# Rhythmbox Music Player

2002 Mark Finlay
2002 Mark Humphreys
2005 2006 Baptiste Mille-Mathias
2006 Victor Osadci
2008 Dean Sas
2018 2020 Andre Klapper
GNOME Documentation Project
Mark Finlay
GNOME Documentation Project

    sisob@eircom.net

Mark Humphreys
GNOME Documentation Project

    marquee@users.sourceforge.net

Baptiste Mille-Mathias
GNOME Documentation Project

    baptiste.millemathias@gmail.com

Victor Osadci
GNOME Documentation Project

    Victor.Osadci.GNOME@xhtml.md

Dean Sas
Ubuntu Documentation Project

    dean@deansas.org

Andre Klapper
GNOME Documentation Project

    ak-47@gmx.net

Rhythmbox Music Player Manual V0.0.2
October 2002

Mark Finlay

GNOME Documentation Project

Rhythmbox Music Player Manual V0.0.3
August 2003

Mark Humphreys

GNOME Documentation Project

Rhythmbox Music Player Manual V0.0.4
October 2005

Baptiste Mille-Mathias

GNOME Documentation Project

Rhythmbox Music Player Manual V2.0.2
April 2006

Luca Ferretti

GNOME Documentation Project

Rhythmbox Music Player Manual V2.0.3
May 2008

Dean Sas

GNOME Documentation Project

Rhythmbox Music Player Manual V3.4.4
Jaunary 2020

Andre Klapper

GNOME Documentation Project

This manual describes version 3.4.4 of Rhythmbox Music Player.

Feedback

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding the Rhythmbox Music Player application or this manual, visit the GNOME Issue Tracker.

Rhythmbox is the full featured music player for GNOME Desktop.

## Introduction

Rhythmbox Music Player is a music player and library for tagged files that supports various music formats.

Current Rhythmbox Music Player features include:

- Play various format music files from your tagged organized Library.

- Display information on the songs through meta-data reading.

- Display songs in an organized view.

- Create static playlists by dragging and dropping from the Library view.

- Create automatic playlists from criterias.

- Search for songs in the sources list like Library or Playlists.

- Listen to Internet radio stations.

- Read Audio CDs, and retrieve information like track title from the Internet.

- Burn Audio CDs from playlists.

- Transfer music to iPod, MTP and USB Mass Storage music players.

## Getting Started

### To Launch the Rhythmbox Music Player

You can launch the Rhythmbox Music Player in the following ways:

Applications grid

  Click Activities at the top left of the screen. Click the grid button in the dash. Choose Rhythmbox.

Command Line

  Type `rhythmbox`, then press Return.

### Running the Assistant

The first time you launch the Rhythmbox Music Player, an assistant will help you import your music. On the second panel of the assistant, press the Browse button and select the folder where your music is stored.

## Rhythmbox Music Player Window

### Overview

The Rhythmbox Music Player window enables you to browse and play your favorite music. shows the interface of the Rhythmbox Music Player with its main components.

The Rhythmbox Music Player Window

Show the Rhythmbox Music Player window showing the different parts on the Rhythmbox Music Player interface. Callouts: Player area, Browser, Side pane, Statusbar.

Table 1 describes the components of Rhythmbox Music Player window.

Rhythmbox Music Player Window Components

Id | Component | Description
--- | --- | ---
1 | Toolbar | Provides access to player functions and details about the currently playing track. Includes the time slider which displays the position of the read of a track; it enables to jump to another part of a track. Also includes the volume slider and the button to access the application menu.
2 | Side Pane | Displays a list of available sources. Can also display the play queue.
3 | Browser | Allows to browse and filter the Library tracks by Genre, Artist or Album name. The Browser also provides a search function to display only tracks that match your criteria.
4 | Tracks list | Lists the tracks that belong to the selected source.
5 | Statusbar | Displays information about the source selected in the side pane.

### The Side Pane

The side pane is where you can access your music library, internet radio, your playlists audio CDs, and the play queue. The side pane can contain the following sources:

- The Rhythmbox Music Player library, where all of the imported tracks will appear.

- Podcasts.

- The Radio source, with all internet radio stations.

- All playlists (normal and smart).

- Audio CD's inserted into the computer's CD drives.

- Portable players like iPod plugged to your computer.

