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Streaming music has revolutionized how we all listen to and consume our favorite bands and artists. Years ago, you had to buy a physical copy of the album you wanted at a record store. The rise of digital media has made it easier than ever to obtain and listen to your favorite music.
iTunes was one of the first music and media streaming and download services and it provided an exciting service that allowed music fans to access all of their favorite songs and albums online and transfer music library with others. It’s also a mobile device management app built in macOS that allows you to sync and back up your iPhone or iPad.
Just two years ago, when the new macOS Catalina was available to download, iTunes is NO longer available according to Apple’s official news release:
“Three all-new apps — Apple Podcasts, Music and Apple TV— replace iTunes and make it easy and fun to discover and enjoy music, TV shows, movies and podcasts on Mac.”
However, there are multiple options when it comes to streaming music and media services, so let’s take a look at some great itunes alternative for Mac users.
1. iMazing
iMazing is a great way to manage all of your iPhone/iPad music files, messages, photos, and other data. This is a super user-friendly, best iTunes alternative for Mac that is easy to use but at the same time, very powerful and reliable.
It is probably one of the best iOS device managers around and is worth looking into if you’re looking for a better overall way to manage your media files than with iTunes.
iMazing offers a free trial version, and the full version starts from $35.99 USD per Mac.
2. Vox Music Player
Vox Music Player for Mac is a fully functional alternative to iTunes that is pretty popular. The Vox interface seems pretty simple but it packs a lot of punch.
This music player has the ability to play many different common formats including MP3, APE, M4A, FLAC, and CUE, so it is a great option if you have songs in your library that are not all in the same file formats. Vox can also playback HD Audio which is great if you create music or like high-quality audio and video files.
A cool thing about Vox is that it is easy to set up and get started. You can import all of your songs from your iTunes library or other locations on your computer really easily. There are other features that allow you to sync the Vox app to SoundCloud and YouTube which is great for multi-media considerations. This feature is nice if you want to have all of your audio files and media in one place.
Vox is free to download and the basic version has a lot to offer. If you are willing to pay a little, you can access 30,000 different radio stations for a nearly endless supply of new tunes! Vox also offers a cloud storage service for your music and media, but it’s a little on the expensive side.
3. Musique
Musique is another excellent iTunes alternative for Mac that is easy to use and free to download and use. This app is pretty basic in form and function but you don’t really need a lot to have a great music app.
Musique offers an easy layout that organizes all of your music in a way similar to iTunes so it is easy to browse and search your library for whatever songs or albums you are in the mood for.
Even though Musique is kind of a simple app in design, it does a really good job of creating artist images and downloads cover art automatically so you can see the visual media that goes alongside your music, just like the artists intended.
This makes for a library that feels like an old record collection and is fun to browse. It is always nice to see pictures of your favorite bands when playing their music and this app really excels in this area.
Musique has a really nice look to it overall and it should function well if you have a large music collection and like having the visuals that go along with the music. The app also syncs up some background information on artists in your library so you can learn cool facts and stories about all of the musicians you love.
4. Spotify
Spotify is an awesome streaming music service that is one of the most popular apps of its kind in the world. If you are the type who likes to discover new music all of the time and also wants all of your favorites in one place, Spotify has everything you are looking for.
It is a well-designed and fully-functional music streaming app that allows you to find and listen to almost anything they could think of.
In addition to being able to search for your favorite bands and artists, Spotify also creates individualized playlists based on your listening habits. This feature can really help you expand your musical horizons and I’ve found so many new and different artists from all over the world that has helped my library to keep growing. If you are a big music fan, Spotify offers a way to explore and discover that is far above other options out there.
The free version of Spotify will give you access to a vast amount of music but you will have to listen to some advertisements between songs. If you sign up for Spotify Premium and pay a monthly membership, you get access to all of the features ad-free and can save and download songs to play them off-line.
Membership is a commitment but Spotify is one of my favorite services I pay for and is recommended.
Final Thoughts
iTunes once was the ultimate in music and media streaming services but now there are plenty of other options available. If you just upgraded your MacBook to the latest macOS version, iTunes won’t be even available.
This has fueled the creation of many different alternative services to pop up for the public to choose from when it comes to media players.
While many of the most popular streaming and media management services offer similar features, they all have some things that are unique to each one. If you really want to see which iTunes alternative is best for you, try out the free versions of each for a week or so and see which is your favorite.
What are your favorite iTunes alternatives for macOS? Leave a comment and let us know.
About Lorena
Sherief
The big issue for me is that the whole focus is on music. I listen to music and other audio – most of which is rare or unusual recordings which don’t appear on Apples servers. The biggest issue is TV and Movie content. I have a large collection of material – mostly higher resolution or restoration work of my own. Relying on the hopeless interface with a lack in library management etc makes Apple TV worthless – It’s too data hungry to host elsewhere and stream – my library is too large, and stored on different drives, and the cost of an unlimited data contract (and scrappy coverage/peak data usage make this unviable). I hate to say it but I find myself questioning my future relationship with the whole Apple ecosystem. Unintuitive systems replacing functioning ones. Computers and mobile devices that defy (and green) right to repair. The list goes on. Maybe this is the time to go Android and ditch it all for Windows or Linux
Brian
I personally use WALTR 2..I would recommend it as well.
josh
this is awesome thanks for the information it was really of great help . music they say is food or the soul you can check out my post on waptrick for latest cool music o add to your collections
Dee Goto
iTunes functionality in Apple Music
Can anyone here tell me how best to use Apple Music as your Music media manager? I have both Windows iTunes on a PC and Apple Music on a Mac with similar music on both. But since iTunes went away I have found it much harder to edit and organize my music in Apple Music and I was wondering if there is other ways or options to handle a large music catalog on the Mac. Presently I am still using The iTunes for Windows as my main media manger. But would like to shift to the Apple Music
Boris
forget about apple music. they don’t care for audiophiles only for people willing to pay for streaming! this article is very helpful for looking for alternatives but it seems that only the Windows version of iTunes is here to stay.
Sal D'Agostino
Unfortunately, I’m not 14 years old. I listen to a lifetime of music, many TBs of which is ripped to iTunes in AIFF. I don’t need the cloud, I don’t need Spotify, I don’t need to synch multiple devices… what I need is a sound engine for iTunes to replace Pure Music, which no longer works thanks to a recent update of Microsoft Office. Can you help?
Robert Garfias
I am not interested in streaming. I have a very large collection of music, thousands of albums, a large part of which have never been available on Amazon or iTunes. SO I just need a player to play music, to create and edit playlists and to sometime burn lists onto MP3 cds
Abdy Miller
“Streaming music has revolutionized how we all listen to and consume our favorite bands and artists” — This is SIMPLY not the case for those of us with large or very large music, audiobook, film and TV libraries — AND for those of us who do not live/work 100% of our time in areas with high band width internet access — SO the BULK OF THE WORLD outside certain US cities (and far from all) – have collections of media already down loaded and NO desire or need to stream.
It is frankly a disaster for folk like me who have media libraries with many hundreds of thousands of items that apple chose to break up iTunes and replace it with 4 components none of which have the same functionality as iTunes AND all bar music the functionality to support large libraries is appalling — the worse is Books — which is truly “poor”, TV is almost as port although one can have smart playlists, but no list or column browser view.
It is patently clear that Apple have done this to hook more subscribers into Apple’s online content.