Listening to music from your Windows 10 device is a great way to escape the stresses of the day. It can also be a head-bobbing, toe-tapping way to pass the time and there are plenty of Windows 10 apps available to organize and playback your audio collection.
Groove Music is Microsoft's offering and comes pre-installed on your Windows 10 PC and Mobile device. It does a good job of managing your music files and provides you access to the Windows Store, where you can build up your music library. While Groove Music fits most Windows 10 user's needs, for this roundup we are going to focus on alternatives. Alternatives that offer streaming music, as well as music playback and music library management. Let's take a look at the best music apps for Windows 10.
Perfect Music
Perfect Thumb offers a host of Windows 10 apps that take on a minimalist approach without sacrificing functionality. Perfect Music provides an easy way to listen to your music, create playlists and manage your music library.
Available for Windows 10 Mobile, the free app provides gesture based navigation during playback, nine unique themes, support for FLAC, M4A, WMC, WAV, and MP3 formats and the ability to sort music files by artist, genre, albums or songs. Music files can be searched by artist, album or alphabetically.
The playback screen has your current song spinning in the center of the display with several controls surrounding the animated music disc. You can pin the song to your Start Screen, set a sleep timer, tag the song as a favorite, adjust the volume and shuffle or repeat playback. There is also a button to pull up the lyrics of the song. This is a neat feature and offers a slight karaoke feel to Perfect Music. It can also help settle debates over what a song is saying.
Perfect Music is a free, ad-supported app with the option to remove the ads through a $1.49 in-app purchase. All in all, if you are looking for a simple and easy music player for Windows 10 Mobile, then Perfect Music hits the right note.
Download Perfect Music from the Windows Store
Spotify
Spotify delivers the streaming music service to your Windows 10 Mobile phone that includes a host of music genres such as rock, classical, blues, country, metal and more. There are also channels that provide talk radio and audiobook resources.The Windows 10 Mobile app is free and does require a Spotify account.
The streaming service is also free with the option to upgrade to Spotify Premium ($9.99 per month) that unlocks a number of features such as:
- Download music for offline listening
- No ads
- Unlimited skips
- High Definition sound quality
The free package offers plenty of streaming music to enjoy with the ability to create playlists, search for content and shuffle mode. The app also has a Discover Mode where new music is recommended based on your listening habits.
Spotify is a clean looking Windows 10 music app with a ton of streaming content. The free app is a good choice with a premium update available should you want just a little more out of things.
Download Spotify from the Windows Store
VLC
VLC is a portable media player for Windows 10 with support for both video and music playback. You can also tap into your Last.fm account for streaming media. Music files can be sorted by artist, albums, songs or playlists. Videos are sorted by those you download/install to your Windows 10 device or by those in your Windows 10 camera roll. VLC also has support for opening media streams by entering its URL.
Settings offer options to customize the appearance through dark or light themes and title bar colors, video playback options, sound equalizer settings and setting up your connection with Last.fm.
VLC is a free app, available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, as well as Xbox One. It is a Windows 10 music app that grows on you and has plenty of features to allow you to make the most of your video and music libraries.
Download VLC from the Windows Store
Pandora
Pandora is a Windows 10 app that delivers all the goodness of this popular streaming surface to the comfort of your PC, Mobile and Xbox One devices.
The free app has a boat load of music stations to choose from ranging from classic rock to country to hard rock. The station library also includes a variety of comedy stations to help lighten up your day. Stations can be browsed by genre or searched by keyword. You also have a sleep timer to let you fall asleep to Pandora without worrying about it playing all night long.
You do need to create an account to enjoy the Pandora's free services with the option to upgrade to Pandora's premium services ($4.99 per month). The premium service removes the ad support, provides custom skins for your music player, adds more skips and offers premium audio quality.
The layout is simple and the content vast with Pandora, making it one of the best streaming music choices available for Windows 10.
Download Pandora from the Windows Store
iHeart Radio
iHeart Radio is a Windows 10 app that delivers all your favorite music and radio under one roof. The streaming service features thousands of live radio stations and custom stations to enjoy listening to the likes of pop, country, alternative, classic and other music genres.
You also have access to talk radio stations to keep up on the world of sports, politics, news and more. You can create custom stations base on your favorite song or artist. If you like falling asleep to music, iHeart Radio does have a sleep timer to let you fade off without worrying that your Windows 10 device will keep running through the night.
iHeart Radio is a free app, available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, as well as Xbox One. The basic streaming service is free and an account is needed for the premium services that have monthly costs. Premium features include unlimited skips, downloadable songs, unlimited playlists and more. You can find out more about the premium service packages (priced from $4.99 to $12.99 per month) at iHeart Radio's website.
