Amarok (software)
Free and open source music player
title: "Amarok (software)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["2003-software", "applications-using-d-bus", "audio-player-software-that-uses-qt", "extragear", "free-audio-software", "free-media-players", "free-multilingual-software", "free-software-programmed-in-c++", "jukebox-style-media-players", "kde-applications", "linux-media-players", "macos-media-players", "online-music-database-clients", "windows-multimedia-software", "software-using-the-gnu-general-public-license"] description: "Free and open source music player" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarok_(software)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Free and open source music player ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Amarok |
| logo | Breezeicons-apps-48-amarok.svg |
| author | Mark Kretschmann |
| developer | KDE |
| released | |
| latest release version | |
| latest release date | |
| latest preview version | |
| latest preview date | |
| programming language | C++ (Qt) |
| operating system | Unix-like, Windows, MacOS |
| language | |
| genre | Audio player |
| license | GPL-2.0-or-later |
| website | |
| :: |
::callout[type=note] the music player software ::
| name = Amarok | logo = Breezeicons-apps-48-amarok.svg | screenshot = | caption = | author = Mark Kretschmann | developer = KDE | released = | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | programming language = C++ (Qt) | operating system = Unix-like, Windows, MacOS | language = | genre = Audio player | license = GPL-2.0-or-later | website =
Amarok is a free and open-source music player for Linux, macOS, Windows, and other Unix-like operating systems. Amarok is part of the KDE project, but it is released independently of the central KDE Software Compilation release cycle. Amarok is released under the terms of the GPL-2.0-or-later.
History
Amarok is one of the oldest Linux music players in active development, being started in 2003. The program was originally stylized as amaroK, after a Mike Oldfield album of the same name. The artwork references Amarok, a wolf in Inuit mythology. The app's capitalization was changed to Amarok in June 2006.
A new major version of Amarok, version 2.0, was released on December 12, 2008. On June 3, 2009, version 2.1 was released, which reintroduced some of the 1.4 features which had been missing from the initial 2.0 release, and introduced some features such as native ReplayGain support.
Version 3.0 of Amarok was released in April 2024, after a six year hiatus of major updates. It ported the application to Qt5 and added support for FFmpeg 5, along with other smaller changes. A port to Qt6, the newest version of the Qt library, is scheduled for later in the year.
Features
Amarok supports a wide variety of music formats due to the use of audio engines. It can retrieve cover art information and lyrics from the internet It includes a sidebar that displays the user's music collection, saved playlists, and internet radio stations on the left and the active playlist on the right. Amarok can also display the Wikipedia entry for the band or album in the sidebar. Other features include dynamic playlists, bookmarking, file tracking, and smooth fade-out settings.
Amarok includes integration with online music services such as Last.fm, OPML Podcast, Jamendo, Magnatune, and Ampache.
Amarok can be used to manage music on iPods and other MP3 players.
Notable forks
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Clementine_0.6_in_Windows.png" caption="Clementine: A fork of Amarok 1.4."] ::
- Clementine is a fork of Amarok 1.4 that ported it to the Qt 4 framework.
- Strawberry is a fork of Clementine with additional improvements and fixes, first appeared during a period when Clementine development had paused.
- Exaile is a GTK+ fork of Amarok 1.4.
References
References
- "SourceForge.net". SourceForge.net.
- (March 2023). "license notice placed at the top in one of the source files of the project's repository, probably in each of its source files".
- Hossain, Rubaiat. (2021-01-30). "The 15 Best Linux Music Player Apps".
- "AmaroK - the audio player for KDE".
- (2008-12-11). "Amarok gets a facelift".
- Modine, Austin. "Native-Linux music player Amarok gets major overhaul".
- Nestor, Marius. (2024-04-30). "Amarok 3.0 Open-Source Music Player Officially Released, Here's What's New".
- Sneddon, Joey. (2024-04-30). "Amarok 3.0 Released, Ported to Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5".
- Larabel, Michael. (2024-04-29). "KDE's Amarok 3.0 Music Player Released After Six Year Hiatus - Now Ported To Qt5".
- Rankin, Kyle. (2006). "Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video". "O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
- Pataki, Daniel. (2008-03-25). "Amarok - The music player - gHacks Tech News".
- Okoi, Divine. (2018-04-17). "Amarok - A Powerful Cross Platform Music Player".
- (2009-10-12). "How to use Amarok to manage your iPod".
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::