Frequently Asked Questions

SugarSpin is a self hosted music player for anyone who wants to stream their personal music collection from anywhere. It runs as a Docker container on any computer, a NAS, a Mac, a Windows PC, or a Linux machine, and provides a beautiful, streaming quality web interface accessible from any browser on any device. If you have music files on a hard drive, SugarSpin turns them into your own private streaming service.

SugarSpin is for music lovers who believe in owning their music. If you've spent years collecting albums, ripping CDs, hunting down rare tracks, and building a personal library, SugarSpin gives your collection a home that respects it. No algorithms, no songs disappearing because of licensing deals.

SugarSpin supports MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, M4A, AAC, OPUS, AIFF, APE, WV (WavPack), and ALAC. If you have the same album in multiple formats (for example, both MP3 and FLAC), SugarSpin automatically groups them together and plays the highest quality version by default. You can also manually choose which format to play per track.

No. SugarSpin runs entirely on your local network. Once installed, it works without any internet connection. Your music never leaves your home network unless you choose to set up remote access yourself.

No. A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a dedicated storage device that sits on your home network, and it's a popular choice for running SugarSpin because it's always on. But SugarSpin works just as well on a regular computer. You can run it on a Mac, a Windows PC, or a Linux box with your music stored on an internal drive, an external USB drive, or even a USB C portable drive. Docker is the only requirement, it's available for free on all major platforms.

They're two different things. A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a physical device, a small computer dedicated to storing files on your network. Docker is software that runs apps in isolated containers on any computer. Think of Docker as the engine that runs SugarSpin, and your computer (whether that's a NAS, a Mac, a PC, or a Linux box) as the machine the engine runs on. You need Docker installed to run SugarSpin, but the computer it runs on is totally up to you.

Yes, if you used the install script from sugarspin.app, it set up a tiny companion container called Watchtower that polls Docker Hub for new SugarSpin releases and installs them automatically within 24 hours. No SSH, no terminal, no thinking about it. You can see the status in Profile → Server Access → Auto Updates, and there’s a “Check for updates now” button if you don’t want to wait. Existing customers who installed before auto updates were added can turn it on with a copy paste snippet in the same panel.

No. SugarSpin uses a single server address, the same one at home and away. Enter it once in Profile → Server Access and that’s the last time you’ll think about it. The old LAN/Remote two-URL setup, and the toggle that went with it, is gone: simpler, no flicker, no second password screen. Set up remote access once with Tailscale (recommended) so your home address keeps working on cellular, or use a Cloudflare Tunnel URL, and that one address just works everywhere. You sign in once per device and stay signed in.

Yes. In Settings → Appearance you can pick the app's accent. SugarSpin's signature gold always leads, and you choose the one highlight that rides with it: Deep Teal (the default), VU-Meter Blue, or Warm Cream. The accent shows up where it counts — the active page in the sidebar, the player's progress, and selected tabs — and your choice is saved instantly on that device.

Just press play on the device you want to hear — that device becomes the one making sound, and the rest stay in sync as controllers. To move the music somewhere else, open the device picker (it lists every active device plus your BluOS / NAD speakers, from any screen including your phone) and tap the one you want. One playback session, you simply choose where the sound comes out.

All of it lives in the Stream To sheet — the dancing–wave button in the play bar. Open it and you see what’s playing now at the top, then every device and BluOS / NAD speaker you can send the music to. Tap into a device to give it a friendly name (tap the pencil by the title and type), set it as your default device so playback lands there when you press play (a gold dot marks the default in the list), or sign it out with a single tap on the ×. Everything syncs across your account, so you can manage any device from any other one. The Account page now keeps just the Auto logout control under Sessions — pick Never to stay signed in until you sign out yourself.

They moved into a single Library tab between Artists and Categories. Inside Library, pill buttons switch between Shelves (your album groups, like a record shelf), Playlists, Liked (your liked songs and favorite albums), and Unknown (tracks with missing or incorrect metadata). The selected pill persists to the URL so deep links and the back button work, and the pills fit on one row even on iPhone. You can rearrange your Shelves, Playlists, and Liked Songs by holding and dragging them into any order — the rest slide apart to make room and your order is saved. Tapping a song plays it right away.

Yes. SugarSpin for Mac is a real native macOS app, Apple notarized, Apple Silicon ready, signed by Hotdang Studio. It runs in its own window with no browser chrome, cleaner, faster, and feels like a proper Music app should. It’s free with any SugarSpin license. Download it from the homepage and drag it to your Applications folder.

We recommend the desktop app on your main listening machine. It’s more refined, native window, no browser tabs, no address bar, no browser quirks, and feels snappier in everyday use. The web app stays available for when you’re away from your main computer (a friend’s laptop, a work machine, a Linux box). Both connect to the same server, see the same library, and behave the same way under the hood.

Soon. We’re building a native iPhone and iPad app that will land in TestFlight first, then the App Store. It’ll be free to download, your existing SugarSpin license is all you need to connect to your server. Expect lock screen Now Playing controls, CarPlay support (no Subsonic workaround), and iPad split view. Until then, you can install the web app to your iPhone home screen for a clean fullscreen experience, or use any third party Subsonic client.

Neither. The iPhone & iPad app will be a 100% free download from the App Store, with zero in app purchases and zero subscriptions. Your SugarSpin license is purchased once on this website and unlocks every app we ship. No middleman, no Apple cut on your music library, the way it should be.

