• Operating System: macOS Monterey (12.0) or later, or Windows 10 or later
• Memory (RAM): 4 GB or more
• Storage: At least 1 GB of available disk space

These are the minimum requirements. For larger music libraries or more demanding workflows, higher specs are required to provide a better experience.

1. Create a Playlist

You can create a playlist anywhere in your library, but a Playlists crate is a good place to start.

• Right-click on Playlists (or any folder)
• Click Add New → Playlist
• Give it a name (you can change it later)

2. Add Music to Your Playlist

You can add tunes in multiple ways:

• Right-click on the playlist → Import files or folders
• Drag and drop files into Crates
• Use the browser extension to import from online sources (Bandcamp, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc.)
• Drag and drop or copy-paste supported links directly into Crates
• Use Online Search to search for tracks online

A useful tip is to open the playlist in the right side panel: right-click → Open in side panel. This makes it easier to drag and drop tracks from the main panel while browsing your library.

You can then use Search, or right-click a tune and select Add to… the playlist. This sub-menu contains the playlists open in the right side panel.

3. Organize and Edit

• Reorder tracks via drag and drop
• Right-click a track → Edit to update metadata (genre, title, artist, album, year, etc.)
• Use the Get Info action to automatically fetch metadata from connected sources

4. Add Audio Sources (Important)

For others to listen to your playlist, each track needs a public audio source.

• Crates will try to auto-find sources when publishing
• If it does not find a public audio source for a track, you’ll be prompted to add one

You can also add sources manually in advance:

• Invoke the Find Audio Source action: right-click a track → Actions → Find audio source
• Open Edit → check the Audio Sources section
• Drag and drop a supported URL directly into Audio Sources

5. Add Timestamped Comments (Optional)

• Right-click on the waveform area at the time you want the comment to appear → Add comment
• To add a link, highlight the text and click the link icon, then enter the URL
• Each comment appears as an icon on the waveform
• Right-click a comment to edit or remove it

6. Share Your Playlist

• Click Share playlist
• Review the title, description, and tags (used for discoverability)
• Tip: Start with Unlisted first if you want to test before the playlist appears on the crates.app/playlists page.
• Click Share 

Your playlist is now published on Crates.app and can be discovered by other users in their Crates installation.

7. Update Your Playlist

You can update your playlist anytime:

• Change the order of tracks, add or remove tracks, update metadata or comments
• Click Share again → Update

Notes

• Publishing sends your playlist data to Crates servers so others can discover it
• Tracks without valid audio sources won’t be playable by others, but they can search for a public audio source themselves based on the track’s metadata
• Advanced: It is recommended to populate the ISRC of a tune to improve discoverability. The ISRC is the unique identifier of the track across streaming platforms. A useful way to do this is to pull metadata through the Get Info action, after connecting as many sources as possible.

Users post tracks they consider special, and the community decides whether they are worth revealing.

How Gems Work

Each user starts with a limited number of tokens that allow them to post tunes they find worth sharing.

1. A user posts a Gem from a track.
2. Other users see the Gem in the Gems feed.
3. Users can choose one of three actions:
   • Reveal – upvote the Gem, unlock the track information, and optionally import it to your Collection.
   • Pass – skip the Gem without voting.
   • Downvote – mark it as not a good fit for those tags.
4. If enough users choose to Reveal your Gem, you earn reputation points and receive more tokens to post additional Gems.
5. If not, you can always try again with another discovery.

What a Gem Contains

A Gem is a track recommendation that includes:

• Tags that help match the recommendation to interested listeners
• A short blurb or comment from the recommender
• Preview URL information

Before a Gem is revealed, important metadata such as the track title and artist is hidden from other users, to focus on the listening experience and give a touch of ritual to the process.

Viewing the Gems Feed

Click the Gem icon in the sidebar to view the latest Gems posted by the community.

Users interested in the tags of a Gem will see it in their feed and can decide whether to reveal it, pass, or downvote.

Posting Your Own Gems

You can post a Gem directly from a track:

• Press MODIFIERKEY+G
• Or right-click a tune and select Post as Gem

If the community validates your Gem, it increases your visibility and reputation within the associated tags.

Availability

Gems are currently available only to Crates Supporters.

To become a supporter and access Gems and other exclusive features:

https://crates.app/upgrade

Summary

Gems are Crates’ social recommendation system: users share strong track picks, the community validates them, and the best discoveries rise to the surface.

TL;DR

• A Playlist is a list of tunes meant for playback in that specific order.
• A Crate is an organizational unit that helps you structure your music.

Playlists are about sequence and interoperability.
Crates are about structure and hierarchy.

What is a Playlist?

A playlist is a defined, ordered list of tracks.

