Frequently Asked Questions

SugarSpin is a self-hosted music player for anyone who wants to stream their personal music collection from anywhere. It runs as a Docker container on any computer — a NAS, a Mac, a Windows PC, or a Linux machine — and provides a beautiful, streaming-quality web interface accessible from any browser on any device. If you have music files on a hard drive, SugarSpin turns them into your own private streaming service.

SugarSpin is for music lovers who believe in owning their music. If you've spent years collecting albums, ripping CDs, hunting down rare tracks, and building a personal library, SugarSpin gives your collection a home that respects it. No algorithms, no songs disappearing because of licensing deals.

SugarSpin supports MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, M4A, AAC, OPUS, AIFF, APE, WV (WavPack), and ALAC. If you have the same album in multiple formats (for example, both MP3 and FLAC), SugarSpin automatically groups them together and plays the highest-quality version by default. You can also manually choose which format to play per track.

No. SugarSpin runs entirely on your local network. Once installed, it works without any internet connection. Your music never leaves your home network unless you choose to set up remote access yourself.

No. A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a dedicated storage device that sits on your home network, and it's a popular choice for running SugarSpin because it's always on. But SugarSpin works just as well on a regular computer. You can run it on a Mac, a Windows PC, or a Linux box with your music stored on an internal drive, an external USB drive, or even a USB-C portable drive. Docker is the only requirement — it's available for free on all major platforms.

They're two different things. A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a physical device — a small computer dedicated to storing files on your network. Docker is software that runs apps in isolated containers on any computer. Think of Docker as the engine that runs SugarSpin, and your computer (whether that's a NAS, a Mac, a PC, or a Linux box) as the machine the engine runs on. You need Docker installed to run SugarSpin, but the computer it runs on is totally up to you.

Absolutely not. SugarSpin was built by a music collector who has spent decades buying vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, MiniDiscs, and reel-to-reel tapes. Every piece of music in the library that inspired this project was personally purchased, collected, backed up, and digitized over many years. SugarSpin exists for one reason: to help you enjoy music you already own and have already paid for. It is not a tool for downloading, sharing, or distributing music. It does not connect to any external music sources, torrent networks, or streaming services. SugarSpin is simply a beautiful player for your personal collection.

SugarSpin is designed for people who have built a personal music library over time, whether that means ripping your own CDs, digitizing vinyl and cassette collections, purchasing digital downloads from stores like Bandcamp, Amazon, or iTunes, or backing up music you've legitimately acquired over the years. If your music sits on a hard drive, a NAS, or any storage device and you want a gorgeous way to play it, that's exactly what SugarSpin was made for.

No. SugarSpin does not download, stream from external sources, or acquire music in any way. It plays music files that already exist on your computer or storage device. The only external network calls SugarSpin makes are optional features to fetch missing album artwork and look up metadata (artist names, genres, release years) from MusicBrainz. These only download cover images and text data, never audio files.

Streaming services are great for discovery, but they don't respect ownership. Albums disappear without warning due to licensing changes. Sound quality varies. Algorithms decide what you listen to next. And you pay every single month to access music you could already own. SugarSpin was built for collectors who have spent years (and real money) building a library they're proud of, and who want to enjoy that library with the same quality and care they put into collecting it. No subscription. No corporate middleman. Just your music, sounding the way it was meant to sound.

SugarSpin includes a free tier that supports up to 20 albums or 100 songs, whichever you reach first. This lets you install the app, set it up, and try it out with a portion of your library before committing to a purchase.

Pro gives you up to 300 albums and 25,000 songs, 1 server installation, and unlimited simultaneous clients for $49. Gold gives you unlimited albums, unlimited songs, 2 server installations, and unlimited simultaneous clients for $89 (regularly $129). Founder is $249 — the golden-spin tier: same unlimited everything as Gold, plus a personal welcome note from Roger, beta access to new features 1–2 weeks before everyone else, an optional spot on the Founders Wall at sugarspin.hotdang.studio, and a Founder badge in your account. It exists for people who want to back a solo developer and ride along as SugarSpin grows. Every feature in SugarSpin is available across all paid tiers — the differences are library size, machine count, and the supporter perks. All paid tiers are lifetime purchases. No subscriptions, no recurring charges, ever.

Yes. You can purchase Pro, Gold, or Founder at any time from sugarspin.hotdang.studio. Once you enter your license key in Settings, your new limits kick in right away and SugarSpin will scan and index your full library on the next rescan. One thing to keep in mind: the $89 Gold price is only available at the time of your initial purchase. If you buy Pro first and upgrade later, Gold goes back to its regular $129. We'll still hook you up with a loyalty discount for being a Pro customer, but the best Gold deal is when you grab it upfront. Founder pricing ($249) is always available.