Overall, iHeart Radio is a feature-rich Windows 10 app and provides you access to a vast amount of music stations, as well as local radio stations.
Download iHeart Radio from the Windows Store
If you have given any of these Windows 10 music apps a try, let us know what you think of things in the comments below. There are plenty more options available in the Windows Store, such as SiriusXM, Deezer and more. If you have a recommendation to share, toss it out in the comments as well!
Reader comments
Best Music Apps for Windows 10
Hello. Did anybody try "Perfect Music"? I uninstalled it because it doesn't read my music files located in SD card, no matter what format they are (FLAC, mp4, etc)
Favourite is OneMusic. It works the best for me
Definitely Groove Music! I used to be diehard iHeart radio until one day it wouldn't work. That was 3 months ago and I haven't looked back. I use Groove daily for 8-9 hours. Well worth the $10 a month to hear exactly what I want when I want it.
Do any of these apps support Playing to DNLA speakers over home network?
Don't forget AIMP and fb2k on the desktop.
Loco Music Player all the way. Universal, plays great in continuum, folder playing and more. No. 1.
For simples guys, a simple app:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/winplay/9nblggh4trbt
I cant believe im still begging for smartplaylist on Groove. Ughhhhbbb
TuneIn is also great for listening online radio, and completely free. It has tons of radio stations, and a good suggesting system for other radio stations.
I would recommend the Live Performance Player app. Has special features for Audio Engineers and Performers too!
I would go with Groove but their system is still very primative. No playlists over 1000 songs, no smart playlists, no ratings system, there's nothing that I would use aside from accessing the music. Groove needs smart playlists and ratings in order for me to move over to them (and the smart playlists have to store more than 1000 songs). I'll stick with Google Music and the (poorly named) Google Play Music Desktop Player for my Surface.
Groove music is fantastic anytime.. .
Groove music is fantastic anytime.. .
Is there any way to set up a whole home audio system using these programs in W10M? Like Chromecast?
Got a groove music pass, only downside from what I can tell is the inability to stream from another device on my network, like my NAS...
You could mention Deezer, available in most countries, and which has a UWP app unlike Spotify. Regularly updated, adding new features, etc., they have totally revamped the app. Great support, more or less the same titles/albums as Spotify, etc.
VLC is a crashy app
I'd love ❤ to see a music 🎶 player that can handle my 11000 mp3s on an SD card. No luck 🍀 yet. They all recognize a different amount, and a couple of them can even start up 👆 once they are ready scanning. Mostly they just collapse on the splash screen.
Have you tried Loco?
Hello Magnus. 11000 files? That's really a huge music library, I know, but... Did you ever try mp4 music files? For example, with a 56 kbps bitrate, 44.1 KHz, stereo mode, it offers great quality with that compression, compared to the WORST lowest bitrates of the mp3's. Just to save space without noticeable quality loss, which is not the case of mp3. Maybe with mp4 it would be a lot easier for players to handle your music files. Just saying, you have an option :)
I have 18000 music files, the problem isn't mp3 file size, its that the apps struggle to handle a database with that many items. Groove is better than it used to be at this though, at one point it only listed songs from A-H after that the database was cut off.
For a totally free option, you can't beat iHeart, especially if local news and content matter. Deezer should be on the list as well.
I prefer the "sonicweb" app to listen & download music from internet radios. It' s a way better than TuneIn so far, offering great functions...
There's also Napster.
Napster has a Windows 10 UWP app coming soon...
Under "best music apps" i expected to see not only playback apps but also cataloguers for x86, tag editors for mobile, tabulature seekers/viewers/editors, dj apps, sequensers... Well I even had a little hope to find a word on real time effect emulators, something like Guitar Rig but lightweight.
But no. Be creative guys, for consuming we got Groove.
A button to pull up the lyrics of the songs??? I have to try that one! :D
I'm with Groove. First, I easily store and play all my giant personal collection from OneDrive. The "radio" is superior to Spotify, my former choice, because Groove plays a bigger breadth of artists so I discover more music. Groove has something like 40 million tracks while Spotify is at 30 million. And the players are fine, especially on my phone. And, Microsoft is constantly updating the apps. A good sign for the long term.
I'm always baffled as to why Deezer never makes it onto these lists. I swear by it.
Or Audials
L830, I miss Lumia radio so much since updating to 10. I'd love to try iHeart Radio but it doesn't appear anywhere when I search the Store? Also can anyone explain why the apps that do appear all need to take over every part of my phone if I use them? So many permissions???
Gotta go with Groove, as well as those listed.
I prefere windows default music player ang Line
Groove Music needs a better shuffle all music like in PowerAmp and it will be the best player.
My love for Groove Music won't fade away ;-)
They wont drop support for windows right.....?
This is the reason why I can't buy those premium subscriptions.