Help

These are the help topics included in Macissimo for Mac. Menu names and keyboard shortcuts refer to the Mac app.

For support, bug reports or feature requests, contact support.

Getting Started

Macissimo connects to your Navidrome server so you can browse, stream and download your music on this Mac. You’ll need a server address and a Navidrome account.

Connect to your server

1. On first launch, Macissimo opens the connection screen. Sign in before browsing your library.

2. Enter the full server URL, including https:// and any installation subpath, followed by your username and password.

3. Click Connect. After a successful sign-in, your library opens and begins synchronizing automatically; you can browse music as it appears.

Your saved connection

Your password is stored in Keychain. To change the address or account, choose File → Edit Connection Settings… or open Settings in the sidebar. Macissimo → Settings… (Command + comma) opens the same page in the main window. Use Back to return to your library. Library information and downloads are stored on this Mac.

Find your settings

Settings has three tabs. Connection contains your server account and Reset Macissimo. Privacy & Sharing contains iCloud smart playlist sync, listening activity and sharing services. Playback & Downloads contains streaming quality, Offline Mode, download quality, automatic favorites and storage controls.

Connecting over HTTP

Use HTTPS whenever possible. HTTP requires your explicit consent and is available only for localhost and supported private network IP addresses, including Tailscale IPs. For a local HTTP server, enter its private IP address rather than a hostname. Public servers require HTTPS.

Start over on this Mac

In Settings → Connection, choose Reset Macissimo… and confirm Delete Everything to remove downloaded music, the local library, caches, saved passwords and settings from this device. You’ll return to first-time sign-in. Your server and smart playlists stored in iCloud are kept; cloud playlists can return when you sign in and sync again.

Browsing Your Library

Find your music

Use the sidebar to browse Home, Albums, Artists, Songs, Genres, Favorites and your server playlists. Search looks through the library synchronized to this Mac. Choose the song, album or artist scope to see the matching results.

Search and refresh

Search matches the beginnings of words and ignores accents. If a track is missing, try the beginning of its title or artist name. Press ⌘R to refresh the library. Macissimo also refreshes automatically every 15 minutes while running.

Select and explore

Double-click a song to play it. Use ⌘-click to select individual rows or ⇧-click to select a range. Click a column heading to sort. Use the toolbar’s Back and Forward buttons to retrace library pages. Click the album artwork or artist name in the bottom player to explore that music.

Favorites and ratings

Right-click songs for favorites and ratings. Favorite artists and albums with the heart on their pages or from their context menus. Rate them from their context menus or the stars on their pages; use Clear Rating to remove a rating. Artist, album and song ratings are independent. Favorite and rating changes made offline wait to be sent when you reconnect.

Artist biographies and top songs

Artist pages show a biography when your server supplies one. Choose Read more to open the full text. Your most played shows up to five songs ranked by this account’s server play counts; songs without recorded plays are left out. Click a song to play from that point in the list. Saved rankings work offline, with playback available for downloaded songs. Refresh the library to update play counts.

Browse genres

Genres groups capitalization, spacing and common spelling variants such as Hip-Hop and Hip Hop. Tags separated by semicolons or vertical bars contribute to each genre. Original tags remain visible in Song Details.

Inspect a song

Right-click a song and choose Song Details… to inspect its metadata and audio information. The Share submenu offers listening links; see Sharing & Privacy for the available services and controls.

Playlists & Smart Mixes

Server playlists

Create a playlist with New Playlist in the sidebar, or select songs, right-click and choose Add to Playlist → New Playlist…. Add songs to an existing playlist from the same submenu or drag them onto its sidebar name. Right-click a server playlist to rename, download or delete it. Server playlist editing requires a connection.

Built-in smart mixes

Under Playlists, sparkle icons mark Unplayed albums, Rediscover favorites and Highly rated, as well as your custom smart playlists. Regular server playlists have a music-list icon. Choose a mix, then narrow it by genre or decade. Filter menus offer values with matching music and adapt to the other filter. New Selection chooses again; Play All and Add to Queue use the displayed selection. Browsing or refreshing a mix leaves the current queue alone.

How mixes choose music

Unplayed albums stay complete and in disc/track order. Rediscover favorites uses a 90-day cutoff; Highly rated includes songs rated four or five stars. These mixes use your saved server metadata, where a missing play count or date means no recorded plays. Refresh your library to update them. Mixes work offline, with playback available for downloaded songs.

Create a custom smart playlist

Choose New Smart Playlist below your playlists and give it a name. Open Add rule to add a condition or a nested group. Each group can match all (AND) or any (OR), so you can combine both in one playlist. Search the field chooser for descriptive, listening, file/audio or album metadata. For example, combine Genre contains rock, Year is between 1990 and 1999, and Last played not in the last 90 days.