SugarSpin has four tiers. Free gets you up to 20 albums and 100 songs. Pro is a lifetime purchase of $49 for up to 300 albums and 25,000 songs. Gold is regularly $129 but available for $89 at first purchase — unlimited library, 2 servers. Founder is $249 with everything in Gold, plus a personal welcome note from the developer, beta access to new features early, an optional spot on the Founders Wall, and a Founder badge — for people who want to support a solo dev. No subscriptions, no monthly fees, no hidden charges. You pay once and use it forever.

Visit sugarspin.hotdang.studio and click the Buy Now button. After payment, you'll receive a unique license key via email. Open SugarSpin, go to Settings, scroll to the License section, paste your key, and click Activate. That's it.

It depends on your tier. Free and Pro licenses each allow 1 server installation. Gold allows 2 server installations — perfect if you want SugarSpin on your home NAS and a second machine like a laptop or office PC. Clients (phones, tablets, laptops browsing via the web app) do not count as server installations — only the machine running Docker counts. Pro and Gold both allow unlimited simultaneous clients.

Simply go to Settings → License in SugarSpin on your old machine, click Deactivate, then install on the new machine and activate the same key. This frees up your installation slot so it can be used on the new hardware. Gold users have 2 slots, so they can keep both active if they want.

License keys are tied to the server they're activated on and are not meant to be shared. Each key allows a fixed number of server installations: Free and Pro allow 1, Gold allows 2. If someone else activates your key, it uses up your installation slots. Think of it like a software serial number — it's yours, not transferable.

No. License validation happens entirely offline, inside the app itself. Your license key contains a cryptographic signature that the app verifies locally, so no internet connection or server check is needed. Even if the SugarSpin website shut down permanently, every existing license would continue working forever.

Of course. Just email us at support@hotdang.studio. The $89 Gold deal is only available at the time of your first purchase, so the upgrade price goes back to the regular $129. But since you already supported us with a Pro purchase, we'll give you a loyalty discount on top of that. We appreciate every customer who believes in this project.

Because SugarSpin offers a generous free tier that lets you fully evaluate the app before purchasing, we do not offer refunds. We encourage you to try the free tier first to make sure SugarSpin is right for you.

Yes. Your license key belongs to you — it is not permanently locked to one machine. To move it, you deactivate it on the current machine first, which frees up the activation slot. Then you enter the same key on the new machine and it activates normally.

To deactivate: open SugarSpin, go to your Account page, scroll to the License section, and click Deactivate License. You'll see a confirmation before anything happens. Once confirmed, your key is released and the machine reverts to the free tier.

Then on the new machine: go to Account → License and enter your key in the activation field. It will bind to the new machine and your full tier unlocks immediately.

You do not need to buy a new license. One purchase, transferable as many times as you need.

If you're moving to a completely new machine or doing a fresh install, deactivate your license on the old setup first if you still have access to it. Then re-enter your key on the new install to activate it there.

If you no longer have access to the old machine (it died, it's gone, you can't get into it), contact us at support@hotdang.studio with your license key and we'll manually release the activation slot so you can use it on the new machine.

No. Deactivating only removes the license from this machine — it does not delete anything. Your music files, library index, playlists, favorites, and play history are all stored separately and are completely unaffected. You just revert to the free tier (20 albums / 100 songs) until you re-enter a valid key. Re-activating restores full access immediately — no rescan needed.

SugarSpin is distributed as a Docker image. Installation takes about 2 minutes. Install Docker on your computer (NAS, Mac, Windows, or Linux), pull the SugarSpin image from Docker Hub, and run one command. Then open your browser, go to http://localhost:3333 (or your server's IP on port 3333), create your account, and head to Settings → Music Library to scan your collection. For full step-by-step instructions for every platform, see the Installation Guide.

Not necessarily. If you're on a NAS, most have a built-in Docker GUI in the admin panel where you can set everything up without touching a terminal. On Mac or Windows, Docker Desktop provides a graphical interface as well. You paste one command, Docker handles the rest, and everything after that is done in your browser. See the Installation Guide for full step-by-step instructions per platform.

Think of a Docker container as a self-contained package that includes everything SugarSpin needs to run. You don't need to install any dependencies or configure anything on your computer beyond Docker itself. Most modern NAS devices come with Docker built in, and for Mac, Windows, or Linux you can download Docker Desktop for free from docker.com.