Not yet. The framework we use for the Mac app (Tauri) cross compiles cleanly to Windows and Linux, so this is on the roadmap. For now, Windows and Linux users get the full web app in any modern browser, which gives you the same library and features. If a native Windows or Linux build is important to you, drop a note via the Contact page so we can prioritize it.

No. The Mac app is free with any SugarSpin license. Your license is for the server, the apps are clients that connect to it. The same applies to the iPhone & iPad app when it launches, and any future Windows or Linux builds.

With the Mac app open, click the SugarSpin menu at the top of your screen and choose Switch Server…. The app will clear the saved server URL and restart back to the setup screen, where you can enter a new one. Handy if you move your server to a new IP, change your address, or test against a different SugarSpin server.

Yes. The app is signed with a Developer ID Application certificate issued to Hotdang Studio and notarized by Apple, which means Apple has scanned the app for malware before you ever download it. macOS Gatekeeper will recognize it as approved, no “unverified developer” warnings, no right click Open workaround. Just double click, drag to Applications, and launch.

Honest answer: they’re native shells around the SugarSpin web interface. Tauri on the Mac, a native iOS shell on iPhone & iPad. From the outside they behave like any other native app, they live in your Dock or on your home screen, have proper menu bars, support Lock screen Now Playing, AirPlay routing, CarPlay, Bonjour discovery, and all the OS niceties. Inside, they load the same SugarSpin interface you use in a browser. We did this on purpose: it keeps the install small, the launch fast, and every feature on the website lives in the apps with zero version drift. You get the polish of native plus the speed of web, with no tradeoffs you’d notice.

Yes, that’s the plan. Once the iPhone & iPad app ships publicly, CarPlay will be wired directly into it, meaning you’ll plug your phone into your car and SugarSpin will show up alongside Apple Music and Spotify on the dashboard, with proper search, playlists, and Now Playing controls. No third party Subsonic compatible client, no workarounds. Until that ships, the existing “Subsonic App Access” feature in Profile → Settings lets you connect any Subsonic compatible app (play:Sub, Substreamer, DSub) to your server for CarPlay and Android Auto today.

Nothing scary. As of v1.9.5, every open SugarSpin client, web app, Mac app, iPhone, iPad, watches for the server. When Watchtower restarts SugarSpin to install a new version, a clean popup appears: “SugarSpin is updating…” with a moving progress bar. About 15 to 30 seconds later, the server is back, the popup flips to “Update complete! Now running vX.Y.Z, reloading the app…” and the app refreshes itself. No Cmd+Shift+R, no manual restart, no guessing. If the server was just briefly unreachable (Wi Fi blip), the popup just disappears once the connection is back.

Same feature, clearer name. The card was renamed in v1.9.5 because what it actually does is set a username/password for the Subsonic API, the standard third party apps (play:Sub, Substreamer, DSub, Symfonium) speak to use for CarPlay and Android Auto. Calling it “Subsonic App Access” says exactly what it is. The settings layout was also reordered to flow logically: Server Access (your single server address) at top, Subsonic App Access in the middle for optional third party clients, Auto Updates at the bottom for maintenance.

Use the License Recovery page. Enter the email address you used at checkout and we’ll send your existing key back to that exact inbox, not to whatever address you type in, but to the one already on file from your original purchase. This means even if a stranger tried to use the form with your email, the key would still only land in your real inbox. If you also lost access to that email account, head to the Contact page and include the name on the card and rough date of purchase, we’ll work it out manually.

For your security, SugarSpin has no online password reset — so nobody can take over your account just by finding your server’s address. If you forget your password, you reset it on your own server, from your home network:

1. On a computer at home, open Terminal (Mac) or PowerShell (Windows).
2. Connect to your server: ssh your-username@your-server-ip
3. Run this, with your new password in the quotes: docker exec sugarspin-player node /app/server/reset-password.js "your-new-password"
4. Log in with the new password.

Your music, playlists, and settings are never touched. To fix a mistyped username, use reset-username.js the same way.

Absolutely not. SugarSpin was built by a music collector who has spent decades buying vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, MiniDiscs, and reel to reel tapes. Every piece of music in the library that inspired this project was personally purchased, collected, backed up, and digitized over many years. SugarSpin exists for one reason: to help you enjoy music you already own and have already paid for. It is not a tool for downloading, sharing, or distributing music. It does not connect to any external music sources, torrent networks, or streaming services. SugarSpin is simply a beautiful player for your personal collection.

SugarSpin is designed for people who have built a personal music library over time, whether that means ripping your own CDs, digitizing vinyl and cassette collections, purchasing digital downloads from stores like Bandcamp, Amazon, or iTunes, or backing up music you've legitimately acquired over the years. If your music sits on a hard drive, a NAS, or any storage device and you want a gorgeous way to play it, that's exactly what SugarSpin was made for.

No. SugarSpin does not download, stream from external sources, or acquire music in any way. It plays music files that already exist on your computer or storage device. The only external network calls SugarSpin makes are optional features to fetch missing album artwork and look up metadata (artist names, genres, release years) from MusicBrainz. These only download cover images and text data, never audio files.

Streaming services are great for discovery, but they don't respect ownership. Albums disappear without warning due to licensing changes. Sound quality varies. Algorithms decide what you listen to next. And you pay every single month to access music you could already own. SugarSpin was built for collectors who have spent years (and real money) building a library they're proud of, and who want to enjoy that library with the same quality and care they put into collecting it. No subscription. No corporate middleman. Just your music, sounding the way it was meant to sound.