In Crates, a playlist can be:

• A playlist you created in Crates
• A local playlist originating from an m3u, pls etc file from your computer.
• An imported playlist from an external service (Spotify / YouTube / SoundCloud etc)
• A public, curated, or collaborative playlist you discovered and imported from the Crates website.

Playlists are about:

• Ordered playback (a specific sequence)
• A theme, mood, journey — a coherent selection
• Interoperability with services
• Sharing with other users

They are portable, exchangeable. You can import them, export them, share them, collaborate on them, or sync them across platforms.

If you’re thinking:
‘This is what I want to press play on’
or
‘This is something I want to share’

— that’s a playlist.

What is a Crate?

A crate is a structural container.

It’s more abstract and more flexible than a playlist.

A crate can:

• contain playlists
• contain tunes (but not two instances of the same tune)
• contain other crates (sub-crates)
• mirror a folder from your file system
• automatically reflect the combined contents of its sub-crates
• represent a long-term theme or collection (e.g. ‘2014 downloads’, or ‘imported from iPod nano’)

Crates are primarily about organizing your music world in a way that scales over time.

You can create hierarchies like:

• Crate
  • Sub-crate
    • Playlist
    • Playlist
  • Another sub-crate

This makes crates powerful for complex libraries, DJ preparation, research, long-term archiving, or multi-platform organization.

How they work together

Most users use both:

• crates to create structure
• playlists for a specific listening set

For example:

• Crate: ‘Athens Gigs’
  • Sub-crate: ‘Warm Ups’
    • Playlist: ‘Early Energy 01’
    • Playlist: ‘Ambient and organic’
  • Sub-crate: ‘Peak’
    • Playlist: ‘Warehouse Pressure’

Crates hold context.
Playlists hold sequence.

What about ‘smart’ crates?

Smart crates are crates that update automatically based on rules you define (genre, rating, year, source, etc.).

Instead of manually adding tracks, you define criteria and the crate populates itself dynamically.

Learn more here:
https://crates.app/knowledge-base/smart-crates-how-to/

What about the ‘default’ crates?

When you install Crates, you’ll see some default crates. These are structural helpers built into the system.

They are not just regular playlists — they serve specific organizational purposes.

Learn more here:
https://crates.app/knowledge-base/what-are-the-default-crates-and-what-are-they-for/

To sum up:

• Use crates for structure and context.
• Use playlists for ordered listening and sharing.
• Use smart crates when you want automation.

What you can do with it

1. Connect your Google Drive account
   
   • Either right-click the Online Libraries > Google Drive and choose Connect to Google Drive, or
   • Go to Settings > Accounts and click Connect to Google Drive.
   • During this step you can also choose to import existing music files in your Google Drive folder (as indicated in the dialog).
2. Upload files from Crates to Google Drive
   
   • In Crates, right-click on any tune corresponding to a file audiosource (or selection of tracks), go to Actions > Upload to Google Drive.
   • Crates will copy those files and upload them to the ‘Crates app data’ in your Google Drive. 
3. Access your music from another computer
   
   • On a second Crates installation, connect the same Google Drive account (step 1 above)
   • Crates will see the files you previously uploaded to that folder and can stream them directly from Google Drive, even if the local files are not on that machine.
   • This is especially useful if you use Crates on multiple computers on different networks and want to keep your files available to listen everywhere.

How this relates to future Cloud Sync

The Google Drive connection is an essential stepping stone toward a full Cloud Sync feature, where you will be able to use your own cloud storage (Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox and others) to keep your library and metadata synced between devices, without any third party or us having access to your private files.

How to install and use the Crates browser extension

TL;DR: The Crates browser extension lets you import releases and collections from websites like Bandcamp and Discogs directly into your Crates library. Install it, pair it with your desktop app, and you’re ready to save and import music with one click.

What it does

The Crates browser extension connects your browser to the Crates desktop app. It allows you to:

• Save tracks, releases and playlists from Discogs, YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Spotify and other supported sites.
• Import your Bandcamp collection directly into Crates.

Install the extension

1. Get the extension for Chrome, Edge, Brave or other Chromium browsers, the add-on for Firefox, or activate it in Safari Preferences > Extensions.
2. After installation, click the Crates icon in your toolbar.
3. When prompted, approve the connection to your Crates app to complete the pairing.
4. Once paired, you can import directly from supported websites.

Safari (quick setup)

1. Open Safari and go to Safari > Settings > Extensions.
2. Enable the Crates extension and grant permissions when prompted.
3. Click the Crates toolbar icon and follow the pairing steps as above.

Once installed and paired, the Crates browser extension becomes a simple and safe bridge between your browser and Crates — making it effortless to add and organize your favorite music from the web.