After launching SugarSpin and creating your account, go to Settings (the gear icon in the sidebar). You'll see a Music Library section with a clickable link to your music folder — click it to scan and index your collection. Your music can live on a NAS share, an internal drive, an external USB drive, or anywhere else your computer can see. The Installation Guide walks through this in detail.

SugarSpin checks for updates automatically. When a new version is available, you'll see an Update SugarSpin button on your Account page — it copies the update command to your clipboard so you can paste it in your terminal. Your library, playlists, favorites, and settings are all preserved because they're stored in a persistent data volume that survives updates.

Copy music files to the folder you pointed SugarSpin at (whether that's on your NAS, your hard drive, or an external drive). Then go to Settings and click Rescan Library. SugarSpin will discover all new albums and tracks automatically. It also runs periodic background scans to pick up changes.

Yes. SugarSpin is a web app that works in any browser. Open your phone's browser and navigate to your server's IP address on port 3333 (or localhost:3333 if you're on the same computer). It's fully responsive and works great on mobile. You can also add it to your home screen for an app-like experience.

SugarSpin runs on your local network by default. To access it remotely, you have a couple of great options. You can use Cloudflare Tunnel to securely expose your server to the internet. Just point a custom domain (like music.yourdomain.com) to your server's IP and port 3333 through a Cloudflare tunnel. Alternatively, Tailscale is a zero-config VPN that lets you access your server from anywhere as if you were on your home network. Install it on your server and on your phone or laptop, and you're connected. Both options keep your server secure without opening ports on your router.

Cloudflare Tunnel creates a secure, encrypted connection between your server and Cloudflare's network. You set up a custom domain name (like music.yourdomain.com), configure it to point to your server on port 3333, and Cloudflare handles the rest. No need to open any ports on your router. It's free for personal use.

Tailscale is a mesh VPN that connects your devices directly to each other. Install the Tailscale app on your server and on your phone or laptop, and they can see each other from anywhere in the world as if they're on the same local network. Access SugarSpin using your server's Tailscale IP on port 3333. It's also free for personal use with up to 100 devices.

Both are excellent choices. Cloudflare Tunnel is best if you want a clean custom URL you can share. Tailscale is best if you want the simplest setup with no DNS configuration.

Yes — Pro and Gold both allow unlimited simultaneous clients, so your whole household can stream at the same time with no restrictions. Free limits you to 1 client at a time, which is the main reason to upgrade to Pro. A "client" is any browser or device connected to SugarSpin — your phone, laptop, tablet, TV, all count separately. Server installations (the machine running Docker) are tracked separately.

Yes. You can create, edit, and manage playlists within SugarSpin. You can also mark songs and albums as favorites. Your playlists and favorites are stored in the SugarSpin database and persist across updates.

SugarSpin extracts embedded album art from your music files during scanning. It also includes a Fetch Missing Covers feature in Settings that searches MusicBrainz and the Cover Art Archive for any albums that don't have artwork and downloads them automatically. You can also search for covers manually from the album editor using iTunes and Discogs.

SugarSpin includes a real-time audio visualizer in the Now Playing view with classic VU meters and a spectrum analyzer. It responds to your music in real time and displays over a beautiful bokeh background. You can toggle between different display modes from the side drawer. It gives you that hi-fi stereo component feeling, right in your browser.

SugarSpin has been tested with libraries of over 140,000 tracks. Scanning and indexing is fast and runs in the background. Even very large libraries are handled smoothly thanks to efficient database queries and background processing.

Vinyl View is a full-screen, immersive Now Playing experience that shows a spinning vinyl record with your album's artwork on the label and a tonearm. It recreates the feeling of sitting in front of a turntable. The record spins while music plays and pauses when you pause. It's the kind of detail that makes SugarSpin feel like it was built by someone who actually loves music. Because it was.

SugarSpin has two ways to fix metadata. For individual albums, click the gear icon on any album and use Smart Fix to look up the correct artist, title, year, and genre from MusicBrainz. You can preview the changes before saving. For your entire library, go to Settings and click Repair All Album Tags. This runs in two phases: first it groups any unknown or untagged tracks into albums based on your folder structure, then it looks up every album on MusicBrainz and corrects the metadata. It skips albums when it can't find a confident match, so it won't rename things incorrectly. Albums you've manually edited are never overwritten.