SugarSpin includes a free tier that supports up to 20 albums or 100 songs, whichever you reach first. This lets you install the app, set it up, and try it out with a portion of your library before committing to a purchase.

Pro gives you up to 300 albums and 25,000 songs for $49. Gold gives you unlimited albums and unlimited songs for $89. Both are one server installation with unlimited simultaneous clients. Every feature in SugarSpin is available across all paid tiers, the only difference is library size. All paid tiers are lifetime purchases. No subscriptions, no recurring charges, ever.

Yes. You can purchase Pro or Gold at any time from sugarspin.hotdang.studio. Once you enter your license key in Settings, your new limits kick in right away and SugarSpin will scan and index your full library on the next rescan.

SugarSpin has three tiers. Free gets you up to 20 albums and 100 songs. Pro is a lifetime purchase of $49 for up to 300 albums and 25,000 songs. Gold is $89 for unlimited library. No subscriptions, no monthly fees, no hidden charges. You pay once and use it forever.

Visit sugarspin.hotdang.studio and click the Buy Now button. After payment, you'll receive a unique license key via email. Open SugarSpin, go to Settings, scroll to the License section, paste your key, and click Activate. That's it.

Every SugarSpin license is for one server installation, the single machine running Docker (your NAS, Mac, PC, or Linux box). Clients (phones, tablets, laptops browsing via the web app) do not count as server installations, only the machine running Docker counts. Pro and Gold both allow unlimited simultaneous clients, so any number of your own devices can stream from that one server at once.

Simply go to Settings → License in SugarSpin on your old machine, click Deactivate, then install on the new machine and activate the same key. This frees up your installation slot so it can be used on the new hardware. Gold users have 2 slots, so they can keep both active if they want.

License keys are tied to the server they're activated on and are not meant to be shared. Each key allows a fixed number of server installations: Free and Pro allow 1, Gold allows 2. If someone else activates your key, it uses up your installation slots. Think of it like a software serial number, it's yours, not transferable.

No. License validation happens entirely offline, inside the app itself. Your license key contains a cryptographic signature that the app verifies locally, so no internet connection or server check is needed. Even if the SugarSpin website shut down permanently, every existing license would continue working forever.

Of course. Just email us at support@hotdang.studio. The $89 Gold deal is only available at the time of your first purchase, so the upgrade price goes back to the regular $129. But since you already supported us with a Pro purchase, we'll give you a loyalty discount on top of that. We appreciate every customer who believes in this project.

Because SugarSpin offers a generous free tier that lets you fully evaluate the app before purchasing, we do not offer refunds. We encourage you to try the free tier first to make sure SugarSpin is right for you.

Yes. Your license key belongs to you, it is not permanently locked to one machine. To move it, you deactivate it on the current machine first, which frees up the activation slot. Then you enter the same key on the new machine and it activates normally.

To deactivate: open SugarSpin, go to your Account page, scroll to the License section, and click Deactivate License. You'll see a confirmation before anything happens. Once confirmed, your key is released and the machine reverts to the free tier.

Then on the new machine: go to Account → License and enter your key in the activation field. It will bind to the new machine and your full tier unlocks immediately.

You do not need to buy a new license. One purchase, transferable as many times as you need.

If you're moving to a completely new machine or doing a fresh install, deactivate your license on the old setup first if you still have access to it. Then re enter your key on the new install to activate it there.

If you no longer have access to the old machine (it died, it's gone, you can't get into it), contact us at support@hotdang.studio with your license key and we'll manually release the activation slot so you can use it on the new machine.

No. Deactivating only removes the license from this machine, it does not delete anything. Your music files, library index, playlists, favorites, and play history are all stored separately and are completely unaffected. You just revert to the free tier (20 albums / 100 songs) until you re enter a valid key. Re activating restores full access immediately, no rescan needed.

SugarSpin is distributed as a Docker image. Installation takes about 2 minutes. Install Docker on your computer (NAS, Mac, Windows, or Linux), pull the SugarSpin image from Docker Hub, and run one command. Then open your browser, go to http://localhost:3333 (or your server's IP on port 3333), create your account, and head to Settings → Music Library to scan your collection. For full step by step instructions for every platform, see the Installation Guide.

Not necessarily. If you're on a NAS, most have a built in Docker GUI in the admin panel where you can set everything up without touching a terminal. On Mac or Windows, Docker Desktop provides a graphical interface as well. You paste one command, Docker handles the rest, and everything after that is done in your browser. See the Installation Guide for full step by step instructions per platform.

Think of a Docker container as a self contained package that includes everything SugarSpin needs to run. You don't need to install any dependencies or configure anything on your computer beyond Docker itself. Most modern NAS devices come with Docker built in, and for Mac, Windows, or Linux you can download Docker Desktop for free from docker.com.

After launching SugarSpin and creating your account, go to Settings (the gear icon in the sidebar). You'll see a Music Library section with a clickable link to your music folder, click it to scan and index your collection. Your music can live on a NAS share, an internal drive, an external USB drive, or anywhere else your computer can see. The Installation Guide walks through this in detail.

SugarSpin checks for updates automatically. When a new version is available, you'll see an Update SugarSpin button on your Account page, it copies the update command to your clipboard so you can paste it in your terminal. Your library, playlists, favorites, and settings are all preserved because they're stored in a persistent data volume that survives updates.