- The DAAP Music shares discovered on the local network.

- Music stores like Jamendo and Magnatune.

- Music sharing websites like SoundCloud.

It can also contain the play queue if you press the menu button in the top-right corner of the window and select View Play Queue in Side Pane.

The display of the side pane can be toggled on or off if you press the menu button in the top-right corner of the window and select View Side Pane.

### The Player Toolbar

The toolbar area provides access to details about the currently playing track. When no track is being played, this area shows no information. When a track is played, the track name is displayed, and underneath, the artist and the album names.

A tracker which shows the progress of the playing track and a time slider are also displayed. When the time slider has focus, the arrow keys can be used to Fast-Forward or Rewind the playing track.

If you are using a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can adjust the volume by scrolling up or down while the mouse pointer is over the volume button in the right corner.

### The Statusbar

The statusbar contains additional information about the number of songs and the duration of the source selected.

## Using Rhythmbox Music Player

### Playing Music

To play a track, select the track and press the Play button on the toolbar, or simply double-click on the track to start playing.

When the track ends, Rhythmbox Music Player jumps to play the next track in the list showed in view pane.

In the you can play all songs from an artist or a single album simply selecting Album or Artist entry in the library browser.

#### Next/Play/Previous

The Next and Previous buttons can be used to skip between tracks while playing. If a track is currently playing, the previous button will restart the track. Pressing the Play button will start playing the current track.

Shows buttons Previous, Play and Next in toolbar.

#### Repeat

The option Repeat makes the Rhythmbox Music Player restart to play tracks from the beginning of the list when it reach the last track.

To activate repeat, press the button Repeat on the toolbar.

Shows repeat button in the statusbar.

#### Shuffle

The option Shuffle makes the Rhythmbox Music Player play tracks in a random order.

To activate shuffle, press the button Shuffle on the toolbar.

Shows shuffle button in the statusbar.

#### Volume Control

The volume control is located in the right hand of the toolbar. Pressing the loudspeaker icon will show the volume slider. Sliding this up and down will increase and decrease the volume. The loudspeaker icon will change to reflect the relative volume.

Shows volume slider in toolbar.

You can adjust the volume by using the mouse scroll wheel over the loudspeaker icon.

## Library Source

The Library is the main source available in the Rhythmbox Music Player, it is the database that contains all the music files that you import in the Rhythmbox Music Player (The Library stores the path to access your music files, not the files themself).

The Library can not only contain music files which are physically on your computer (in your HOME Directory for instance), but it can also contain music files available over remote network services. Some examples of supported network services are:

- Public FTP

- Authenticated FTP

- NFS

- Windows Share

The files imported in the Library are displayed in the track list with the information (like the Artist name or the Album name) stored in the tags embedded on the tracks. Rhythmbox Music Player uses these tags to display the tracks in an organized manner.

Tags can be modified by right-clicking, then choosing Properties and filling in the details on the window that appears.

### Add tracks in the Library

To add tracks to the Library, you can follow these different methods:

- If you want to import several music files located in a folder, choose Import from the browser bar next to the search field, then select the folder in the file selector and press the Open button. All the music files located in the folder and its sub-folders will be imported.

- Drag and drop files from the file manager (like Nautilus) over the Rhythmbox window.

If you have enabled the watch directory function (see ), all the music files stored under the chosen directory will be added to the Library. New files added later will be also added.

### Remove tracks from the Library

To remove a track from the library but leave it on the disk, right-click on the track and choose Remove. The track and its properties (like rating or the play count) are removed from the Rhythmbox database.

To delete a track from the Library and also from your disk, right-click on the track and choose Move to Trash. The track will be removed in the same way as previous, but the file will be moved in to the file manager Trash.

### Find tracks using Search

Rhythmbox comes with a search function, which enables you to find and filter tracks by using a search term.

Enter some text in the search entry, and as you type, only the tracks that match the text entered will be displayed. The search function does the lookup in all of the tags of the tracks stored in the Library.

To perform a more precise search, you can choose to lookup only in specific tags Artists, Albums or Titles.

### Find tracks using the Browser

The Browser is another convenient way to find tracks. The Browser is a two or three pane view which enable to navigate among music genres, artists and albums and display tracks that match the chosen criteria.

