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Kadrack

First steps

Kadrack is a viewer and player for music you already own. It doesn’t download anything, doesn’t stream from the cloud, and doesn’t phone home. It reads the files on your disk and helps you navigate them.

  1. Add a music folder. On first launch, Kadrack asks for a folder to watch. Pick the root of your music library (e.g. ~/Music, /Volumes/Library/Music, or wherever your tagged files live).
  2. Let it scan. Kadrack reads tags + album art in the background. A 10k-track library takes about a minute on fast storage.
  3. Play something. Click any album or track. Kadrack uses bit-perfect playback by default and respects ReplayGain if your files are tagged.
  4. Curate. Rate tracks (1–5 stars). Create static playlists by dragging tracks around. Or build a smart playlist (“everything I rated ≥4 from the last 6 months”) using the rule builder.
  5. Sync your tags. If you want metadata fixes from external sources (MusicBrainz, Discogs, AcoustID), Kadrack can look them up and let you review changes before writing them back to your files.

That’s the whole mental model. The rest is details.