Copy music files to the folder you pointed SugarSpin at (whether that's on your NAS, your hard drive, or an external drive). Then go to Settings and click Rescan Library. SugarSpin will discover all new albums and tracks automatically. It also runs periodic background scans to pick up changes.

Yes, several ways. There's a native iPhone & iPad app in TestFlight beta right now (a free App Store release is on the way), plus a native Mac app for the desktop. And on any device you can simply open your phone's browser to your server's address on port 3333 — it's fully responsive, works great on mobile, and can be added to your home screen for an app-like experience.

SugarSpin runs on your local network by default, and you only ever give it one address. To reach that address from anywhere, set up remote access once. Tailscale (recommended) is a free, zero-config private network that lets you access your server from anywhere as if you were on your home Wi-Fi, so your same home address keeps working on cellular. Install it on your server and on your phone or laptop, and you're connected. Or use Cloudflare Tunnel to expose your server at a clean public HTTPS address (point a domain like music.yourdomain.com at port 3333 through the tunnel). Both keep your server secure without opening ports on your router.

Cloudflare Tunnel creates a secure, encrypted connection between your server and Cloudflare's network. You set up a custom domain name (like music.yourdomain.com), configure it to point to your server on port 3333, and Cloudflare handles the rest. No need to open any ports on your router. It's free for personal use.

Tailscale is a mesh VPN that connects your devices directly to each other. Install the Tailscale app on your server and on your phone or laptop, and they can see each other from anywhere in the world as if they're on the same local network. Access SugarSpin using your server's Tailscale IP on port 3333. It's also free for personal use with up to 100 devices.

Both are excellent choices. Tailscale is the one we recommend, it's the most private, free forever, and (with subnet routing) lets your single home address work everywhere so there's nothing to switch. Cloudflare Tunnel is best if you'd rather have a clean public URL you can open in any browser with no app installed. Either way, SugarSpin only needs one address from you.

Yes, Pro and Gold both allow unlimited simultaneous clients, so your whole household can stream at the same time with no restrictions. Free limits you to 1 client at a time, which is the main reason to upgrade to Pro. A "client" is any browser or device connected to SugarSpin, your phone, laptop, tablet, TV, all count separately. Server installations (the machine running Docker) are tracked separately.

Yes. You can create, edit, and manage playlists within SugarSpin. You can also mark songs and albums as favorites. Your playlists and favorites are stored in the SugarSpin database and persist across updates.

SugarSpin extracts embedded album art from your music files during scanning. It also includes a Fetch Missing Covers feature in Settings that searches MusicBrainz and the Cover Art Archive for any albums that don't have artwork and downloads them automatically. You can also search for covers manually from the album editor using iTunes and Discogs.

SugarSpin includes a real time audio visualizer in the Now Playing view with classic VU meters and a spectrum analyzer. It responds to your music in real time and displays over a beautiful bokeh background. You can toggle between different display modes from the side drawer. It gives you that hi fi stereo component feeling, right in your browser.

SugarSpin has been tested with libraries of over 140,000 tracks. Scanning and indexing is fast and runs in the background. Even very large libraries are handled smoothly thanks to efficient database queries and background processing.

Vinyl View is a full screen, immersive Now Playing experience that shows a spinning vinyl record with your album's artwork on the label and a tonearm. It recreates the feeling of sitting in front of a turntable. The record spins while music plays and pauses when you pause. It's the kind of detail that makes SugarSpin feel like it was built by someone who actually loves music. Because it was.

You organize your own music files exactly how you like, SugarSpin never moves, renames, reorganizes, or deletes them. To correct the metadata shown in the app (album name, artist, year, or genre), click the gear icon on any album and use Smart Fix to look up the correct details from MusicBrainz and preview them before you save. It only updates what SugarSpin displays, your files and folders on disk stay exactly where and how you put them.

SugarSpin shows the artwork that already lives in your library, it doesn't invent it. For each album it looks for cover art embedded in the audio file's tags, or a cover.jpg / folder.jpg image sitting in that album's folder. If an album comes up blank, it simply doesn't have art in either place yet. Drop a cover image into the folder, or embed one in the tags, and it appears on the next scan. There's also an optional one-click tool in Settings that fetches missing covers online if you'd like it to, but that only runs when you choose to run it.

SugarSpin displays exactly what's written in your files, the artist, album, and title from each file's tags, plus the folder names. When a name looks wrong, shows up greyed out, or reads “Unknown,” that file's tags are missing or incomplete. SugarSpin reads your library, it doesn't rewrite it. Your music, your system: name your files, tag them, and arrange your folders however you like, and SugarSpin will never move, rename, or reorganize your files or folders to fit some structure of ours. Everyone organizes their collection differently, and that's yours to own. If you want to clean up what's shown for a specific album, use Smart Fix (the gear icon on any album) to pull the correct details from MusicBrainz and preview them before saving, it changes what SugarSpin displays, not how your files are stored. Optional folder and naming helpers may arrive down the road, but they'll always be your choice to run, never something we do to your library automatically.

Yes. SugarSpin supports multi device sync. Open SugarSpin on two or more devices on the same network and they all stay in sync. You can choose which device outputs the audio using the Stream To button in the play bar. Browse and queue songs from your phone while the music plays through your desktop or laptop. All playback controls (play, pause, skip, seek, volume) sync across every connected device in real time.

