Plexamp Reviews

by JCVDang

I've been looking to move away from Apple Music and the 100k song limit that comes with the iCloud Music Library, and thought this was the solution: access to my whole library with the option to download for offline listening. What I didn't realize, however, is that trying to access downloaded music on Plexamp when internet is spotty (like commuting on the subway) was basically impossible, so Plexamp is worthless in that regard. I thought this might improve by springing for a Plex Pass, but no dice.

To make matters worse, functionality Plexamp around my home (either on WiFi or cellular data) has cratered into unusability: search function is completely broken in that nothing I type yields any result - it may register the first letter I enter, but that's it. Trying to navigate back to my library results into a molasses-like slowdown before Plexamp finally crashes.

I started out very excited to use this app, and it even worked for a couple of days before becoming mired in an impregnable swamp of frustration.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, maybe it only works on the latest phones - I wish I knew, because I really don't want to go back to Apple Music.

by Pieceofben

Update: latest update added a section for you to go through all your artist, tracks, albums, etc, and gave alphabetical side scrolling!!! As I’ve used Plexamp I’ve noticed when trying to not use any data, Plexamp can act real weird. For instance if you turn of cellular data access to Plexamp , and if you go off WiFi, you cannot scroll through any of your music. You can only shuffle the playlists you have downloaded, and you cannot scroll through those song’s, only play them. Please let us scroll through our music offline if we have downloaded the music. Also please let us download our library easier. Had to make 4 playlists and download them separately in order to get whole library downloaded. Not ideal. It would also be nice to set the new library page as your default when opening Plexamp .

Love it’s functionality and ability to adjust eq on an iOS device. Though I would really enjoy being able to adjust shuffle and repeat on the fly, just like every music app does. This on its own is why I can’t give it 5 stars.
Also would be nice for the “All Music” option at the top to be a little bigger for easier selection.

by Cheese N Rice

Great app to focus on music. Things to consider: Airplay and Cast button to use our phones as a controller and play music on our home speakers such as Sonos. I could use the Sonos app, the Plex player, desktop apps and media streaming devices but then what’s the point of using this mobile app? I personally need it to compete with the DS Audio app for starters. It currently takes a lot of work for users but we need something easier than using iTunes to create smart playlists to download, edit to add FLAC, then attempt to import/upload/sync into Plex. If done correctly, I’d like to open this app and choose MY playlists the way the ‘time travel’ playlists show up. My music library is too large. Creating a ‘Plex’ playlist isn’t helpful if it’s not compatible and can’t be exported to other apps and devices. We should be able to edit ini files similar to the movie metadata files to list similar artists and genres vs using lastFM. But do we really need so many apps in order to run a true experience: PMS, PMP, this app, Plex Dash?
Do we want to? Thanks for giving us something to try out during Covid-19.

by Floppity Doo

Plexamp has some great potential. I love how users can customize many aspects to suit their needs. Including an equalizer which I haven’t played with yet. A couple downsides are downloads seem to be an issue - very slow even if you set the quality to the lowest setting, it won’t download in the background which is very annoying since it’s so slow, and the one album I downloaded won’t open a track list in the “downloads” tab, it just starts playing. Downloads definitely need some work. On the positive side I love the CarPlay connectivity, only thing I would love to see added is a way to easily navigate back to whatever you’re currently playing in this app when you turn the car back on, right now I have to navigate back there in the phone app. Overall though it’s a great concept and if they keep working on it I think it could be amazing.

by Sir-Wellington

Longtime and enthusiastic Plex user. Great to have a dedicated app for the music on my Plex server. The main Plex app always seemed like overkill when I just want to play a few songs quickly. I buy a ton of indie and underground music directly from the artists, and I have a lot of personally created music, and Plex is the only way to manage it all properly, with a beautiful interface, and in one place. I am also fed up with having 9000 streaming subscriptions, so Plex & this app is the solution for me. I really like that this app starts the music instantly, and the interface makes it simple and efficient to get right to what I want to play. The one thing I'd like to see added is skip-ahead" buttons. Besides that, I have no complaints. Love Plex.