First, to display the Browser, select Browse in the tool bar. Select artist, album and genre, and as you choose, only the tracks that match your choice will be displayed in the track list. The criteria on the columns apply from the left to the right.

You can choose several criteria of the same category by using the key Ctrl.

You can also find from a selected track in the track list, all of the tracks with the same genre, artist or album name. Select a track in the track list, right-click on it, and choose Browse this Genre/Artist/Album. Then the browser will filter the tracks using the criteria chosen.

## Radio Source

The Internet Radio tuner can be used to listen to streamed audio files over a network, local or Internet.

Internet Radio in Rhythmbox Music Player

### Adding a station

To add a new station to the Internet Radio tuner, select Add in the tool bar. Then enter the URL of the Internet radio, then press the button Add.

### Viewing and Changing the settings of a station

You can view and edit the settings of an Internet Radio station by selecting the station and right-click, then choose Properties.

When you access the properties of a radio stream, you can modify its title, its genre; you can also modify the stream location, and set a rating to it.

### Removing a station

To remove a radio station from the radio stations list, right-click on the station and select Remove.

## Podcast Source

Podcasting is a new way to broadcast audio content over the web; when an author publishes an episode, podcast subscribers are informed, through an XML feed.

Rhythmbox Music Player enables you to subscribe to podcast feeds, so when a new episode is available you'll be informed, it will download this episode and it will play it.

You can find more information about podcasts and podcasting by visiting the definition of Podcast on the site Wikipedia.

The Podcast interface

The Podcast interface with some registered podcasts

### Podcast Management

#### Add a podcast

To register to a podcast, select Add in the tool bar. Then in the new window, enter the URL of the podcast feed. Rhythmbox will retrieve the list of episodes and the latest episode will be downloaded on your hard disk.

#### Delete a podcast

To delete a podcast, right-click on the podcast feed's name in the browser, and choose Delete Podcast Feed, then choose Delete Feed Only if you want to keep the podcast's episodes, or choose Delete Feed And Files if you want to delete the feed and all its related episodes.

#### Update feeds

To know if new episodes have been published for a podcast, right-click over the podcast name in the browser and choose Update Podcast Feed. If new episodes were published, they will appear in the episode list.

Rhythmbox Music Player checks regularly, on its own, the podcast feeds list to find out if they were updated.

You can also check all podcasts, by right-clicking over the Podcasts source and choose Update All Feeds.

#### Access Podcast Feed properties

To access to the Feed properties, right-click on the Feed name, and choose Properties.

- On the Basic tab you can view the podcast Title, Author , the Last Updated date and the Description.

- On the Details tab you can view the feed Source, Language and the Copyright properties.

You can view the properties, and also edit the rating.

### Episode Management

#### Download a podcast episode

To download an episode on your disk, right-click on the episode, and choose Download Post, Rhythmbox will start to download the episode in the location defined in the preferences. You can see the download progress of an episode in the column Status.

By default, podcasts are downloaded in folder `Music/` in your home directory. To change location, see .

#### Read a podcast episode

To play a podcast episode, select the episode you want to read, and press the button Play.

The episode have to downloaded before to read it, see to know how to download a podcast episode.

#### Delete a podcast episode

To delete an episode from a podcast, right-click on the episode, and choose Delete, then choose Delete Episode Only if you to keep the episode file on your disk, or choose Delete Episode And File if you want to remove the episode from the list and delete the file from your disk.

After you delete an episode, it will no longer be available in the list of episodes, even if you update the podcast.

#### Display Podcast Episode properties

To access to the episode properties, right-click on the episode, and choose Properties.

- On the Basic tab you can view the podcast Title, Feed, the publication Data and the Description.

- On the Details tab you can view the podcast Source, Duration, the Bitrate, the Last Played Date, the Play count and the Rating.

## Play Queue Source

Play queue is a source designed to temporarily store the next tracks you want to play. When you add a track to the Play Queue, Rhythmbox Music Player will automatically switch to this source, after the track has played.

Once a track has been played, it will be automatically removed from the Play Queue Source. Once the Play Queue is empty, Rhythmbox Music Player will play the source which was played before.

