I have been using Lollypop on my phone for about 2 years now. I have tried a few other apps but nothing worked quite as well for me as Lollypop.

That said, I still have a lot of gripes with Lollypop. Rather than complain about it, though, I’d rather hear about something new.

The last time I went looking for a new app was in 2023. Is there anything new in 2025 worth checking out?

My wants:

  • Large-ish local library (350gb) and I want it to load/scroll through fast. Lollypop is quite slow here.
  • I really prefer the UI to list artists, open one, then list albums, open one, then list songs. Too many apps list all your albums, or all your individual songs, and I hate this.

Edit: I guess I need to specify, I am looking for Linux-native apps. A few of the suggestions so far have been Android, and I am not seeking to run anything in Waydroid for this.

  • @[email protected]
    1•14 hours ago

    I like using Gapless, though I’m a sucker for GTK4 apps and I’m not sure it has the artist -> album UX you’re looking for.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•15 hours ago

    i keep my music organized on-disk so that each song is placed at <artist>/<album>/<track-number>-<title>.flac. then i just use any file browser (e.g. rofi, or portfolio) to navigate it, and when i select a song it opens in mpv. i installed the playlistmanager mpv script so that when i open any song, mpv queues everything else in that folder (so if i open track 01, the default behavior is gapless playback of the whole album). i also installed the uosc script, which provides a UI that’s much friendlier than the default IMO.

    i find i prefer configuring just one media player and then using that for everything (music, audiobooks, videos, podcasts, etc). then for example when i decide i want to cast music to my TV, i only have to solve that once, and not separately for casting youtube, local videos, etc.

    • @spacemanspiffyOPEnglish
      2•15 hours ago

      This, I would trust to be fast, at least. How is it on mobile, though?

      • @[email protected]English
        1•14 hours ago

        Perfect. I use VLC installed via Fdroid as my primary Android music player. The only thing I could never get to work was displaying Album art, but I stopped caring enough to fiddle with it for such a trivial thing long ago.