Crossfade smoothly blends the end of one song into the beginning of the next. Go to Settings, and under Playback you'll see a Crossfade slider. Set it anywhere from 0 (gapless, no overlap) to 15 seconds. When a song is about to end, the next track fades in while the current one fades out. Set it to 0 if you prefer gapless playback with no overlap.

Yes. Tap the shuffle icon (crossed arrows) in the play bar to toggle shuffle on or off. When shuffle is on, each skip picks a random track from the queue, weighted to avoid songs you've heard recently. It works with both manual skips and when songs end naturally, including during crossfade.

Watchtower monitors your music folder in real time and automatically detects new files. When you add music to your folder, SugarSpin picks it up without needing a manual rescan. You can configure how often a full rescan runs (every 30 minutes, hourly, daily, or weekly) from the Settings page. You can also turn Watchtower on or off with a toggle.

No. There is no transcoding pipeline. When you press play, the server reads the original file off your disk and sends those bytes straight to the player. A FLAC stays a FLAC. An ALAC stays an ALAC. The bit depth and sample rate of the original file ride along untouched. Nothing in SugarSpin re encodes, down samples, or “optimizes” your music behind your back.

Yes. The streaming layer is format agnostic. 16 bit / 44.1 kHz CD rips, 24 bit / 48 kHz, 24 bit / 96 kHz, 24 bit / 192 kHz, even 32 bit float, they all transit from your disk to the player at their native quality. SugarSpin doesn’t flatten everything to a single sample rate, and it doesn’t maintain a second “optimized” copy of your library. The file you put in is the file that plays.

When you cast to a BluOS streamer (any Bluesound speaker, NAD M10, NAD M33, Powernode, etc.), yes. The speaker reaches into SugarSpin, pulls the raw file, and decodes it in its own DAC. Nothing in between touches the audio. That is a genuine bit perfect signal path. SugarSpin deliberately does not include any equalizer, so nothing on our side ever reshapes your file before it reaches the speaker. The only sound shaping feature in the app is optional Tube Warmth on browser playback, and that is off by default. When you listen in a web browser on your laptop or phone, the audio passes through the operating system's audio engine, which may resample to the OS output rate. SugarSpin itself does not modify the file, but the browser stack downstream is something no web app fully controls. For end to end bit perfect playback, use a streamer or a wired USB DAC.

FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, WAV, OGG Vorbis, OPUS, AAC, M4A, and MP3. Mix them all in a single library. SugarSpin reads each track at its native format and bit depth.

Never. Both are real time effects applied during playback. The file on your disk is read only as far as SugarSpin is concerned. Set Tube Warmth to Off, set ReplayGain to Off, and you are listening to the file as recorded. Casting to a BluOS streamer always bypasses every effect, because the speaker decodes the original file itself with no SugarSpin DSP in the path. SugarSpin deliberately does not include an equalizer at all, so there is no EQ stage anywhere in the pipeline to second guess your music.

DSD is not currently supported. SugarSpin runs in the browser, and no browser audio engine natively decodes DSD. If you have a small DSD collection alongside your PCM library, the usual workflow is to keep the DSD files where you store them and play those through your dedicated SACD capable software, while SugarSpin handles the FLAC, ALAC, and other PCM formats. DSD support would require a decoding step on the server, which we have not built.

Anything running BluOS, that's the entire Bluesound lineup (Node, Powernode, Pulse Mini, Pulse Flex, Vault) plus NAD's BluOS equipped streamers and amps (M10, M33, T 778, C 700, C 658). Pro and Gold tier only. SugarSpin auto discovers any BluOS device on your LAN at startup and pops a toast notification when a new one shows up. Pick it from the device picker in the play bar.

Yes. SugarSpin sends title, artist, album, and cover art as metadata when starting the stream. Your Bluesound Powernode's front panel, NAD M10's screen, and the BluOS mobile app all show the same track info as your SugarSpin UI.

No. The speaker pulls the original FLAC bytes directly from SugarSpin over HTTP, bit perfect. Nothing is re encoded, resampled, or compressed in transit. SugarSpin's server side audio level analysis decodes a transient in memory PCM copy purely for math (to drive the visualizers), the actual file streaming to your speaker is untouched.

Yes. SugarSpin's server polls the speaker once per second, detects when a track ends (via four independent end of track signals to handle every BluOS firmware quirk), and tells the speaker to play the next track in your queue. Respects Repeat One, Repeat Album, and Shuffle modes. You can even close all your browsers and the queue will keep advancing on the speaker by itself, though closing the last browser does trigger an automatic Stop so you don't accidentally leave music playing.

Absolutely. Start a song on your Mac, skip a track from your iPad, pause from your phone, all controlling the same speaker. All connected browsers stay in real time sync via the server's broadcast layer. Family friendly: anyone in the house with a SugarSpin tab open can change what's playing on the living room amp.

SugarSpin tries LRCLib first (a community driven synced lyrics database), then falls back to NetEase Cloud Music for tracks LRCLib doesn't have. Both are free, no auth or API keys required from you. Once lyrics are found they're cached in your local SQLite database forever, so they only fetch once per song.

Lyric databases are crowdsourced, obscure, indie, classical, jazz, or pre 1980s tracks often have no entry. LRCLib covers about 3 million songs (mostly Western pop/rock); NetEase boosts coverage on Asian music, K pop, J pop, and older Western catalog. If both miss a song, SugarSpin caches the miss to avoid re checking. There's no fix for tracks that simply aren't in either database.

