Lib.rs

 █████╗ ██╗   ██╗██████╗ ██╗██╗   ██╗███╗   ███╗
██╔══██╗██║   ██║██╔══██╗██║██║   ██║████╗ ████║
███████║██║   ██║██║  ██║██║██║   ██║██╔████╔██║
██╔══██║██║   ██║██║  ██║██║██║   ██║██║╚██╔╝██║
██║  ██║╚██████╔╝██████╔╝██║╚██████╔╝██║ ╚═╝ ██║
╚═╝  ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝     ╚═╝

 audium  —  terminal music player      [?] help  [f] file picker  [c] playlist  [m] menu  [q] quit
┌─────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Playlists               │ All Tracks                                           │
│                         │  #    Title                                          │
│ > All Tracks (4)        │     1  04 - Neon Arpeggio                            │
│   Late Night (2)        │     2  Drift                                         │
│   Focus (2)             │  >  3  Weightless (feat. Macarena)                   │
│                         │     4  The River Calls                               │
│                         │                                                      │
│                         ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                         │ Queue                                                │
│                         │     1  04 - Neon Arpeggio                            │
│                         │     2  Drift                                         │
│                         │  >  3  Weightless (feat. Macarena)                   │
└─────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
⏸  Weightless (feat. Macarena)                                        loop queue
████████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  2:14 / 5:02

Features

• Keyboard-driven — every action is one key. No mouse required.
• It's your library — your tracks are stored as plain JSON at ~/.audium/library.json. Edit it by hand, back it up, move it anywhere. audium doesn't rename your files, doesn't embed metadata, and never phones home.
• Themes — 15 built-in themes (dark, light, nord, gruvbox, catppuccin, rosé pine, dracula, tokyo night, and more). Switch live from the settings menu with instant preview. Transparency support for composited terminals.
• Playlists — create, rename, delete. All Tracks is always there.
• Loop modes — off, loop queue, or loop track. Toggle with l.
• Built-in file picker — import audio files without leaving the app.
• Threaded audio — playback runs on its own thread; the UI never stutters your music.
• System audio output — audium plays through your default system output. Change the output device in your OS and audium follows — no in-app device switching, no surprises.
• Format agnostic — MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AAC, M4A, Opus, AIFF and more via Symphonia. No FFmpeg required.
• Tiny binary — ~3 MB stripped release build. No runtime dependencies on macOS.

Installation

Cargo

cargo install audium

Requires Rust 1.85+ (MSRV). Installs the audium binary to ~/.cargo/bin/.

On Linux, ALSA is required to run and its development headers are required to build — see Building from source for distro-specific instructions.

AUR (Arch Linux)

paru -S audium
# or: yay -S audium

Usage

# Launch with your library
audium

# Open a specific file immediately (imports it to your library)
audium path/to/song.flac

audium stores your library at ~/.audium/library.json and your music at ~/.audium/music/.

Keybindings

Global

Playback

Navigation

Library & Queue

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/takashialpha/audium
cd audium
cargo build --release
# binary is at ./target/release/audium

Linux requires ALSA and its development headers:

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install alsa-base alsa-utils libasound2-dev

# Arch
sudo pacman -S alsa-utils alsa-lib

# Fedora
sudo dnf install alsa-utils alsa-lib-devel

macOS has no extra dependencies.

Windows: audium compiles on Windows (no additional dependencies) but is not an officially supported platform and has not been tested.

Library layout

~/.audium/
├── library.json   # track registry + playlists
├── settings.json  # user preferences (volume, theme, seek step)
└── music/         # copies of all imported audio files

library.json is human-readable and editable by hand. audium re-validates it on next launch, so feel free to reorganise playlists, fix track names, or move the file to another machine.

Why audium?

Alternatives like termusic and cmus are solid, but they come with tradeoffs: heavy dependency trees, FFmpeg requirements, daemon processes, or configuration formats that take longer to learn than the app itself. audium is different in a few concrete ways:

• No FFmpeg, no daemon — one binary, zero background processes.
• Smaller and faster to build — fewer dependencies means shorter compile times and a ~3 MB release binary.
• Cleaner UI — built on ratatui with a layout designed for actual daily use, not just feature completeness.
• More modern codebase — written in current Rust with edition 2024, Symphonia for decoding, and rodio for playback.
• Plain JSON library — your data is always readable, portable, and yours.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Please open an issue before starting work on a large change.

License

Apache-2.0 © takashialpha