edit: thanks guys! i found vinyl does everything i want: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.poupa.vinylmusicplayer/

i have a rather large music library on sd card (~250gb and well over 10k tracks) so i am looking for a player that is able to handle that. so far i been using vlc player because the last time i was looking for a player i came to the conclusion it was the best option for a library this large. most other players would hang or slow down considerably with that many files. the only other player i have used for a while was auxio and i was quite happy with it but an update broke how it handles files and now it keeps forgetting my library and has to rescan everything whenever i open the app.

my problem with vlc now is every time i add some files to the sd card it needs to rescan every single file, which takes quite a long time. i hope there is maybe a player out there which would satisfy my needs:
-is able to handle a large library
-is able to apply replay gain
-has a dark mode
-doesn't need to rescan everything whenever i add a new album to the sd card

in case you have a recommendation for a case like that please LMK, thanks!

Foobar2k?

I use AIMP. My Library has roughly 6k files, it has replay gain and mostly when I add new files it notices it automatically and includes them in the library relatively quickly. You can also choose to manually scan for just tag or cover changes. And as a nice bonus, there are a few user made themes you can use to customize the look of the app. My only critique of the app up to date is, that the audio suffers a bit when using volume boost and that the ui requires a bit of learning how to use it.

thanks but i'd rather not have russian proprietary software on my phone

I also felt that way first but ultimately resigned as I couldnt find a decent alternative. Just curious, are you concerned about spyware/potentially malicious updates or do you just want to be sure/free of proprietary software?

i want nothing to do with russia as long as they commit war crimes and break the law of nations

Well ultimately its also just a russian nerd building a nice program, but I get where you're coming from. Good luck with your search and hopefully you'll find what you're looking for.

was gonna suggest auxio but you're already using it, now I don't know what to do.
did you try taking any steps to fix it?

i was in contact with the dev on github(?) and he was trying to fix it but since i use a custom rom (crdroid) it's hard to say where the problem is coming from, let alone fix it

Might as well be on the safe side and use an American or Chinese one. /s

or israeli

but i have my library on my phone, why stream it?

I used Vanilla Music years ago. Not sure how it holds up, but it's available on F-Droid.

thanks, i'll check it out!

I don't know if this supports what you want but give Phocid a try, you scan library manually (it's not scanned every time you open the app) and it has folder view (the main reason I'm using it), so you don't need to change the metadata. It replaced VLC for me, might work for you.

So you don't have to rescan every time?

I have around 11k files on my phone's sdcard, and while the interface is not that polished, Fossify Music Player has been able to handle my library quite ok.

But then you need to stream it every time, which is more frequently.

I mean yeah, it's basically "build your own Spotify." Also, you get to free up that space on your SD card, little side bonus.

russian proprietary software

The "Russian" part is not the problem here

I'm aware, but if you have the free space, why waste the bandwidth?

Just two different solutions to the problem, I guess.

I gave up on dedicated players and put Symphony on my phone. You can probably use a dedicated graphene or android device and do the same. Symphony is on F Droid.

I use Musicolet, I haven't had any complaints so far.

I have a library bigger than yours, I've tried many apps on f-droid an year ago and so far the only that seems to be able to handle my library at all is Music Player Go.

It takes like 15 seconds to open, but after opening it works fine, however, it doesn't support replay gain.

I use Phocid and its good but it has this thing that drives me insane. Default behavior is when you select a song to begin playing it as a playlist. But if you search it treats the results as a playlist. Ok fine I can long press the song and add to queue.

But I change the default behavior to select a song being add to queue there is no option to long press and play as a playlist. Am I using it wrong or missing a way to use the app properly?

I don't know about the rescan requirement you have, but Symfonium handles my very large Jellyfin music library (and supports local libraries and many other libraries as well). Has good equalizer options including volume boost and very good native theming that supports dark mode and material you. Paid app but very well worth it if you listen to lots of music on Android. I've been using it for years and it's regularly updated, I'm very happy with it.

thanks, i am not seeing it in the settings, how do i apply replay gain?

thanks but replay gain is a must as my library is normalized. and it looks like it got removed from f-droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.iven.musicplayergo/

When I long press any item it allows me to select multiple items (depending on a category it can be a song, album, artist etc), from there you get a popup and do what you want with the selection (play the selection now, create new playlist from selection, add to the curreny playlist etc.)

I agree, the default behavior depends on which category you have selected.
My usecase is pretty simple, I usually just go to a directory I want and play everything from there (usually while driving) and skip what I don't like, so I never really thought about it.

Same. I love that it has no online features.

I been using Auxio, never had problem. (50GB size)

Is SD card a hard requirement? Did you try internal storage and did that fix the problem?

A "music player" here plays twp roles: filesystem handling and audio playback. Have you considered dividing the jobs to multiple applications? For example, get a playlist manager, and have it call the music player with "next track" in order.

what do you you as a playlist manager?

I think they wanted an open source app

I use and enjoy it too, but sadly it is not FOSS.

Forgot to check the sub lmao. Still a great app, but it is closed source yeah. My bad!

Modify playlists. Perhaps just use VLC or built-in music player for that.

In VLC go to more then settings then uncheck Auto Rescan

it's not about auto-scan, i trigger the re-scan for my new tracks to show up.