### Add a track to the Play Queue

To add a track:

1. Select the track you want to play, in any source.

2. Right-click and choose Add to Queue.

### Remove a track in Play Queue

To remove a track stored in Play Queue:

1. Select the track you want to remove in Play Queue source.

2. Right-click and choose Remove from Play Queue.

## Playlists Source

Playlists are sources which are created from the tracks available in the Library source. They enable you to gather tracks following a particular 'genre', a specific group of artists, or even tracks that are of a particular 'mood', or whatever you want.

Rhythmbox Music Player has 2 kinds of playlists:

- Static Playlists

- Smart Playlists

Rhythmbox lets you burn the tracks of your playlists to an Audio CD.

### Static Playlists

Static playlists are playlists built from tracks dropped from the Library.

#### Create a static playlist

To create a new playlist, right-click on an item in the library. Select Add to Playlist Add to New Playlist . An empty playlist without name appears in the side pane. Enter a name for the playlist and press Enter.

#### Add tracks to a playlist

To add tracks to a playlist, select tracks from the track list from the library and drag and drop your selection over the playlist icon in the side pane.

You can also drop over a playlist a genre, an artist, or an album name from the browser, and all the tracks that belongs to the chosen category will be added to the playlist.

You can create a playlist with tracks in one action. Select tracks from the Tracks List, or directly one or more categories from the browser (Genre, Artist or Album) and drop the selection over the Side pane. It will automatically create a named playlist.

#### Remove tracks from a playlist

To remove tracks from a playlist, first select the tracks to remove. Then, right-click over the selection and choose Delete. This operation deletes the track only from playlist and not from the Library.

### Smart Playlists

Smart Playlists are playlists built from criteria, so tracks are added to it dynamically; all of the tracks matching the criteria will be added to the playlist.

By default, the playlists My Top Rated, Recently Added, and Recently played are available.

## Audio CD Source

Rhythmbox Music Player can also handle Audio CDs; it can play CDs and also let you burn your own.

### Playing

When an Audio CD is inserted, it will appear in the side pane, and the tracks on it can be displayed in Rhythmbox Music Player's main window. If you are connected to the Internet, the CD details will be retrieved and displayed.

To play and pause playback, or to skip forward or backwards, use the same controls as used for playing from the library.

### Importing Audio CD

If you wish to keep the tracks of your Audio CDs on your computer, you can import them.

To import Audio CD tracks, choose Extract in the tool bar.

### Creating Audio CD

Rhythmbox enables you to create you own Audio CDs with the music stored in the Rhythmbox Library.

To create an Audio CD:

1. Create a playlist, static or smart (see ) and add tracks.

2. Choose Playlist in the tool bar.

3. Select Create Audio CD.

4. Insert a blank CD.

5. Click the button Create, the burning process starts.

## Portable Audio Player Source

Rhythmbox can detect when an portable audio player is plugged to your computer, and is able to read tracks stored on it. Rhythmbox Music Player should be able to deal with most portable audio players including Apple iPod, MTP players and Mass Storage players.

When you plug in a portable audio player, an icon for the Portable Audio Player is added to the side pane. This source works in the same way as the Library source.

If Rhythmbox Music Player does not detect your device as a portable audio player, you can create an empty file named `.is_audio_player` at the top level hierarchy of the filesystem of your player.

## DAAP Share Source

DAAP is a network protocol that allows you to share the music stored in Rhythmbox. DAAP stands for Digital Audio Access Protocol.

As DAAP is a standard protocol for music sharing, you can listen and share music not only with other Rhythmbox users, but also with other users who use DAAP compatible software, like iTunes.

When you start Rhythmbox, it will look for all DAAP shares published on your local network (your home or your office, not the whole Internet) by other users and will display them in the side pane. If sharing is enabled, at the same time Rhythmbox will publish your library and your playlists. In this way, you can listen to music stored on your friend's computers and they can listen your music.

To disable the Rhythmbox DAAP sharing feature, see in the preferences.

## Notification Area

### Overview

The Notification Area allows you to control Rhythmbox Music Player and receive information when the Rhythmbox Music Player interface is not visible.

Rhythmbox Music Player in the Notification Area

### Control Rhythmbox

Using the Rhythmbox Music Player icon in the notification area, the following commands can be sent to the application:

- Play — If selected, plays the currently selected song.

- Previous — Skip to previous song in the selected source.

- Next — Skip to next song in the selected source.

## Customizing Rhythmbox Music Player

This section describes how to customize Rhythmbox Music Player to suit your requirements and preferences.