Yes. SugarSpin supports multi-device sync. Open SugarSpin on two or more devices on the same network and they all stay in sync. You can choose which device outputs the audio using the speaker icon in the play bar. Browse and queue songs from your phone while the music plays through your desktop or laptop. All playback controls (play, pause, skip, seek, volume) sync across every connected device in real time.

Crossfade smoothly blends the end of one song into the beginning of the next. Go to Settings, and under Playback you'll see a Crossfade slider. Set it anywhere from 0 (gapless, no overlap) to 15 seconds. When a song is about to end, the next track fades in while the current one fades out. Set it to 0 if you prefer gapless playback with no overlap.

Yes. Tap the shuffle icon (crossed arrows) in the play bar to toggle shuffle on or off. When shuffle is on, each skip picks a random track from the queue, weighted to avoid songs you've heard recently. It works with both manual skips and when songs end naturally, including during crossfade.

Watchtower monitors your music folder in real time and automatically detects new files. When you add music to your folder, SugarSpin picks it up without needing a manual rescan. You can configure how often a full rescan runs (every 30 minutes, hourly, daily, or weekly) from the Settings page. You can also turn Watchtower on or off with a toggle.

No. There is no transcoding pipeline. When you press play, the server reads the original file off your disk and sends those bytes straight to the player. A FLAC stays a FLAC. An ALAC stays an ALAC. The bit depth and sample rate of the original file ride along untouched. Nothing in SugarSpin re-encodes, down-samples, or “optimizes” your music behind your back.

Yes. The streaming layer is format-agnostic. 16-bit / 44.1 kHz CD rips, 24-bit / 48 kHz, 24-bit / 96 kHz, 24-bit / 192 kHz, even 32-bit float, they all transit from your disk to the player at their native quality. SugarSpin doesn’t flatten everything to a single sample rate, and it doesn’t maintain a second “optimized” copy of your library. The file you put in is the file that plays.

When you cast to a BluOS streamer (any Bluesound speaker, NAD M10, NAD M33, Powernode, etc.), yes. The speaker reaches into SugarSpin, pulls the raw file, and decodes it in its own DAC. Nothing in between touches the audio. That is a genuine bit-perfect signal path. SugarSpin deliberately does not include any equalizer, so nothing on our side ever reshapes your file before it reaches the speaker. The only sound-shaping feature in the app is optional Tube Warmth on browser playback, and that is off by default. When you listen in a web browser on your laptop or phone, the audio passes through the operating system's audio engine, which may resample to the OS output rate. SugarSpin itself does not modify the file, but the browser stack downstream is something no web app fully controls. For end-to-end bit-perfect playback, use a streamer or a wired USB DAC.

FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, WAV, OGG Vorbis, OPUS, AAC, M4A, and MP3. Mix them all in a single library. SugarSpin reads each track at its native format and bit depth.

Never. Both are real-time effects applied during playback. The file on your disk is read-only as far as SugarSpin is concerned. Set Tube Warmth to Off, set ReplayGain to Off, and you are listening to the file as recorded. Casting to a BluOS streamer always bypasses every effect, because the speaker decodes the original file itself with no SugarSpin DSP in the path. SugarSpin deliberately does not include an equalizer at all, so there is no EQ stage anywhere in the pipeline to second-guess your music.

DSD is not currently supported. SugarSpin runs in the browser, and no browser audio engine natively decodes DSD. If you have a small DSD collection alongside your PCM library, the usual workflow is to keep the DSD files where you store them and play those through your dedicated SACD-capable software, while SugarSpin handles the FLAC, ALAC, and other PCM formats. DSD support would require a decoding step on the server, which we have not built.

Anything running BluOS — that's the entire Bluesound lineup (Node, Powernode, Pulse Mini, Pulse Flex, Vault) plus NAD's BluOS-equipped streamers and amps (M10, M33, T 778, C 700, C 658). Pro and Gold tier only. SugarSpin auto-discovers any BluOS device on your LAN at startup and pops a toast notification when a new one shows up. Pick it from the device picker in the play bar.

Yes. SugarSpin sends title, artist, album, and cover art as metadata when starting the stream. Your Bluesound Powernode's front panel, NAD M10's screen, and the BluOS mobile app all show the same track info as your SugarSpin UI.

No. The speaker pulls the original FLAC bytes directly from SugarSpin over HTTP, bit-perfect. Nothing is re-encoded, resampled, or compressed in transit. SugarSpin's server-side audio level analysis decodes a transient in-memory PCM copy purely for math (to drive the visualizers) — the actual file streaming to your speaker is untouched.