Three styles: Scroll (karaoke style line highlight with smooth scrolling), Spotlight (full screen focus on the current line, large type), and Wave (gentle rising/falling animation between lines). Switch between them with the faint pill at the bottom of the lyrics view, it fades to 20% opacity when idle so it doesn't distract.

Yes, this was new in v1.8.0. When the audio is flowing to your Bluesound or NAD speaker (not your browser), SugarSpin's server decodes the track and computes 30 frames per second level data (RMS, spectrum bins, waveform samples), then pushes that to every connected browser via socket. So your VU meter, spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, and radial visualizer all animate from the real audio even though your laptop's audio output is silent. The decode happens once per song and gets cached, so every play after the first is instant.

Tap the faint circular glyph in the bottom left corner of Now Playing (a 48 px floating button matching the main one on the right). The picker that comes up lets you choose between Vinyl, Lyrics, VU Meter, Spectrum, Oscilloscope, Radial Spectrum, and the new Tubes view. Replaced the old double tap gesture, which was unreliable on iPad.

A new full screen Now Playing view: four photoreal vacuum tubes glowing amber over a warm bokeh field. The glow brightens and breathes on a slow ~5 second cycle tied to the song’s overall loudness, not a jittery per beat flicker. A secondary red glow at the base of each tube simulates the filament heat. Tube positions are measured directly from the source artwork, so the glows stay locked to the tubes in both portrait and landscape on any device.

They’re separate things. Tube Warmth is an audio DSP, a vacuum tube saturation stage that adds gentle even order harmonics and soft compression to what you hear. It runs entirely in the Web Audio API graph, between your file and your speakers. Four presets in Settings: Off, Subtle, Warm, Vintage, plus a custom Drive slider. The Tubes visualizer is a visual Now Playing view (the glowing tubes screen). You can run either, both, or neither. Your source FLAC/ALAC files are never modified.

Yes, on Pro and Gold. The simplest way is the official SugarSpin iPhone app (in TestFlight now, free on the App Store soon) — CarPlay is built right in, so you just sign in and plug into your car, no third-party app required. Prefer something else? SugarSpin also speaks the Subsonic API: turn on Subsonic App Access in Settings to generate a username and password, install a Subsonic-compatible app like Amperfy (free) or play:Sub (paid), point it at your server, and plug in. Either way you get album art on the dashboard and steering-wheel controls. The free tier doesn't include in-car playback — upgrade to Pro or Gold to unlock it.

Yes, on Pro and Gold. There isn't a native SugarSpin Android app yet, so Android Auto goes through the Subsonic API: any Android Subsonic app with Android Auto support works. We recommend Ultrasonic (free, open source) or Symfonium (paid, very polished). Connect them with the username and password from Subsonic App Access in your Settings, plug into your car, and Android Auto picks them up automatically.

iPhone: the official SugarSpin app is the easiest — CarPlay is built in, no extra setup. If you'd rather use a third-party Subsonic app, Amperfy Music is free, open source, with solid CarPlay support, and play:Sub ($4.99) is a polished paid option.

Android: we recommend Ultrasonic (free, on Google Play and F Droid) for Android Auto. Symfonium is the premium pick if you want a polished interface and don't mind paying.

You can also try Substreamer, iSub, DSub, Tempo, SugarSpin works with any app that speaks the Subsonic protocol. Different apps have different strengths; pick whichever you like best.

Subsonic is an old, stable, well documented music server protocol. Lots of self hosted music servers speak it, Navidrome, Airsonic, Funkwhale, Gonic. Because of that, there's a whole ecosystem of mature mobile apps that connect to any Subsonic compatible server. By implementing the Subsonic API, SugarSpin instantly works with all of those apps, including the ones with CarPlay and Android Auto. You don't have to wait for us to build native iOS and Android apps, you get the best ones in the ecosystem for free.

Open SugarSpin in your browser, go to your Profile / Settings page, and find the CarPlay & External Apps section. Click Generate to create a strong password, then click Enable & Save. Hit Copy to grab the password, you'll need it in your iOS or Android app along with the server URL and username (which defaults to sugarspin). Step by step instructions are in the installation guide.

No, it's a separate credential. The Subsonic API works on a different authentication model than SugarSpin's web login (which is more secure but isn't compatible with how Subsonic apps authenticate). Keeping them separate also means if your CarPlay password leaks, it doesn't compromise your main account, you can rotate it independently. The CarPlay credential lives in your server settings and you control it from the same panel.

Only if your SugarSpin server is reachable from outside your home network. By default, SugarSpin runs on a local IP like 192.168.x.x, which only works on your Wi Fi. To use CarPlay in your car on cellular, you need to reach your server from outside the house, the easiest options are Tailscale (recommended, free for personal use, most private, and keeps your one home address working everywhere) or Cloudflare Tunnel (free, gives you a public HTTPS URL automatically). The Go Remote section of the install guide walks through both. Once that's set up, the same address you use at home works in the car too.

Yes, on Pro and Gold — that's the point of unlimited simultaneous clients. Your spouse, kids, and friends can all sign in on their own devices (the SugarSpin app, or a Subsonic client) and stream from your library at the same time. Think of it as a household pass: one license, your whole household. The free tier is capped at 1 device at a time and doesn't include in-car or third-party app access.

