In 2025, playing your own music on an iPhone is surprisingly hard, unless you pay Apple or navigate a maze of limitations. So I built my own player from scratch, with full text search, iCloud support, and a local-first experience. GitHub link
Why I Built My Own Audio Player Like many people, I’ve picked up too many subscriptions, some through Apple (iCloud, Apple Music), others got lost in random platforms (like Netflix, which I forgot I was still paying for). I actually used Apple Music regularly (and previously Spotify), but the streaming turned out to be more convenience than necessity. With a curated local library, I didn’t lose much, just the lock-in.
You do not.
how does one add them then? I am looking at music and none of the MP3s on my phone are availabe to be played, nor do I see an option to add any.
It’s really just drag and drop. I always drop the album folder, with all mp3s and then edit all with correct meta information, album cover etc, if needed.
Edit: you have to do this, in order to add them to the itunes/music library. It actually makes copies of the mp3s in the library folder iirc.
It doesn’t even look for music on the hard drive, that’s why it has to be added to the music library.
I have never connected my phone iPhone to my Mac. I do not even have iTunes installed on my Mac.
It’s called Music on the Mac, but it’s still basically iTunes. You might have it installed and not realize it.
Note, the syncing process happens in a Finder window.
Did you ever have an iPod? Do you remember how you had to have a library on the computer which then synced to your iPod? That’s how this works. Create a local library on a computer, and then sync that library Apple Music.