Yes. SugarSpin's server polls the speaker once per second, detects when a track ends (via four independent end-of-track signals to handle every BluOS firmware quirk), and tells the speaker to play the next track in your queue. Respects Repeat One, Repeat Album, and Shuffle modes. You can even close all your browsers and the queue will keep advancing on the speaker by itself — though closing the last browser does trigger an automatic Stop so you don't accidentally leave music playing.

Absolutely. Start a song on your Mac, skip a track from your iPad, pause from your phone — all controlling the same speaker. All connected browsers stay in real-time sync via the server's broadcast layer. Family-friendly: anyone in the house with a SugarSpin tab open can change what's playing on the living-room amp.

SugarSpin tries LRCLib first (a community-driven synced-lyrics database), then falls back to NetEase Cloud Music for tracks LRCLib doesn't have. Both are free, no auth or API keys required from you. Once lyrics are found they're cached in your local SQLite database forever, so they only fetch once per song.

Lyric databases are crowdsourced — obscure, indie, classical, jazz, or pre-1980s tracks often have no entry. LRCLib covers about 3 million songs (mostly Western pop/rock); NetEase boosts coverage on Asian music, K-pop, J-pop, and older Western catalog. If both miss a song, SugarSpin caches the miss to avoid re-checking. There's no fix for tracks that simply aren't in either database.

Three styles: Scroll (karaoke-style line highlight with smooth scrolling), Spotlight (full-screen focus on the current line, large type), and Wave (gentle rising/falling animation between lines). Switch between them with the faint pill at the bottom of the lyrics view — it fades to 20% opacity when idle so it doesn't distract.

Yes — this was new in v1.8.0. When the audio is flowing to your Bluesound or NAD speaker (not your browser), SugarSpin's server decodes the track and computes 30-frames-per-second level data (RMS, spectrum bins, waveform samples), then pushes that to every connected browser via socket. So your VU meter, spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, and radial visualizer all animate from the real audio even though your laptop's audio output is silent. The decode happens once per song and gets cached, so every play after the first is instant.

Tap the faint circular glyph in the bottom-left corner of Now Playing (a 48 px floating button matching the main one on the right). The picker that comes up lets you choose between Vinyl, Lyrics, VU Meter, Spectrum, Oscilloscope, Radial Spectrum, and the new Tubes view. Replaced the old double-tap gesture, which was unreliable on iPad.

A new full-screen Now Playing view: four photoreal vacuum tubes glowing amber over a warm bokeh field. The glow brightens and breathes on a slow ~5-second cycle tied to the song’s overall loudness, not a jittery per-beat flicker. A secondary red glow at the base of each tube simulates the filament heat. Tube positions are measured directly from the source artwork, so the glows stay locked to the tubes in both portrait and landscape on any device.

They’re separate things. Tube Warmth is an audio DSP — a vacuum-tube saturation stage that adds gentle even-order harmonics and soft compression to what you hear. It runs entirely in the Web Audio API graph, between your file and your speakers. Four presets in Settings: Off, Subtle, Warm, Vintage, plus a custom Drive slider. The Tubes visualizer is a visual Now Playing view (the glowing-tubes screen). You can run either, both, or neither. Your source FLAC/ALAC files are never modified.

Yes — on Pro and Gold tiers. SugarSpin speaks the Subsonic API, which is supported by several iPhone apps that have native CarPlay support. The setup is: enable CarPlay access in your SugarSpin Settings page (which generates a username and password), install a Subsonic-compatible iOS app like Amperfy (free) or play:Sub (paid), point it at your server, and plug into CarPlay. You'll see album art on your dashboard and skip/back works from the steering wheel. The free tier doesn't include this — upgrade to Pro or Gold to unlock it.

Same answer — yes, on Pro and Gold. The Subsonic API is platform-agnostic, so any Android Subsonic app with Android Auto support works with SugarSpin. We recommend Ultrasonic (free, open source) or Symfonium (paid, very polished). Connect them with the credentials you set in your SugarSpin CarPlay settings, plug into your car, and Android Auto picks them up automatically.

iPhone: we recommend Amperfy Music — it's free, open source, has solid CarPlay support, and a clean UI. If you want a paid option with more features, play:Sub ($4.99) has the most polished CarPlay experience.

Android: we recommend Ultrasonic (free, on Google Play and F-Droid) for Android Auto. Symfonium is the premium pick if you want a polished interface and don't mind paying.

You can also try Substreamer, iSub, DSub, Tempo — SugarSpin works with any app that speaks the Subsonic protocol. Different apps have different strengths; pick whichever you like best.