### Setting Your Preferences

Using the Preferences dialog you can customize how you want Rhythmbox Music Player to look and behave. To display the Preferences dialog, press the menu button in the top-right corner of the window and select Preferences.

#### General

Choose the way the Browser View will be displayed. You can choose to use three or two panes and what the panes should display.

Choose the Visible Columns you want to display in Rhythmbox Music Player. This option affects the following sources:

- Library

- Audio CD

- Portable Players

- Playlists

- DAAP Music shares

#### Music

- The Library Location is a folder that Rhythmbox Music Player will monitor to find new songs. When you add new audio files in this folder or its sub-folders with the file browser (like Nautilus), Rhythmbox Music Player will detect them and they will be added automatically in the Library.

  Avoid to set your `Home` folder as library location because this feature is CPU consuming.

  To disable the watch functionality deselect Watch my library for new files.

  If you want to add more than one folder to watch, use dconf-editor and add it to the list at /org/gnome/rhythmbox/rhythmboxdb/locations

#### Podcasts

- The Download Location of Podcasts is defined by default to the `Podcasts/` folder in your home directory.

  If this location doesn't fit your needs, select another folder in the drop-down list or choose Other to make the File Selector appear.

- Choose the frequency that Rhythmbox Music Player will check for new podcast episodes.

#### Sharing

The Rhythmbox Music Player can share your Library contents over your Local Area Network, to other Rhythmbox Music Player and Apple iTunes users.

- Select Share my music to enable the users of your network to see and read your songs.

- Enter the name of you want to appear of the network in the field Shared music name.

#### Last.fm and Libre.fm profiles

The Last.fm profile plugin collects information about the songs you listen to and sends it to the Last.fm or Libre.fm website, building up a profile of your listening habits. With this profile, you can:

- consult statistics, such as most played songs or most played artists.

- receive recommendations about artists that you might like.

In order to use one of these plugins, you must have an account on one of these websites. Press the menu button in the top-right corner of the window and select Preferences. Select the Plugins tab. Select the Last.fm item and press the Preferences button. Select a service and close the dialog. In the sidebar, select the service. Press the Log in button in the upper right corner and enter your account details in the web browser window.

## Shortcuts

### Keyboard Shortcuts

Player Shortcuts

Shortcuts | Actions
--- | ---
Ctrl P | Play / Pause
Ctrl Left | Jump to the Previous Track / Back to the beginning of the track
Ctrl Right | Jump to the Next Track
Ctrl Up | Increase playback volume
Ctrl Down | Decrease playback volume
Ctrl R | Enable / Disable Repeat play
Ctrl U | Enable / Disable Shuffle play

General Shortcuts

Shortcuts | Actions
--- | ---
Ctrl A | Select All
Shift Ctrl A | Deselect All
Ctrl J | Jump to playing song
Alt S | Jump to search field
Alt Return | Display the Track Properties

Window Shortcuts

Shortcuts | Actions
--- | ---
Ctrl Q | Quit the Rhythmbox Music Player
Ctrl B | Show / Hide the browser
F9 | Show / Hide the side pane
Ctrl K | Show / Hide the Queue Sidebar
F11 | Toggle / Untoggle the Full Screen mode

### Multimedia Keys

Rhythmbox Music Player supports the keys on multimedia keyboards, if configured in your desktop environment.

Window Shortcuts

Shortcuts | Actions
--- | ---
Stop | Stop
Pause / Play | Pause / Play
Prev | Previous Played Track
Next | Next Track

### Linux Infrared Remote Control

The Rhythmbox Music Player includes a plugin for Linux Infrared Remote Control (LIRC) support. The following command strings are supported, using the program name 'rhythmbox':

Window Shortcuts

Command string | Action
--- | ---
play | Start playback
pause | Pause playback
playpause | Toggle between playing and paused
shuffle | Toggle the shuffle play order
repeat | Toggle the repeat play order
next | Skip to the next track
previous | Skip to the previous track
seek_forward | Skip 10 seconds forward in the playing track
seek_backward | Skip 10 seconds backward in the playing track
volume_up | Increase the playback volume by 10%
volume_down | Decrease the playback volume by 10%
mute | Mute the playback

Rhythmbox
rhythmbox
Music Player