by Guess Who, It's Me

Similar to when I use plex to play music from the default app or on the TV it needs to have a repeat all or repeat single button, and it needs to remember your setting even if you close Plexamp . It drives me nuts having to always turn it back on every time I would launch the normal Plex app. By default I think the preamp, loudness equalization, clipping help features should be turned off by default and we can go in and tweak those. I’d love the ability to edit the home to remove things like the radio and such. Last but not least once I select the album and it’s showing me the songs on said album I don’t want to have to click a song and then click play to play the song, just immediately play when I click it, no need to confirm what I’d like to do. Not trying to bash on what has been done here. I love seeing Plex take this new step with a dedicated music app. Been a Plex user for about 8 years and it has made media playback in the home so incredibly simple and I cannot praise that enough. Keep up the amazing work guys.

by Gigabyte1124

I love this new app. Its great to see a experience geared towards music more. Especially liked the Car Play support. I had a few issues with it though. The Car Play screens where jumping back and forth when i would try to interact with them. I also had an issue playing music at first. It looked like it started to play a song, but just kept looping the first second with no audio coming out.
I would also like to ask if you could add support for apple watch on cellular. Then you can use your watch to just listen to your Plex library, especially if your in the gym (Pre-Covid days of course) working out. Its easier to not carry my phone on me and just stream music to my watch.

by Stratodyne

As somebody who has a fairly large digital collection of lossless audio files, I prefer to transfer these to my mobile device and listen to them on the go. Apple has restrictions loading local music onto your and iOS device outside of using the iTunes application, which is a pretty awful experience, especially on Windows platforms. This is where this app comes into the picture.

this app allows you to do exactly what you think, which is transfer fully lossless audio files to your device (hosted from your Plex server), and listen to them on the go. It works pretty seamlessly. I had to deduct a star from this rating, however, because downloaded files do not have the same organizational system as those hosted on your personal Plex server or the standard Plex iOS application. This makes scrolling through a large, downloaded collection pretty tedious and cumbersome, as there is no way to filter for artists or albums, and the albums can sometimes be sorted in an incorrect order.

by Paperlantern86

Great app, supports FLAC when locally connected, great visualizer, and clean. It NEEEEEEDS a repeat option though. It is an insanely simple option to add to bring it in line with every other music player available (aside for dumb streaming “radio” apps that don’t let you do anything but skip forward). These are my files and I should be able to listen to them EXACTLY how I want to, and if that means listening to one album or one song over and over, then so be it. Especially since I have a 6 year old son and often times it’s him that wants a single song over and over. I can’t do it with this app. It is the only reason I take off a star and the only reason I don’t use Plexamp exclusively on every platform. Because I can’t be bothered to look down 6 times to start the song over when I’m driving him to swim lessons, it’s not safe. It would be utterly perfect with a repeat option. It is astounding they haven’t added it yet or why it would EVER be left out in the first place. Please fix it and you’ll get 5 stars. 10 stars! 100!

by Rjcola27

There are few things that drive me crazy but overall it’s a good music player.

1. Offline playlist. After an extensive search I found the slider to change the amount of music I want to download for offline playback. I kept ignoring that slider - I thought it was for volume control. Well now I increase the time and hit download but it keeps telling me the playlist has already been downloaded. This is not true only a portion was downloaded. When I check the slider bar it keeps going back to the original one hour download not the longer time I just changed it to.

2. CarPlay. Only something around 10 albums show up in my downloaded list but I have at least twice that amount downloaded on my phone. I’ve tried everything I could think of to get the rest to show up. Nothing worked.

I see from your response that this is a CarPlay issue. Thanks for letting me know that.

3. I wish things like long album titles would scroll so you can read the entire album title and not have it cut off once a certain amount of characters have been used.

