# PearTune: Self-Hosted Music — Your music, playable anywhere

> Your music, playable anywhere (iPhone/iPad app by Timothy Hudgins.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/peartune-self-hosted-music/id6796709523 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Timothy Hudgins](https://appshunter.io/developer/1879898342)
- Category: Music, Utilities
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 15.1 · 89 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-08-14
- Data updated: 2026-08-27
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/peartune-self-hosted-music/id6796709523/reviews.md

## What is PearTune?

PearTune plays the music library on a machine you own - an Umbrel, a NAS, an old desktop, a laptop - from anywhere, over a direct encrypted connection between your phone and that machine.

  No port forwarding, no VPN, no dynamic DNS, no account, and no copy of your library in anyone's cloud. The music never leaves your hardware: it streams through the live connection while it plays.

  PLEASE READ FIRST

PearTune needs that machine running the free PearTune host, which is the source of the music. It is not a player for files stored on your phone. If you do not have a server yet, setup offers "I don't have one yet", which plays a small built-in demo library so you can look around before you have a library to connect to.

  READS THE LIBRARY YOU ALREADY HAVE

  Point the host at a music server you already run and PearTune uses its library, its artwork and its transcoding. It speaks the Subsonic API, so Navidrome, Gonic, LMS, Ampache, Funkwhale, Koel, Nextcloud Music, Supysonic and Airsonic all work, and it reads Jellyfin and Emby servers directly. Point it at a plain folder of files instead and PearTune reads the tags itself - artist, album, track number, year and embedded cover art - so a folder is a real library, not a list of filenames.

  IN THE APP
  
  - Browse by artist, album, genre or track, with artwork
  - Search the whole library
  - Gapless playback, shuffle and repeat, a sleep timer
  - Background and lock screen audio
  - Playlists you make on your phone, plus the read-only ones your server already has
  - Favourites and resume points that follow you between your own devices
  - Playback hands over rather than doubling up - start on one device and the other pauses
  - Downloads: pin an album to keep it on the phone, for a flight or a tunnel
  - Ask the owner for music you cannot find, and see what they did with it

  THE LIBRARY DOES NOT HAVE TO BE YOURS

  Someone can let a friend or a family member in, each as their own person with their own devices, their own favourites and their own resume points, and no login to pass around. The owner sees every device and can revoke one, or everything one person holds, in a second - mid-song, not on next login. Nobody who is let in ever receives a copy of a file.

  PAIRING IS ONE SCAN

  Scan a QR code and you are in. There is no password, no server address and no account to create. The connection itself proves which device is calling, so there is no token to leak, copy or forget to rotate.

  WHEN A DIRECT CONNECTION IS NOT POSSIBLE
  
  Some mobile networks and locked-down wifi refuse a direct connection between two devices. When that happens PearTune can fall back to a relay run by PeerLoom, which forwards encrypted data it cannot read and keeps no copy of it. Your phone always tries a direct connection first, PearTune asks before streaming a library's music through the relay, and one switch in Settings turns it off entirely.

  OPEN SOURCE

PearTune is MIT licensed and developed in the open. The host you run on your own machine is free, and so is the app.


## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 1.0.3 — 2026-08-19

## What's Changed

  Improvements
    - The on/off controls in Settings are now proper switches. You can see what is
      on at a glance from the position, instead of reading a word.
    - Those switches now tell screen readers which setting they control, rather
      than just saying "on" or "off".
    - On iPhone and iPad, the request to use your local network now explains why
      PearTune is asking. It connects straight to your library across your wifi
      instead of taking the long way round.

  Fixes
    - Songs in .ogg format now play on iPhone and iPad. Before, they appeared in
      your library and tapping one left the player sitting there in silence, with
      nothing to explain why.
    - A library served from a Mac can now play formats
      your phone does not understand, such as .wma and .ogg. Those tracks used to
      be silent. There is nothing extra to install - it is built in now.
    - The "Recently added row" switch in Settings now gives the same small buzz as
      the other switches when you tap it.

### 1.0.2 — 2026-08-18

Improvements
  - Songs from Jellyfin and Subsonic libraries start playing sooner.
  - If the person running a library switches where their music comes from, the
    app now tells you and reloads on its own. Before, it showed an error screen
    and needed a full restart.

### 1.0.1 — 2026-08-17

New
  - Play your music on the Google and Home Assistant speakers around your home.
  - Songs in .wma and .aiff formats now play, streamed or downloaded for offline.

Improvements
  - Song lengths show right away when listening away from home.
  - Jumping around inside a song now works when listening away from home.
  - Download is easier to reach: long-press any album or track, anywhere in the app.
  - Clearer messages when a library cannot be reached or read, instead of it just looking empty.

Fixes
  - Playback that hits a bad patch of network picks itself back up instead of stopping.
  - Music no longer goes silent when the next song starts while the app is in the background.
  - The lock screen play button no longer ends a speaker cast by accident.
  - Leaving speaker casting hands playback back to the phone properly, and speakers that cannot be reached stay out of the list.

### 1.0.0 — 2026-08-14

No release notes.

## More apps by Timothy Hudgins

- [SatScream](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/satscream/id6759922209)
- [PearCal: P2P Calendar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pearcal-p2p-calendar/id6760743056)
- [PearGuard](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pearguard/id6762235405)
- [PearCircle](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pearcircle/id6768703537)
- [PearList](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pearlist/id6787974942)
- [PearPetal](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pearpetal/id6789721938)

All apps by Timothy Hudgins: https://appshunter.io/developer/1879898342

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-27.*