, and listening time per track, album, and artist. This data stays on your device and is used only to power the Stats tab and to give the AI DJ context. It is never uploaded anywhere.

No. Plinth is a one-time purchase on the App Store. There are no in-app purchases, no premium tier, and no recurring fees. Everything described on this site is included in the base purchase.

No. Plinth is a Universal Purchase. Buy it once on the App Store and it's available on all your iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices linked to the same Apple ID.

There is no free trial at this time. Check the App Store page for the current price before purchasing.