Yes for number three I mean for Plexamp on my iPhone. I have a number of album titles with similar names and only the very end of the album name is different but there is no way to see that full album name in the iOS app.

Thanks for your response!

by Dogcow911

I had lots of problems getting this app to connect to my server at first. I am a network engineer so my home network is a bit more complex than your average home LAN. My PLEX server and iDevices are on two different subnets, and for the longest time this app refused to connect to the server, even though the regular PLEX app worked fine.

Thanks to the helpful response I got here after leaving a 1-star review, I was able to get this app working simply by changing my server settings. If you’re having problems, try changing the secure connection setting on your server from “Required” to “Preferred.” Annoying that such a seemingly unrelated setting makes or breaks it, so this app loses 1 star for that.

Otherwise, so far, so good!

by TheresNoNamesLeft123

this app is a natural addition to anyone who uses Plex for music, and it almost hits the mark now that CarPlay is available. The interface is easy to use and intuitive, and there are enough app settings to customize it to your usage scenario.

That said, CarPlay is still a little dicey; it launches well after a recent update, but it doesn’t consistently connect back to my library properly, despite Plexamp itself working fine. I also had a weird issue where music was stuck streaming at a very low nitrate, until I restarted the session. It would also be nice to be able to update tags while in Plexamp , but that’s probably more of a Plex thing.

Regardless, I’d still highly recommend everyone with Plex to give it a try. It doesn’t need to be perfect to be a very good app!

by Gmanslam

It's great to have a dedicated music app for Plex instead of using the "regular" Plex app and navigating through everything on my server. As a lot of others have mentioned, viewing by artist or albums directly would be great (or will be when the add that feature -Hey guys, if you're reading this, why not add the Recent Artist > other sort method to the description to save all the replies I'm sure you're pasting into the reviews at this point).

I'd like a quicker way to switch between libraries as I've set up separate ones for Music and Audiobooks. It took a bit to find that, not a lot but some. All in all looking forward to testing it out more as watching out for updates and refinements. This would Ave been 4 1/2 stars if that were possible simply because it's not quite perfect but darn good.

by The Gatman

this app is a companion app to the Plex ecosystem of that specializes on your personal music library that you have stored on your Plex Media Server. With Plex partnering with key metadata companies, your personal collection of music and movies is curated to look like that of the mainstream streaming companies.

this app allows your personal library of music to be handled for you or by you. Offline downloads allow your playlists to be accessible when out of reach. Fantastic features like sweet fades, volume leveling, and Sonic Analysis make your playlists be better and sound better.

Anyone who enjoys managing and listening to their own collection should seriously consider putting this app on their radar.

by Thecolourinbetween

Although I believe that there needs to be some eventual tweaking to the design (for example, larger artwork in album view and more consideration to white space on an iPad), this is a stonking first effort and is a truly beautiful accomplishment for a first release. It has rekindled my love for music where Apple Music had somewhat muffled it with its complications. I just hadn’t realized how much so until I downloaded this. Please bring the ultra blur to Plex on TVOS.

UPDATE
Loving the new additions such as related music whilst in the player as well as the ability to view album codec when browsing. Cannot tell you how much this has become my new favorite app.

by Heehawthebook

In my quest to finally untether myself from iTunes and the native iOS Music app, I think this app just about covers all of my needs: nice-looking UI, searchable titles, reliable playback, and (here’s the big one) on-the-fly conversion of lossless to mp3 for downloads. There is one teensy critique I have regarding downloaded content: When you tap on an album from the downloads tab, it instantly starts playing the album instead of showing the track list. In order to see the song titles, you have to play the album and then click on the queue. It’s a minor quibble, but it always throws me a bit since just about every other music app shows the song titles first.