Yes, on Pro and Gold tiers. SugarSpin natively controls BluOS powered devices: Bluesound Node, Powernode, Pulse, NAD M10, M33, C series streamers, and any other BluOS firmware speaker. Open SugarSpin, click the Stream To button in the play bar, pick your Bluesound device from the list, and the audio streams to it directly. Browse your library on your phone, listen on the hi fi gear in the living room. The speaker's own front panel display shows the song title, artist, album, and cover art. It's like AirPlay or Chromecast, but for BluOS, with all the metadata baked in.

Auto discovery. When SugarSpin starts up it scans your local network for BluOS compatible devices on port 11000. When one is found, a toast pops up in your SugarSpin browser window: "Found NAD M10 on your network, Connect?" Click Connect and that's it. Discovered devices are saved between restarts so you don't have to re add them. If your speaker is on the same Wi Fi or LAN as your SugarSpin server, it'll show up automatically.

Yes. You can start a song from your Mac, skip tracks from your iPad, and queue something else from your phone, all controlling the same Bluesound speaker. Each device sees the same queue and the same now playing state. Family friendly setup: anyone in the house with SugarSpin open can change what's playing in the living room.

Click the speaker icon in the SugarSpin play bar and pick your own device (your Mac, iPad, etc.) from the list. The Bluesound speaker stops, and audio comes through your browser instead. Same picker, opposite direction.

A few things to check: (1) The speaker must be on the same Wi Fi or LAN as your SugarSpin server, cross VLAN setups won't work. (2) Make sure SugarSpin knows its own LAN IP, access SugarSpin once from a phone/laptop on your home Wi Fi (using http://192.168.x.x:3333) and it'll learn the LAN URL automatically. (3) If you're running SugarSpin in a Docker container with bridge networking, the auto discovery may take an extra scan; click the device picker and wait a few seconds. (4) Power cycling the BluOS device can help if it was on a different network earlier.

The free tier lets you try SugarSpin with a small library (up to 20 albums or 100 songs) through the web app. In-car listening — CarPlay and Android Auto — is a premium feature, and on Pro ($49 once) or Gold it works natively through the SugarSpin iPhone app, no third-party app needed, with Android Auto handled by a Subsonic client. Commercial music servers charge hundreds for the same capability, some $700 or more for a lifetime license, so building it into a one-time $49 purchase is what keeps SugarSpin sustainable with no subscription fees. Pay once, yours for life.

Currently, SugarSpin plays audio through the web browser on whatever device you're using. It does not natively support Chromecast, AirPlay, or Sonos casting. However, you can use your device's built in casting features to share the browser tab or audio output.

No. SugarSpin is read only. It never modifies, moves, renames, or deletes your music files. Your library stays exactly as it is. SugarSpin only reads metadata and audio data from your files.

Yes. There's a native Mac app available now — Apple-notarized, free with your license, downloadable from the homepage. A native iPhone & iPad app is in TestFlight beta right now, with a free public App Store release on the way, featuring lock-screen Now Playing, real background audio, AirPlay, and CarPlay. On Android (and any other device), the fully mobile-optimized web app runs in any browser and can be added to your home screen for an app-like experience; for Android Auto in the car, point a Subsonic client at your server. A native Android app is on the roadmap.

Your music files are never touched. If you uninstall SugarSpin, you lose your playlists, favorites, play history, and settings that were stored in SugarSpin's database. Your music files remain exactly where they were on your drive.

Yes. SugarSpin runs entirely on your own hardware. Your music files never leave your computer. There is no cloud component, no telemetry, no analytics, and no data sent to any external server. Your library is 100% private.

This is a Docker limitation, not a SugarSpin bug. Docker runs apps inside a sealed container, isolated from the rest of your computer. Even if a USB drive is plugged in or a network share is mounted on your machine, the container has no idea those exist. It can only see what was specifically connected to it when the container was started.

Think of it like this: Docker builds a box around SugarSpin. Your drives live outside the box. To give SugarSpin access to a drive, you have to wire it in at startup, telling Docker "pass this folder from my computer into the container." Once that's done, the drive appears inside the app as a folder you can add to your music library.

This wiring is done when you first run the container, using what Docker calls a "volume mount." Every platform handles this slightly differently, NAS devices have a graphical Docker interface, Mac and Windows have Docker Desktop, Linux has the command line. Check the Installation Guide for your platform's specific instructions on how to add a new drive when setting up or updating your container.

It's a two step process. First, make sure the drive is connected to your computer and recognized by your operating system. Then, you need to update your Docker setup to pass that drive into the SugarSpin container, this is called a volume mount.

The specifics of how you do that depend entirely on your setup: what computer you're running, what OS, and how you originally installed SugarSpin. A NAS with a Docker GUI, Docker Desktop on a Mac, and a Linux command line all handle this differently. We can't provide a single set of instructions that works for every machine.

See the Installation Guide for your platform. Look for the section on adding additional music folders or volume mounts, it walks through the steps specific to your setup. Once the drive is wired in, go to Settings → Music Library inside SugarSpin to add the new folder and run a scan.

Same idea. If you're running SugarSpin on a separate computer and want it to access music stored on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) or network share, you first need to mount that share on the machine running Docker, and then pass it into the container.

If you're running SugarSpin directly on the NAS itself, the music is already on the same machine, you just need to make sure the correct folder paths are wired into the container when it starts.

How to do all of this depends on your specific NAS brand, operating system, and Docker setup. There's no one size fits all set of commands we can give you here, each setup is different. Refer to your NAS or platform's documentation for how to mount a network share, and then see the Installation Guide for how to pass it into SugarSpin's Docker container.