Enter and arrange rules

Text values suggest matches from your local library; choose a suggestion or enter your own. List conditions turn comma-separated values or Return into removable tags. Quote a typed value containing commas. Use the arrow keys and Return to choose a suggestion, or Backspace in an empty entry to edit the last tag. Range conditions show two inputs, dates use calendar pickers, and yes/no or missing/present checks need no value. Drag a condition or group by its handle to reorder it or move it into another group. Drop on a group’s Add rule row to put it last, or use the actions menu for Move Up, Move Down and removal.

Preview and save

Choose a sort order and an optional song limit. The preview shows the matching song count and up to 20 selected songs. Save adds a sparkle-marked playlist to the sidebar. Right-click it for Edit Rules… or Delete Smart Playlist. Editing a draft or previewing matches saves nothing until you choose Save. Results follow your saved library, favorites, ratings and downloads; relative-date rules also refresh while the playlist is open. The current queue changes only when you choose a playback action.

Text and date matching

Text matching ignores case and accents. Genre contains checks each tag, so rock matches Alternative Rock and Progressive Rock; exact genre lists use the same aliases as library browsing. Calendar dates use UTC, while relative days count back in 24-hour periods from now. Not in the last includes missing dates; more than a number of days ago requires a known date. Use a missing or never condition when you specifically want absent information.

Sync smart playlists with iCloud

Custom smart playlists are saved locally for your server and account and work offline. Their names, rules, sort order and limits also sync through your private iCloud account by default when available. Open Settings → Privacy & Sharing → iCloud for Sync Smart Playlists, its status and Sync Now. Use the same iCloud account, Navidrome server address and username on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Each device evaluates the rules against its own library and downloads, so results can differ. Built-in mixes, audio, credentials, settings and queues are not included in this sync. Offline Mode pauses iCloud sync.

Edits and deletion across devices

Offline edits are saved locally and sync when a connection returns. If the same playlist is edited on several devices, the latest edit wins for the whole playlist. Deleting a smart playlist also deletes it on your other synced devices, and an older offline edit will not restore it. Turning sync off keeps local definitions available.

Playback & Queue

Control playback

Use the player at the bottom of the main window to play or pause, change tracks, seek, adjust volume, shuffle or cycle repeat modes. Next is unavailable when there is no next playable track. The Playback menu also provides Play, Pause, track controls and Stop. Pause keeps your position and queue. Stop ends playback, clears the queue and hides the player.

Choose what plays next

Right-click a song and choose Play Next or Add to Queue. Tracks you add manually take priority over the music you started playing. Click the queue button at the right of the player to open or close the queue. Drag entries to reorder them, or right-click to remove them.

Streaming quality

Open Settings → Playback & Downloads to choose streaming quality. Original preserves the source format. MP3 uses less bandwidth and requires transcoding support on your server. Macissimo prefers a downloaded copy when one is available.

Seeking and buffering

Click or drag the timeline to seek. A spinner means audio is loading. Seeking streamed MP3 audio requires the server’s time-offset support; if it is unavailable, download the original and play the local copy. Editing the queue can briefly rebuffer playback.

Downloads & Offline Use

Download music

Right-click a song, album or sidebar playlist, then choose Download and a quality. Original keeps the source format; MP3 requires server transcoding. You can keep both versions. To download several albums, ⌘-click their tiles and use Download Selection.

Manage transfers

Open Downloads in the sidebar to see transfer progress and files available offline. Pause stops an active transfer. Retry starts a paused or failed transfer again. Cancel All Transfers clears the queue and stops active transfers, keeping completed downloads. Interrupted transfers remain listed after relaunching. Files appear under Available offline after verification finishes.

Listen without a connection

Downloaded audio and synchronized library information remain available offline. Playback normally prefers a local copy. To choose a particular downloaded version, use the play button beside it in Downloads. Browsing a synchronized library alone does not download its audio.

Offline Mode

Enable Offline Mode in Settings → Playback & Downloads to play only downloaded music and pause network activity, including library and iCloud sync. With this switch off, Macissimo automatically switches offline after 10 seconds without a connection. Turn the switch off and reconnect to resume online use. You can still browse saved metadata, use smart mixes and create or edit custom smart playlists while offline.

Storage and removal

Settings → Playback & Downloads shows download storage usage and offers Show Download Folder. In Downloads, right-click a file and choose Remove Local Download, or use Remove All to clear downloaded files. Removing local downloads leaves the music on your server.

Automatic favorites

Enable Automatically Download Favorites in Settings → Playback & Downloads to download existing and new favorite songs on this Mac, including favorites synced from your server. Favorites quality has its own default. Changing it queues missing copies in that quality. Turning this off or removing a favorite keeps downloaded copies and queued transfers. Offline favorites wait until you reconnect.

