Mac music player not iThing

February 18, 2016 10:25 PM

Is there a non-iTunes music player for OSX which can handle multiple file formats, and can be told not to go online for data?

The Mac in question lives where internet has a *very* low monthly data cap. Its owner likes Clementine but we can't find a way to stop Clementine going online. So Clementine passes on handling most/all file formats, but fails the controllability criterion. Is there good OSX alternative?

Or is there some scripting we could do to shut Clementine off from going online, while keeping internet access for everything else?

posted by anadem to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: If Clementine is an OS X application, Little Snitch should let you set rules for how Clementine (or any application) accesses the network. You should be able to, for instance, entirely deny it access to the outside network.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:58 PM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Vox is great.
posted by fyolnish at 1:29 AM on February 19, 2016

VLC.
posted by deathpanels at 5:13 AM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Clementine has options to turn all the online stuff off. I can't imagine it takes more than a trivial amount of bandwidth anyways. I use it regularly when tethered to my cell and it's a non-issue.

If your bandwidth is really so limited that it's still using too much, you need a firewall like Little Snitch.
posted by neckro23 at 9:25 AM on February 19, 2016

VLC still works fine after all these years.
posted by humboldt32 at 10:18 AM on February 19, 2016

Little Snitch is a great way to control internet access for any application, and you can set it into 'silent mode' which will auto-deny any app updates, background processes, etc once you have the basics like network time and mail approved.

I'd stick with the music app the owner already likes and use LS to control the data use systemwide.
posted by a halcyon day at 12:09 PM on February 19, 2016

Swinsian does have a preference setting for going online automatically to download artwork. So you can turn that off at least. It is an excellent alternative to iTunes for managing a music collection.
posted by conrad53 at 10:18 PM on February 19, 2016