Navidrome Lite

Navidrome Lite is an offline-first local music library browser and player that runs entirely in your browser.

It gives your local music collection a proper library experience — browse by album, artist, or genre, build playlists, import/export .m3u/.m3u8, and even play HLS streams — with no accounts, no server, and no tracking. Everything runs locally in a single page.

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⚠️ Unofficial & Unaffiliated

Navidrome Lite is NOT affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the real Navidrome project in any way.

The real Navidrome is an excellent, self-hosted music server. This project is a small, standalone, browser-only tool that was inspired by the library-browsing experience of Navidrome — hence the "Lite" name. It shares none of Navidrome's code, does not talk to a Navidrome server, and is not a client for it.

If you want the real thing — a powerful self-hosted music streaming server — please go support the actual Navidrome project. This is just a humble local library browser that admired the vibe.

(This project is part of the same personal "Navi" family as NaviWriter and NaviPlayer Pro, which follow the same naming pattern.)

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What Navidrome Lite Is

A single-page local music library app. It includes:

• Loading a whole music folder (via the folder picker or the File System Access API)
• Automatic album / artist / genre grouping with cover art
• Reading embedded tags (title, artist, album, album artist, genre, year, track number, cover) via jsmediatags
• A metadata cache (IndexedDB) so re-loading the same folder is fast
• Global search across tracks, albums, artists, genres, and playlists
• A three-pane layout: Library (left) · Tracks/Queue (middle) · Preview/metadata (right), with resizable panes
• Playlists — create, save from what's visible, import/export .m3u/.m3u8
• Smart playlist matching on import (matches entries to your library by path, filename, or artist/title)
• HLS streaming support (add a .m3u8 URL) via hls.js
• Playback: play/pause, seek, volume, shuffle, repeat (all/one/off), queue
• Light / dark theme + compact row mode
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Virtualized track list (handles big libraries smoothly)

It is not a polished commercial product. It's a focused local music browser built through iterative development and a good deal of Copilot.

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Project Status

Navidrome Lite (v8.5) is complete and stable for what it is.

It is a self-contained music library browser. It is not actively developed anymore — its ideas were carried forward and expanded into NaviPlayer Pro, which is the larger, more feature-rich player. Navidrome Lite is preserved here as the leaner, library-first option.

You may still encounter:

• Browser-specific format/codec support
• The usual local-file limitations (see below)
• Minor UI quirks

Fork it, tweak it, or open a pull request if you'd like to improve it.

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Credits and Development Notes

Navidrome Lite was created and directed by me, a human.

All of the code was generated with Microsoft Copilot Thinking Mode. My role was designing features, testing, reviewing behavior, asking for fixes, and directing the UI/UX. If you open the code and find something strange, please have mercy.

The internals are compact — it's index.html + app.js + styles.css, with the JS written in a dense, minified-ish style. It's small, but it's terse; read it with coffee.

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Download / Installation

Download all three files from the Navidrome Lite V8.5 folder and keep them together:

-Navidrome Lite V8.5 - index.html - app.js - styles.css

Then open index.html in a browser.

It also loads two small libraries from a CDN (so a connection helps on first load):

• jsmediatags — reads embedded music tags
• hls.js — enables HLS stream playback

Preferably use a Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi). The "Load Library" folder picker uses the File System Access API, which is best supported in Chromium browsers; other browsers fall back to a standard folder <input>.

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Quick Start

1. Open index.html in a browser.
2. Click ☰ → Load Library (or use Folder Input) and pick your music folder.
3. Wait a moment while it reads tags (progress shows in the status bar).
4. Browse by Albums / Artists / Genres in the left pane.
5. Click a track to preview it; click ▶ to play.
6. Make playlists, import .m3u files, or add an HLS URL from the menu.

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Feature Overview

Library

• Folder loading (File System Access API or folder input)
• Album / Artist / Genre columns with cover art
• Embedded tag reading + IndexedDB metadata cache
• Global fuzzy search across everything
• Virtualized list for large libraries

Playback

• Play / pause / seek / volume
• Shuffle and repeat (all / one / off)
• Queue (queue the visible tracks, reorder via play-next)
• Now-playing bar with cover, title, and transport

Playlists

• Create new playlists
• Save whatever's currently visible as a playlist
• Add visible tracks to an existing playlist
• Import .m3u / .m3u8 (with smart library matching)
• Export playlists as .m3u or .m3u8
• Right-click / ⋯ context menus on tracks and playlists

Streaming

• Add an HLS (.m3u8) URL and play it via hls.js
• Streams can be saved into playlists alongside local tracks

Interface

• Three resizable panes (Library / Tracks / Preview)
• Preview pane showing full metadata for the selection
• Light / dark theme (remembered)
• Compact row mode
• Responsive layout (panes collapse on smaller screens)

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Playlist Import Matching

When you import an .m3u/.m3u8, Navidrome Lite tries hard to match each entry to a track in your loaded library, in this order:

1. Exact relative path
2. Path without extension
3. Path suffix match
4. Filename
5. Base filename (no extension)
6. Artist - Title from the #EXTINF label

Anything it can't match is reported as "missed" (or kept as an HLS stream if it's a .m3u8 URL). So for best results, load your music library first, then import the playlist.

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Important Note on Local Files

Navidrome Lite plays local files using in-memory blob URLs, and it does not permanently store your audio files (browsers don't allow that). What it does keep:

• Playlists and settings — saved in localStorage
• Track metadata — cached in IndexedDB (so re-scanning the same folder is fast)

But the actual audio must be re-loaded each session by pointing it at your music folder again. Your saved playlists then re-match to the freshly loaded tracks automatically.

This is a browser security limitation, not a bug — the tradeoff for a zero-install, fully-local app.

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License

Find the license in the LISCENSE file I guess.

Part of the Navi family alongside NaviWriter, NaviPlayer, and NaviPlayer Pro. Enjoy your music. 🎶