Sharing & Privacy

Share a song

Right-click a song and open Share, then choose a service. On Mac, the resulting link is copied to the clipboard. Catalogue lookups need internet access and a song title and artist, but no API key or streaming-service account setup.

Navidrome Link

Creates a public listening link when your server and account allow sharing. Anyone with that link can listen without a server account.

Apple Music Link and Songlink

Apple Music Link finds and copies a matching song link from Apple’s catalogue. Songlink uses the same match to link to a page with streaming-service choices, artwork and title metadata for chat previews. Neither link exposes your server address, login or audio files.

Spotify Link

Sends the selected song’s artist, title, available album and duration, and a known MusicBrainz recording ID to the Macissimo lookup service, then copies a confident Spotify match. Its catalogue is incomplete, so some songs have no link. Without a recording ID, matching needs album or duration information. Lookups happen only when you choose Spotify Link. A failed lookup does not create a guessed link or Navidrome share.

Choose sharing services

Open Settings → Privacy & Sharing to enable or disable each sharing service and read what it sends and to whom. Services start enabled and your choices apply on this device. Disabled services disappear from the Share menu; turning all four off hides Share. Existing links remain available. The Privacy Policy link is on the same settings tab.

Listening Recap

Open your listening recap

Click the server name in the main window to open Server Statistics. The all-time recap shows your account’s top artists, songs and albums, total song plays and estimated listening hours. Click a ranked artist or album to open it, or a song to play from that point in your top songs.

Where the totals come from

The recap reads play counts already supplied by Navidrome and works from your saved library while offline. Press ⌘R while connected to update it. Hours are estimated from song duration multiplied by server play count, assuming full plays. Missing counts or durations and music removed from the library can leave totals incomplete. Albums are ranked by total song plays; each credited track artist receives the track’s plays. Monthly and yearly recaps need dated listening history that this page does not collect.

Report listening activity

Send Listening Activity to Server is off by default. Enable it in Settings → Privacy & Sharing to report now-playing and completed listens to Navidrome. Turning it off discards pending listening reports; music playback continues normally. Opening the recap, artist top songs or smart mixes does not enable listening reports.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Use these shortcuts in the main library window. When you’re typing in a text field, ordinary typing keys such as Space edit the text.

Selecting music

⌘-click adds or removes individual song rows from your selection. ⇧-click selects a range of rows. ⌘-click album tiles to select several albums for downloading.

Key symbols

⌘ Command · ⇧ Shift · ⌃ Control On keyboards where ? shares a key, hold Shift to type it.

Troubleshooting

I can’t connect

Check the full server URL and installation subpath, username and password in connection settings (⇧⌘K). Make sure this Mac can reach the server, including through your VPN if needed. Use HTTPS for public servers. For HTTP on a private network, use a private IP address and accept the connection warning.

My saved login needs attention

If Macissimo shows Unlock Saved Login, use it to authorize access to the saved password in Keychain. If it shows Sign In Again…, enter your password to reconnect. Your local library and downloads remain on this Mac.

Music is missing from the library

Clear search text and filters, then press ⌘R while connected. The first synchronization can take time on a large library. Search only includes music already synchronized to this Mac and matches word beginnings rather than arbitrary parts of a word.

Smart playlists aren’t syncing

Check Settings → Privacy & Sharing → iCloud for the sync status and choose Sync Now. Make sure Sync Smart Playlists is on, Offline Mode is off, and each device uses the same iCloud account, Navidrome server address and username. If the status reports a changed iCloud account or removed cloud data, turn sync off and on to reconnect. If the control says sync is unavailable in this build, local smart playlists still work. Matching songs can differ until each device refreshes its library, especially for rules about downloads.

Share or a sharing service is missing

Check the service toggles in Settings → Privacy & Sharing. Turning all services off hides Share. A missing catalogue match can mean the service has no confident result; check the song’s title, artist, album and duration in Song Details and try again. Navidrome links also require sharing permission on your server.

A track won’t play or seek

Check the player’s volume and your Mac’s sound output. If streaming fails, check your connection and try Original streaming quality in Settings. MP3 streaming needs server transcoding; seeking a remote MP3 also needs server time-offset support. Downloading the original and playing it from Downloads can help when remote seeking is unavailable.

A download failed

Read the message beside the transfer in Downloads. Check your connection, available disk space and server transcoding support for MP3, then click Retry. Retry restarts the transfer. Try Original if your server cannot produce an MP3 copy.

What works offline?

You can browse and search synchronized library information, view saved listening statistics, use smart mixes, edit custom smart playlists and play downloaded music. Streaming, new downloads, sharing lookups and server playlist edits need a connection. Favorites, ratings and custom smart playlist changes wait to synchronize when you reconnect. If the server is reachable but the app stays offline, turn off Offline Mode in Settings → Playback & Downloads.

Still need help? Contact support.