Yes. You can wire in as many folders and drives as you need, each one gets its own path inside the container. Once they're all mapped in, head to Settings → Music Library inside SugarSpin and add each folder. Run a scan and SugarSpin will index everything into one unified library.

Again, how you add multiple mounts depends on your platform and how your container was originally set up. See the Installation Guide for your specific setup.

Since your music location is set at the Docker level, not inside the app itself, you'll need to update the container to point to the new drive. This means stopping the current container and starting it again with the new folder wired in instead of the old one.

Your library, playlists, and favorites are stored in a separate data volume and will not be affected, you'll just need to run a rescan once the new folder is connected. For how to update your container's volume setup, see the Installation Guide for your platform. Inside the app, you can also use Settings → Music Library to update the primary folder path once the drive is mounted.

The folder browser inside SugarSpin can only show paths that exist inside the Docker container. It hides system directories and only shows user relevant mount points like /music, /usb, /nas, /mnt, and similar. If you don't see the drive you're looking for, it hasn't been connected to the container yet. See the questions above for how to add it.

Keep everything on the same machine. The single best thing you can do for performance and reliability is store your music on the same computer or NAS that is running the SugarSpin Docker container. No network hops. No external drives. No moving parts between SugarSpin and your files. When the music and the app are on the same box, scanning is fast, playback is instant, and there is nothing in between that can break.

This is the setup SugarSpin was designed and optimized for. Internal storage, local container, everything self contained.

Internal drive, every time. External USB drives introduce a point of failure that is completely outside your control. USB drives can disconnect unexpectedly, spin down to save power, or lose their mount point after a reboot, and when that happens, SugarSpin loses access to your library without warning. Scans fail silently. Playback stops mid track.

If your music is currently on a USB drive, the recommendation is to move it to internal storage before relying on SugarSpin day to day. It is a one time move that eliminates an entire class of problems.

It works, but it is not the recommended approach. Reading audio files over a network share adds latency and introduces a dependency on your local network staying stable. If your network hiccups, your router reboots, or the other machine goes to sleep, SugarSpin can lose access mid stream. These kinds of interruptions are frustrating and hard to diagnose.

The more pieces between SugarSpin and your files, the more things that can go wrong. If your music lives on a NAS, the cleanest setup is to run SugarSpin directly on that NAS, not on a separate machine reaching across the network to get to it.

Any always on machine with Docker support and enough storage for your library works well. Some solid options based on real world use:

• NAS with Docker support (QNAP, UGREEN, TrueNAS, Unraid, etc.), ideal if your music is already there. Always on, low power, quiet.
• Mac Mini, excellent home server. Compact, silent, energy efficient, and very capable. Great if you're already in the Apple ecosystem.
• Linux mini PC (Intel NUC, Beelink, similar), affordable, low power, runs Docker natively. A popular choice for self hosters.
• Regular desktop or laptop, works fine while the machine is on. Not ideal if you want 24/7 access from your phone.

For most people, the NAS or Mac Mini is the sweet spot: always on, music stored internally, Docker running locally. Set it up once and forget about it.

Follow this sequence and you will have the most stable, low maintenance setup possible:

1. Pick a machine that stays on, a NAS, a Mac Mini, or a dedicated mini PC.
2. Put your music on that machine's internal storage. Not a USB drive. Not a network share. Local.
3. Install Docker on that machine using the Installation Guide for your platform.
4. Run SugarSpin pointing at that local music folder.
5. Set up remote access using Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel if you want to reach it from outside your home.

That's it. No cross network mounts. No USB dependencies. Everything lives on the same box. This is the setup that works the best and causes the fewest headaches over time.

SugarSpin was built by Roger from Hot Dang Studio. Technically a one person team. Creator, developer, designer, and chief vinyl enthusiast all rolled into one. Hot Dang Studio is a small creative shop focused on building things with heart. SugarSpin is one of those things.

For the love of music, all of it. Roger has spent decades collecting and obsessing over it. Vinyl records, cassette tapes, reel to reel recordings, MiniDiscs, a lifetime of music that he carefully digitized and backed up to a local server so it would never be lost. Every format, every era, all of it preserved and accessible.

The problem was there was no player that felt like it deserved the collection. Nothing that treated the music with the same care he'd put into collecting it. And he wanted to take it with him, on trips, on bike rides, anywhere. You can't exactly strap a turntable and a hundred records to your back. SugarSpin was born out of that reality: a way to carry a lifetime of music in your pocket, on any device, with an interface that actually feels like flipping through crates. Built by someone who still gets excited every time he puts something on.

Check out the Hot Dang Show on YouTube. That's Roger's channel where he's a self proclaimed daredevil and professional idiot, from eating the world's hottest peppers to taking on ridiculous challenges. But peek at his studio in the background and it's obvious the man lives and breathes music. You can also visit hotdang.studio to see what else the studio is up to.

Nope. No venture capital. No corporate parent. SugarSpin is an independent project from a small studio of creators, marketers, and coders. It was built by someone who actually uses it every day for his own collection. That's why every detail, the vinyl view, the VU meters, the Tubes visualizer, exists because it mattered to the person who made it. When you support SugarSpin, you're supporting an indie creator, not a corporation.

Head over to the Contact page and fill out the form. It goes straight to support@hotdang.studio. Whether it's a bug report, a feature idea, or just to say you dig the app, Roger reads every single message. Be kind, he's just one guy who really loves music.