by Mesospheric

I used to use Google Play to manage my music collection. The fact that they replace your uploaded version of a track with their own in addition to the huge issues with uploading tracks led me to pursue standing up my own Plex media server. I’ve been using Plex for a few years and have discovered some significant flaws with the iOS app. In particular, downloading and continuous synchronization of a large music collection was significantly flawed, and required me to completely delete and re-download the media dozens of times. I was about to give up and and then I came across Plexamp. I can’t say enough positive things about my experience using Plexamp. And they have CarPlay support on top of it?? If someone can tell me how I can make a donation to the developers please!

by Riley Mathiasen

I really like all the options Plexamp offers and the discovery features. It is missing the ability to view all artists or albums on my server. I get Plexamp is focused on discovery, but that could at least be a setting. Casting and lyrics also don’t appear to be options yet. It would also be nice if podcasts integrated into the main page if I wanted without needing to switch sources becuase I use Plex for all my podcasts and most of my music and switching is more of a hassle in Plexamp than the main Plex app. I appreciate the bitrate options, crossfade, eq, etc.. It just seems like those features above are near essential and missing at this point. Most are found in the main Plex app as well. There’s a good thread on the Plex subreddit that goes over people’s likes and dislikes with Plexamp so far too.

by Heelphan

This is a beautiful app and a great way to finally be able to browse my Plex music properly rather than using the main Plex app. The visualizations for the Now Playing screen are cool, and kind of a throw back to the old school days of playing music on your computer with iTunes or Winamp.

I love the built in “radio” stations especially the “Mix Builder” which allows you to create a shuffle of your own music based on similar artists. this app is smart enough to know which artists to suggest from your library as you add them, which ends up creating a great mix.

After seeing the developer comments on some of these reviews I do see there is a way to browse all artists, albums, etc which is to click on the header “Recently added music” then click the ... icon in upper right. From there you can browse by artist, album or track with a variety of sorts available as well. If I had one critique of Plexamp it would be that is not very intuitive to find. I would never have figured that out had I not seen the dev response.

Another thing that threw me for a loop was making sure I was on the right music library under Settings>Source. I was on my audiobooks library instead of my music library by default. It might be useful for there to be a little guided setup tutorial when first signing into Plexamp ?

Anyway, all in all, a great app and I’m super excited to have it!

by Kkahn456

This player is looking good af. Would like to see a libraries tab where I can more easily see all of my playlist right away and select them faster. It would be great to see the downloads being able to be sorted by artist, album, name, etc. I would also like the option to select an artist to download all of their music, right now I can only download one album at a time. But this is still great to see. The player looks modern and simple. I love that I can finally use an equalizer with Plex. I also love the ability to manually select the preamp. The ability to choose my caching on cellular and wifi is fantastic. And btw the limiter is great to see. Keep up the hard work, been a supporter for a while.

by Rxg001

Update: As the dev pointed out, you can browse album/artists under the recently added music area. I’ve added another star for this but it really needs to be more prominent (tab would be nice). Kudos for the quick feedback. I look forward to the future of Plexamp.

I like that Plex has made a dedicated music player, but there’s no way I can use a music player where I can’t browse my library in lists, especially by artist or album. There’s really no way to see your library at all except for your top plays.

by Negma2000

Thanks to everyone to actually put in effort and time to bring Plexamp!! Kudos.. love the UI, Ultrablur, theme options, everything is buttery..

Like everyone here’s my wishlist and hopefully happens in next few versions:

- AirPlay, casting
- Carplay
- Ability to view my entire album collection
- On the go playlist is
- Limiting to 40 tracks..why? What if my favorite artist has 100s of songs? I should be able to create my own playlist without any track
Limit

Keep up the good work team and do keep us updated on features release - not the usual coming soon!! Thanks again!!!

Update: Thanks for quick response.. I do see all albums under all music (thanks is for the tip), but we need more sort options, title alphabetical for example.

On another question on limit.. when I search for an artist under main page search function, it only gives limited number of tracks for that artist even though I have plenty other tracks for same artist..