Subsonic is an old, stable, well-documented music server protocol. Lots of self-hosted music servers speak it — Navidrome, Airsonic, Funkwhale, Gonic. Because of that, there's a whole ecosystem of mature mobile apps that connect to any Subsonic-compatible server. By implementing the Subsonic API, SugarSpin instantly works with all of those apps, including the ones with CarPlay and Android Auto. You don't have to wait for us to build native iOS and Android apps — you get the best ones in the ecosystem for free.

Open SugarSpin in your browser, go to your Profile / Settings page, and find the CarPlay & External Apps section. Click Generate to create a strong password, then click Enable & Save. Hit Copy to grab the password — you'll need it in your iOS or Android app along with the server URL and username (which defaults to sugarspin). Step-by-step instructions are in the installation guide.

No, it's a separate credential. The Subsonic API works on a different authentication model than SugarSpin's web login (which is more secure but isn't compatible with how Subsonic apps authenticate). Keeping them separate also means if your CarPlay password leaks, it doesn't compromise your main account — you can rotate it independently. The CarPlay credential lives in your server settings and you control it from the same panel.

Only if your SugarSpin server is reachable from outside your home network. By default, SugarSpin runs on a local IP like 192.168.x.x, which only works on your Wi-Fi. To use CarPlay in your car on cellular, you need to expose your server publicly — the easiest options are Cloudflare Tunnel (free, gives you HTTPS automatically) or Tailscale (free for personal use, more private). The Go Remote section of the install guide walks through both. Once that's set up, just use your public URL in the iOS/Android app instead of the local IP.

Yes — on Pro and Gold, that's the whole point of unlimited simultaneous clients. Your spouse, kids, and friends can all use the same credentials in their own apps and stream from your library at the same time. Think of it like a household-pass model: one license, your whole household. The free tier is capped at 1 simultaneous client and doesn't include CarPlay/Subsonic at all.

Yes — on Pro and Gold tiers. SugarSpin natively controls BluOS-powered devices: Bluesound Node, Powernode, Pulse, NAD M10, M33, C-series streamers, and any other BluOS-firmware speaker. Open SugarSpin, click the speaker icon in the play bar, pick your Bluesound device from the list, and the audio streams to it directly. Browse your library on your phone, listen on the hi-fi gear in the living room. The speaker's own front-panel display shows the song title, artist, album, and cover art. It's like AirPlay or Chromecast, but for BluOS — with all the metadata baked in.

Auto-discovery. When SugarSpin starts up it scans your local network for BluOS-compatible devices on port 11000. When one is found, a toast pops up in your SugarSpin browser window: "Found NAD M10 on your network — Connect?" Click Connect and that's it. Discovered devices are saved between restarts so you don't have to re-add them. If your speaker is on the same Wi-Fi or LAN as your SugarSpin server, it'll show up automatically.

Yes. You can start a song from your Mac, skip tracks from your iPad, and queue something else from your phone — all controlling the same Bluesound speaker. Each device sees the same queue and the same now-playing state. Family-friendly setup: anyone in the house with SugarSpin open can change what's playing in the living room.

Click the speaker icon in the SugarSpin play bar and pick your own device (your Mac, iPad, etc.) from the list. The Bluesound speaker stops, and audio comes through your browser instead. Same picker, opposite direction.

A few things to check: (1) The speaker must be on the same Wi-Fi or LAN as your SugarSpin server — cross-VLAN setups won't work. (2) Make sure SugarSpin knows its own LAN IP — access SugarSpin once from a phone/laptop on your home Wi-Fi (using http://192.168.x.x:3333) and it'll learn the LAN URL automatically. (3) If you're running SugarSpin in a Docker container with bridge networking, the auto-discovery may take an extra scan; click the device picker and wait a few seconds. (4) Power-cycling the BluOS device can help if it was on a different network earlier.

The free tier of SugarSpin is meant to let you try the product with a small library — up to 20 albums and 100 songs — through the web interface. CarPlay and Android Auto access is genuinely a premium feature: it lets you stream from any device, anywhere, on multiple clients at once. That's the kind of thing people pay hundreds of dollars for in commercial music server products, with some popular options now charging $700 or more for a lifetime license. Pricing CarPlay at the Pro tier is what keeps SugarSpin sustainable as a one-time-purchase product with no subscription fees. Pro is $49 once, and unlocks it for life.

Currently, SugarSpin plays audio through the web browser on whatever device you're using. It does not natively support Chromecast, AirPlay, or Sonos casting. However, you can use your device's built-in casting features to share the browser tab or audio output.

