Alternatives to iTunes (Mac)

[Axel]

Apple's iTunes is getting more and more obtrusive such that I urgently need to find a replacement. I used iTunes only for keeping order on my collection of 3k+ albums. Recently however, iTunes permanently checks with the iTunes account and server and when you prevent it from connecting you get lots of warnings interrupting the flow of music. They want to loose customers? So be it.

Please, can you suggest alternatives for taking over the system of iTunes library, files and folders and being as versatile in ordering and labelling files as is iTunes? I play music by Roon, but don't trust its capacity of keeping the library in order after reading reports on disasters.

Thanks.

I quite like JRiver, it keeps my files organised the way that I tell it too and easily finds artwork, although I must admit that I haven't tried any others (apart from iTunes, which is no good for high res. files).  A lot of them give you a free trial period, so my advice would be to try as many as you can and see which you like best.

Right, I also thought of JRiver, but a trial is a risky business. Who knows what JRiver trial wants to change in my library.

Are you referring to tagging or maybe location of the files? JRiver is fully configurable, but just to be safe, you could make a backup of everything before you let anything loose on your files (if you haven't done so already).