cmus is a terminal music player. The keybinds and actions are very vim-like.

# Install cmus in Debian
sudo apt install cmus

There is a man page with lots of information. Man page 7 is a basic tutorial.

# Read general cmus documentation
man cmus
 
# Read cmus tutorial
man 7 cmus

Or, when inside the app, press 7 to view the help tab. 1-6 are the other tabs.

7

The library lives in ~/.config/cmus/lib.pl and is simply a newline separated list of file paths. It will build a cache with song info, but will not move any music files. Your playlists, command history and search history are also stored in this directory.

# Add music from disk
:add ~/Music

Alternatively, press 5 to view the file browser. Find the file or directory you want to add, and press a to add it.

To remove a song from the library, press D.

To clear the library, use :clear

# Remove all music from list
:clear

If you ever want to save settings, run :save. This will happen when existing automatically.

:save

Press 1 or 2 to browse the library. View 1 is the sorted tree view. View 2 is the flat list of all songs.

To search, type / and enter the phrase. Press n to find next occurrence and SHIFT-n to go backwards.

You can press x to start the player, or use the commands like :player-play. Remember there is auto-complete, and hotkey 7 available if you need help.

# To play, press `x`, or run commands:
:player-play
:player-pause
:player-stop

If you find a song you want to play in the browser, just press ENTER on the song to play it.

Press e to queue a song. It will get played next even if shuffle is on. It will get popped off the queue once it starts.

Press 4 to view the queue. Use p, P to sort and D to remove songs.

Create a playlist with :pl-create My Favorites. Playlists are stored in .config/cmus/playlists and are simply newline separated lists of file paths.

Press 3 to view your playlists. Press space to select a playlist it. An asterisk will appear next to it, designating it the active playlist.

Press y to add a song to the playlist from view 1 or 2.

Use p, P to sort and D to remove songs.

In the bottom right, there are four flags: CRFS. They stand for:

• Continue - SHIFT-c to toggle. Continues to next song after finishing
• Repeat - r to toggle. Repeats playlist when complete
• Shuffle - s to toggle. Randomizes next song
• Follow - f to toggle. Jump your cursor to the next song when it plays, versus leaving you where you are.