BIG THANKS AGAIN for being so quick in your responses!!

by RileyBobo

I really like all the options Plexamp offers and the discovery features. It is missing the ability to view all artists or albums on my server. I get Plexamp is focused on discovery, but that could at least be a setting. Casting and lyrics also don’t appear to be options yet. It would also be nice if podcasts integrated into the main page if I wanted without needing to switch sources becuase I use Plex for all my podcasts and most of my music and switching is more of a hassle in Plexamp than the main Plex app. I appreciate the bitrate options, crossfade, eq, etc.. It just seems like those features above are near essential and missing at this point. Most are found in the main Plex app as well. There’s a good thread on the Plex subreddit that goes over people’s likes and dislikes with Plexamp so far too.

by RoyMK4

Love the advanced visualizer. Smooth and seamless UI. I will definitely be using this daily.

I mentioned this under the Plex Dash review but I just wanted to know if this properly communicates with plex servers. When I stop playback on this app, it still shows up on Plex Dash and it doesn’t disappear. When using the regular Plex app, it works properly; as soon as playback stops or album ends, it disappears from now playing, but not with this app.

Other than that, everything works flawlessly. It was easy to set up and adjust my settings. Can’t wait for future releases. Thank you for an amazing app!

by Squid/Squad

It’s this app, but on your phone. I wish the mobile version had Cast support, though as a Labs app that’s understandable. Downloads should also sync with the normal Plex app, if possible. So music downloaded in one is accessible in the other.

Going against everyone else, I’m all for splitting the Plex system up into multiple apps. It doesn’t make sense to include Plex Dash in the main Plex app, because only server admins need it. The same is true for this app, because music is vastly different than movies and TV. The main Plex apps lump them all together with only minor distinctions.

by Harryman04

I’ve wanted an app like this for years. The UX on the main app was not designed with music in mind first, especially on web. The music experience (and especially audiobook experience) has been so bad for so long I actually resolved to make my own open source react native client. I had put about 10 hours into the project this week when this app was released.

The UI is still a little rough around the edges. But it’s satisfactory and understandable for a v1. I’m very optimistic for the future of this app. Hopefully this continues to be developed and isn’t sentenced to death by Plex execs.

by Game Epidemic

I’ve been using Plexamp for a few days now to play my music instead of the standard Plex app and it’s been pretty great overall. Beautifully designed, butter smooth, and lots of great power user options. I’d I could make one suggestion it would be to make your library more front and center as opposed to just recent things. Other than that absolutely impeccable work. I know that this is a passion project from a few people at Plex and I wholeheartedly appreciate your hard work!

by Eoren1

I moved my music to my Synology a while ago but their Audio app was limited and Apple Music since the change to a subscriber model has been as well.

Downloaded this app as soon as I heard about it and it is awesome. So simple to point to audio folder. The mood and genre options are incredible and make it pleasurable and effortless to listen. Honestly would have paid for this and even happier it was free with my lifetime PlexPass.

If this is version 1, I can’t imagine what they’ll add on next...

by Adavis8457

Finally!! And now my migration from iTunes is complete. Great player love all the radio stations available, but just one thing...when playing say, like one my playlists and I want to shuffle songs, there’s the shuffle icon, but it doesn’t indicate if it’s been activated or not when you hit it. Some sort of indication would be nice bc I usually find myself hitting it more than once to make sure it’s working. Other than that great player

by Superakcraig

I love this dedicated music app as opposed to using the main Plex app to play music. It has most everything i could want.

The sweet fades is my favorite feature. This is without a doubt how crossfades should work. From a former DJ, this is how they should sound!! Plex gets that!

I do wish I could download my entire library without being limited to 24 hours worth but it’s not a deal breaker.

by Woogetybop

Very sharp look and feel. Then the sound though my DAC was clean and smooth.
I need some treble boost on the E.Q. As my hearing is slipping in my older years.
Then to my big surprise I found Plex can play all my DTS 5.1 surround audio files.
I looked all day and only found 2 other apps for iOS can do that. 1 had clipping/distortion issues and the other’s UI was primitive.
this app has it all!