No. SugarSpin is read-only. It never modifies, moves, renames, or deletes your music files. Your library stays exactly as it is. SugarSpin only reads metadata and audio data from your files.

SugarSpin is a progressive web app (PWA). While there is no native iOS or Android app, the web interface is fully mobile-optimized and can be added to your home screen for an app-like experience. A native mobile app may be considered for future versions.

Your music files are never touched. If you uninstall SugarSpin, you lose your playlists, favorites, play history, and settings that were stored in SugarSpin's database. Your music files remain exactly where they were on your drive.

Yes. SugarSpin runs entirely on your own hardware. Your music files never leave your computer. There is no cloud component, no telemetry, no analytics, and no data sent to any external server. Your library is 100% private.

This is a Docker limitation, not a SugarSpin bug. Docker runs apps inside a sealed container — isolated from the rest of your computer. Even if a USB drive is plugged in or a network share is mounted on your machine, the container has no idea those exist. It can only see what was specifically connected to it when the container was started.

Think of it like this: Docker builds a box around SugarSpin. Your drives live outside the box. To give SugarSpin access to a drive, you have to wire it in at startup — telling Docker "pass this folder from my computer into the container." Once that's done, the drive appears inside the app as a folder you can add to your music library.

This wiring is done when you first run the container, using what Docker calls a "volume mount." Every platform handles this slightly differently — NAS devices have a graphical Docker interface, Mac and Windows have Docker Desktop, Linux has the command line. Check the Installation Guide for your platform's specific instructions on how to add a new drive when setting up or updating your container.

It's a two-step process. First, make sure the drive is connected to your computer and recognized by your operating system. Then, you need to update your Docker setup to pass that drive into the SugarSpin container — this is called a volume mount.

The specifics of how you do that depend entirely on your setup: what computer you're running, what OS, and how you originally installed SugarSpin. A NAS with a Docker GUI, Docker Desktop on a Mac, and a Linux command line all handle this differently. We can't provide a single set of instructions that works for every machine.

See the Installation Guide for your platform. Look for the section on adding additional music folders or volume mounts — it walks through the steps specific to your setup. Once the drive is wired in, go to Settings → Music Library inside SugarSpin to add the new folder and run a scan.

Same idea. If you're running SugarSpin on a separate computer and want it to access music stored on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) or network share, you first need to mount that share on the machine running Docker, and then pass it into the container.

If you're running SugarSpin directly on the NAS itself, the music is already on the same machine — you just need to make sure the correct folder paths are wired into the container when it starts.

How to do all of this depends on your specific NAS brand, operating system, and Docker setup. There's no one-size-fits-all set of commands we can give you here — each setup is different. Refer to your NAS or platform's documentation for how to mount a network share, and then see the Installation Guide for how to pass it into SugarSpin's Docker container.

Yes. You can wire in as many folders and drives as you need — each one gets its own path inside the container. Once they're all mapped in, head to Settings → Music Library inside SugarSpin and add each folder. Run a scan and SugarSpin will index everything into one unified library.

Again, how you add multiple mounts depends on your platform and how your container was originally set up. See the Installation Guide for your specific setup.

Since your music location is set at the Docker level — not inside the app itself — you'll need to update the container to point to the new drive. This means stopping the current container and starting it again with the new folder wired in instead of the old one.

Your library, playlists, and favorites are stored in a separate data volume and will not be affected — you'll just need to run a rescan once the new folder is connected. For how to update your container's volume setup, see the Installation Guide for your platform. Inside the app, you can also use Settings → Music Library to update the primary folder path once the drive is mounted.

The folder browser inside SugarSpin can only show paths that exist inside the Docker container. It hides system directories and only shows user-relevant mount points like /music, /usb, /nas, /mnt, and similar. If you don't see the drive you're looking for, it hasn't been connected to the container yet. See the questions above for how to add it.

Keep everything on the same machine. The single best thing you can do for performance and reliability is store your music on the same computer or NAS that is running the SugarSpin Docker container. No network hops. No external drives. No moving parts between SugarSpin and your files. When the music and the app are on the same box, scanning is fast, playback is instant, and there is nothing in between that can break.

This is the setup SugarSpin was designed and optimized for. Internal storage, local container, everything self-contained.

Internal drive, every time. External USB drives introduce a point of failure that is completely outside your control. USB drives can disconnect unexpectedly, spin down to save power, or lose their mount point after a reboot — and when that happens, SugarSpin loses access to your library without warning. Scans fail silently. Playback stops mid-track.

