ViMusic: The Best Free Spotify & YouTube Music Alternative
If you are looking for a free and easy way to stream music from YouTube Music, you should check out ViMusic. ViMusic is an open source Android app that lets you play almost any song or video from YouTube Music, with features like background playback, offline caching, lyrics editing, playlist management, and more. In this article, we will show you why ViMusic is the best free Spotify & YouTube Music alternative, and how to install and use it on your device.
What is ViMusic?
ViMusic is an Android app that was created by vfsfitvnm, a developer who wanted to make a simple and lightweight music player for YouTube Music. ViMusic uses the YouTube Music API to fetch and play songs and videos from the platform, without requiring a subscription or an account. You can search for songs, albums, artists, videos, and playlists, and play them in the app with high quality audio. You can also bookmark your favorite artists and albums, import playlists from YouTube Music or other sources, and create your own local playlists.
ViMusic has many features that make it a great alternative to Spotify and YouTube Music. Some of these features are:
- Background playback: You can play music in the background while using other apps or turning off the screen.
- Cache audio chunks: You can cache audio chunks of songs or videos for offline playback, saving data and battery.
- Search for lyrics: You can fetch, display, and edit lyrics or synchronized lyrics for any song in the app.
- Reorder songs: You can reorder songs in your playlist or queue by dragging and dropping them.
- Light/Dark/Dynamic theme: You can choose between a light or dark theme, or let the app change the theme according to the system settings.
- Skip silence: You can skip silence at the beginning or end of songs or videos, making them play faster and smoother.
- Sleep timer: You can set a timer to stop the music after a certain time or number of songs.
- Audio normalization: You can adjust the volume of songs or videos to make them sound more consistent.
- Android Auto: You can use ViMusic with Android Auto to control the music from your car’s dashboard.
- Persistent queue: You can resume your queue from where you left off, even after closing the app or rebooting your device.
- Open YouTube/YouTube Music links: You can open any watch, playlist, or channel link from YouTube or YouTube Music in ViMusic.
How to install ViMusic?
ViMusic is not available on the Google Play Store, but you can download it from GitHub or F-Droid. GitHub is where the developer hosts the source code and releases of the app. F-Droid is a repository of free and open source Android apps. To install ViMusic from GitHub, follow these steps:
- Go to https://github.com/vfsfitvnm/ViMusic/releases and find the latest release of the app. The release name should start with “v” followed by a number, such as “v0.9.0”.
- Download the APK file of the app. The APK file should have a name like “ViMusic-v0.9.0.apk”.
- Open the APK file on your device and follow the instructions to install the app.
To install ViMusic from F-Droid, follow these steps:
- Go to https://f-droid.org/packages/it.vfsfitvnm.vimusic/ and tap on the “Download APK” button.
- Open the APK file on your device and follow the instructions to install the app.
How to use ViMusic?
Using ViMusic is very easy and intuitive. When you open the app for the first time, you will see a welcome screen that explains some of the features of the app. You can swipe left or right to see more screens, or tap on “Get started” to skip them.
On the main screen of the app, you will see four tabs at the bottom: Home, Search, Library, and Settings. The Home tab shows you some recommended songs, albums, artists, videos, and playlists from YouTube Music. You can tap on any of them to play them in the app. The Search tab lets you search for any song, album, artist, video, or playlist from YouTube Music. You can type in your query in the search bar at the top, or use voice input by tapping on the microphone icon. The Library tab shows you your bookmarks, imported playlists, local playlists, queue history, cached resources, and lyrics history. You can tap on any of them to access them in the app. The Settings tab lets you customize various aspects of the app, such as theme, playback mode, cache size limit, lyrics provider, etc.
To play a song or video in ViMusic, simply tap on it from any of the tabs. The song or video will start playing in a mini player at the bottom of the screen. You can tap on the mini player to expand it to a full screen player, where you can see more details and controls. You can also swipe up or down on the mini player to expand or collapse it. In the full screen player, you can see the album art, title, artist, duration, and progress of the song or video. You can also see and edit the lyrics or synchronized lyrics of the song by tapping on the lyrics icon at the bottom right. You can control the playback by using the buttons at the bottom: play/pause, previous, next, shuffle, repeat, and queue. You can also swipe left or right on the album art to skip to the previous or next song or video. You can also adjust the volume and seek to any position by using the sliders at the top.
To add a song or video to your playlist or queue, long press on it from any of the tabs. A menu will pop up with various options, such as play next, add to queue, add to playlist, bookmark, cache, share, etc. You can choose any of them to perform the action. To create a new playlist, go to the Library tab and tap on the plus icon at the top right. You can name your playlist and add songs or videos to it from any of the tabs.
To import a playlist from YouTube Music or other sources, go to the Library tab and tap on the import icon at the top right. You can paste a link to a playlist from YouTube Music or other sources, such as Spotify, SoundCloud, Deezer, etc. The app will try to find and match the songs from YouTube Music and add them to your library.
To cache a song or video for offline playback, long press on it from any of the tabs and choose “Cache”. The app will download and store the audio chunks of the song or video in your device’s storage. You can see and manage your cached resources in the Library tab under “Cached resources”. To play a cached song or video offline, simply tap on it from there.
To edit the lyrics or synchronized lyrics of a song, tap on the lyrics icon in the full screen player. You will see the lyrics or synchronized lyrics of the song if they are available. You can edit them by tapping on the edit icon at the top right. You can change the text, timing, alignment, color, etc. of the lyrics or synchronized lyrics. You can also fetch new lyrics from different providers by tapping on the refresh icon at the top right. You can save your changes by tapping on the save icon at the top right.
Conclusion
ViMusic is a great app for streaming music from YouTube Music for free. It has many features that make it a better alternative to Spotify and YouTube Music. It is also open source, lightweight, and simple to use. If you want to try ViMusic, you can download it from GitHub or F-Droid and enjoy unlimited music from YouTube Music.