TL;DR: Install the Crates browser extension, pair it with Crates, open your Bandcamp Collection page, click the extension, and start the import. Your purchases will appear under Online Libraries > Bandcamp.

Steps

Inbox
That’s your holding area for all new, unsorted music in your installation. This could be freshly downloaded files or folders with music that still needs attention – listening (to decide if you’ll keep it), tagging, renaming, etc. Just like your email inbox, it’s the place you go through before moving things where they belong. It’s essentially your “new music” folder.

Online Saves
Music you save from the web. Tunes or releases added through the Crates Browser Extension, or via the “Search Online” feature will go here by default.

Collection
The precious core of your library – where your properly sorted and organized music lives. Inside Collection you’ll find:

• Tunes – a suggested sub-crate for individual tracks.

• Releases – the suggested sub-crate for full albums or EPs. Can be folders or simply “virtual” crates (e.g. Bandcamp releases)

• Vinyl – a “smart crate” example, automatically pulling in anything tagged as “vinyl”

DJ Library
An optional crate, but handy if you DJ. Add only the tracks you actually want to DJ with (e.g. high-quality or lossless files), while keeping the rest of the keepers in your main Collection. This way your gig-ready tunes stay separate from the ones you keep for home listening. Benefits include narrowing searches when preparing a mix, making smaller backups, and exporting directly to DJ Performance software (e.g Rekordbox).

Playlists
Where all playlists you create are stored.

• Play Queue – a special playlist that holds what you’ve queued to play next.

Online Libraries
Mirrors your music from online services – YouTube, Discogs, SoundCloud, Apple Music, Spotify, etc. These crates reflect what’s in those services, but you can right-click to add items to your Collection if you want to include them.
Don’t want to see a crate? Right-click → Actions → Hide. You can always restore hidden crates later in Settings → Collection → Hidden Crates.

Apple Music / iTunes
If you import your iTunes collection, it appears here. It’s separated from Apple Music so users without streaming accounts can still keep iTunes-only libraries.

Archive
For music you don’t want in your main Collection anymore, but don’t want to delete either. Suited for old downloads to be stored on external hard drives,  NAS etc.
Tip: You can send items here directly from Inbox instead of moving them into Collection by right clicking -> “Move to archive”

Listening History
A read-only crate that shows your past listening, grouped by day, so you can revisit what you’ve played.

For renaming to work, the required metadata must exist in Crates’ database.
Crates typically reads this from your files’ tags (e.g., ID3).
Unsorted libraries often have gaps, so fetching missing metadata before renaming is important.
We recommend connecting your Discogs account first—especially for large, unsorted libraries.

Recommended steps:

1. Import your local files
   Go to Local Files (intended for unsorted files/folders) and right‑click → Import files and folders.
   
   
2. Connect your metadata sources
   In Settings → Accounts, connect your Discogs account.
   Crates can also pull metadata from MusicBrainz, Bandcamp, Apple, YouTube, Spotify, etc.
   💡 Tip: You can change the priority/order of services in Settings.
   
   
3. Set your folder and file naming pattern
   Go to Settings → Actions → Move to Collection and define how files are renamed and organized.

   To achieve a structure like:

   $albumartist/$release/$trackartist-track.ext

   Use this pattern under Releases:

   %AlbumArtist/%Album/%Artist-%Title

   💡 Tip: You can run Move to Collection on individual tunes or entire crates/folders. You can also keep one structure in Crates and a different one on the filesystem.

Also please check out this walkthrough video “Organize your Collection with Actions”:

1. Add tunes or releases:

   • On your desktop app, add the albums or songs wherever you prefer. We recommend using the Collection -> Releases and Collection -> Tunes folders for better organization.

   • You can either right-click on those crates to Import the music (folders, files) or simply drag and drop them into the desired crate.

2. Set Up Conversion for Syncing:

   • Go to Desktop Settings > Mobile tab.

   • Select the conversion profile you prefer (e.g., MP3 320kbps).

3. Sync to Mobile App:

   • Open the Crates app on your mobile device and connect to Crates Server.

   • Start the sync process. This will copy the library structure and metadata to your mobile device (note: the actual music files are not copied at this stage).

4. Access Your Collection on Mobile:

   • In the mobile app, open the Library side panel (first tab on the tap bar)

   • Navigate to the crate where you added the music (e.g., Collection -> Releases).

   • Tap on the crate to see all the contents in list view.

5. Stream or Download Music:

   • Stream: You can stream all your tracks directly from the server, while you are connected.

   • Download for Offline Use:

     • Tap the menu (“…”) on the top right corner.

     • Select “Download All”.

     • All selected files will be copied to your mobile device from the server, converted to the format you specified in the conversion profile.