If your music is currently on a USB drive, the recommendation is to move it to internal storage before relying on SugarSpin day-to-day. It is a one-time move that eliminates an entire class of problems.

It works, but it is not the recommended approach. Reading audio files over a network share adds latency and introduces a dependency on your local network staying stable. If your network hiccups, your router reboots, or the other machine goes to sleep, SugarSpin can lose access mid-stream. These kinds of interruptions are frustrating and hard to diagnose.

The more pieces between SugarSpin and your files, the more things that can go wrong. If your music lives on a NAS, the cleanest setup is to run SugarSpin directly on that NAS — not on a separate machine reaching across the network to get to it.

Any always-on machine with Docker support and enough storage for your library works well. Some solid options based on real-world use:

• NAS with Docker support (QNAP, UGREEN, TrueNAS, Unraid, etc.) — ideal if your music is already there. Always on, low power, quiet.
• Mac Mini — excellent home server. Compact, silent, energy-efficient, and very capable. Great if you're already in the Apple ecosystem.
• Linux mini-PC (Intel NUC, Beelink, similar) — affordable, low power, runs Docker natively. A popular choice for self-hosters.
• Regular desktop or laptop — works fine while the machine is on. Not ideal if you want 24/7 access from your phone.

For most people, the NAS or Mac Mini is the sweet spot: always on, music stored internally, Docker running locally. Set it up once and forget about it.

Follow this sequence and you will have the most stable, low-maintenance setup possible:

1. Pick a machine that stays on — a NAS, a Mac Mini, or a dedicated mini-PC.
2. Put your music on that machine's internal storage. Not a USB drive. Not a network share. Local.
3. Install Docker on that machine using the Installation Guide for your platform.
4. Run SugarSpin pointing at that local music folder.
5. Set up remote access using Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel if you want to reach it from outside your home.

That's it. No cross-network mounts. No USB dependencies. Everything lives on the same box. This is the setup that works the best and causes the fewest headaches over time.

SugarSpin was built by Roger from Hot Dang Studio. Technically a one-person team. Creator, developer, designer, and chief vinyl enthusiast all rolled into one. Hot Dang Studio is a small creative shop focused on building things with heart. SugarSpin is one of those things.

For the love of music — all of it. Roger has spent decades collecting and obsessing over it. Vinyl records, cassette tapes, reel-to-reel recordings, MiniDiscs — a lifetime of music that he carefully digitized and backed up to a local server so it would never be lost. Every format, every era, all of it preserved and accessible.

The problem was there was no player that felt like it deserved the collection. Nothing that treated the music with the same care he'd put into collecting it. And he wanted to take it with him — on trips, on bike rides, anywhere. You can't exactly strap a turntable and a hundred records to your back. SugarSpin was born out of that reality: a way to carry a lifetime of music in your pocket, on any device, with an interface that actually feels like flipping through crates. Built by someone who still gets excited every time he puts something on.

A deliberate choice, and honestly a straightforward one: Apple and Google both take a 30% cut of every purchase made through their stores. On top of that, there are annual developer fees just to keep the app listed. For an independent creator paying everything out of pocket, that's a significant chunk of money going to a platform that didn't build the app, doesn't maintain it, and doesn't know your music collection.

Staying off the app stores is a big part of why SugarSpin can be a one-time purchase instead of a subscription. No ongoing platform fees means no need to charge you every month to cover them. You pay once for the time and effort that went into building something that works for you — that's the whole deal.

SugarSpin works in any browser on any device already. Add it to your home screen on iOS or Android and it behaves like a native app. Same experience, no middleman, no commission, no subscription. That's the trade-off, and it's one that benefits you as much as it benefits the project.

Check out the Hot Dang Show on YouTube. That's Roger's channel where he's a self-proclaimed daredevil and professional idiot, from eating the world's hottest peppers to taking on ridiculous challenges. But peek at his studio in the background and it's obvious the man lives and breathes music. You can also visit hotdang.studio to see what else the studio is up to.

Nope. No venture capital. No corporate parent. SugarSpin is an independent project from a small studio of creators, marketers, and coders. It was built by someone who actually uses it every day for his own collection. That's why every detail, the vinyl view, the VU meters, the Tubes visualizer, exists because it mattered to the person who made it. When you support SugarSpin, you're supporting an indie creator, not a corporation.

Head over to the Contact page and fill out the form. It goes straight to support@hotdang.studio. Whether it's a bug report, a feature idea, or just to say you dig the app, Roger reads every single message. Be kind, he's just one guy who really loves music.