Concept · built with AI tools

Music Dashboard A Spotify-style player for your own music files

A portable, offline-first music player that lives on a USB drive: double-click a launcher on any Windows PC and a Spotify-style dashboard opens in the browser for the songs already on your drives. It reads tags from MP3, FLAC, M4A, OGG and more, fills in missing cover art and info from free web sources when online, and never touches the music files themselves.

See the screensBuild something like this
Music Dashboard: cover screen
Status
Concept · built with AI tools
Type
Web app
Category
Desktop / personal utility
Version
v1 (unversioned)
Built with
Python 3.8+ standard library, Mutagen for tag reading, Single-page HTML/CSS/JavaScript UI served locally …

This is a self-initiated concept, designed and built by Srini with AI tools. It is not a real company or client project.

01The problem

A personal music collection spread across USB and PC drives has no good way to browse it like a streaming app — folders and file names are all you get, and most players need installing, an account or internet. The goal was a zero-install player that travels with the drive, keeps working offline and copes with Windows changing drive letters.

02Who it is for

People with a personal library of downloaded/ripped songs on a USB drive or PC disks who want to browse and play them comfortably on any computer.

03Features

  • One-click start from a USB drive (.bat for Windows, .command for Mac)
  • Scans multiple folders and subfolders; reads only, never modifies files
  • Reads tags: title, artist, album, year, genre, track/disc, composer, embedded art, bitrate
  • Fills missing cover art, year, genre and artist photos from iTunes Search and Deezer (no API keys)
  • Browse by albums, artists, genres, years/decades, folders and songs
  • Instant search with top result, songs and albums
  • Player bar with shuffle, repeat, queue, seek and volume
  • Duplicates view
  • Survives changing USB drive letters; unplugged drives' songs hide and return automatically
  • Incremental rescan that only re-reads changed files
  • Online lookups can be switched off for fully offline use
  • On-the-fly ffmpeg conversion for WMA/AIFF/APE; phone access on the same Wi-Fi

04Pages & screens

  • Home (recently added, top artists, browse all)
  • Songs
  • Albums
  • Album detail
  • Artists
  • Genres
  • Years / decades
  • Folders
  • Duplicates
  • Search results
  • Manage folders (settings)

05Stack

Python 3.8+ standard library (http.server, SQLite)
Mutagen (bundled) for tag reading
Single-page HTML/CSS/JavaScript UI served locally
iTunes Search and Deezer public APIs (optional)
ffmpeg (optional)

06How I built it with AI

Built with an AI coding assistant as a single self-contained Python script (~1,700 lines) that serves its own browser UI, plus a plain-language README and a one-page 'Music Dashboard on a USB Drive' guide written for non-technical users. Srini set the constraints — portable, no installs or internet required, read-only on the music files, works across PCs — and the AI implemented them. No prompt file was supplied.

07Design highlights

Highlight 01

Zero-install portability: bundled tag library and optional embeddable Python mean the whole app runs from the USB folder

Highlight 02

Read-only by design: everything learned (covers, metadata) is cached in a data folder next to the script, so it travels with the drive

Highlight 03

USB-aware library: folders are found again when the drive letter changes, and songs from unplugged drives hide then reappear

Highlight 04

Familiar streaming-app UI (dark theme, sidebar library, bottom player bar) applied to local files

Highlight 05

Privacy switch to turn off all online lookups