Rhythmbox, the open-source music player and library manager developed as part of the GNOME project, is launching version 3.5 and thus beginning its first new feature series in nearly ten years.
For reference, Rhythmbox 3.4 was first released on August 14, 2016. After that, development went on via nine maintenance updates, ending with version 3.4.9 in October 2025. The new version, Rhythmbox 3.5, comes out just 12 days before ten years have passed since the original 3.4 release.
A major feature of the new release is that the newer playback backend, first introduced in Rhythmbox 3.4.9 as a replacement for the old crossfading feature, is now enabled by default. In earlier versions, users had to enable it separately; in version 3.5, it is the standard playback engine.
Lyrics support has been improved as well, as Rhythmbox can now search for song lyrics via lrclib.net, read local .lrc sidecar files stored with the audio tracks, and extract lyrics embedded in Ogg Vorbis files. Keep in mind, however, that lyrics embedded in Vorbis files require GStreamer 1.25.90 or later.
Another major feature of the release is podcast functionality. The notifications for updates to the podcast feed and for downloading episodes have been redesigned, and the podcast episode view has been redesigned as well to provide clearer information, such as indicating which episodes have already been listened to.
Moreover, there is now a plugin which enables podcast subscription and episode synchronization via the gPodder.net API, so that users can keep their podcast subscriptions and listening activity in step between Rhythmbox and other compatible podcast clients or services.
The release also fixes a number of issues, including a failure of the playback backend when the crossfade duration was set to zero, a warning about a potentially uninitialized variable, a problem related to the Year 2038, and an error path issue in the podcast component.
Other internal changes included renaming the application’s AppData metadata file to follow the new metainfo naming convention, as well as a wide range of translation updates from the GNOME localization community.
Even though it has GNOME origins, Rhythmbox is no longer the default music app. Yet it still functions as a competent traditional desktop music manager, providing features such as organizing local libraries, creating playlists, supporting podcasts and internet radio, synchronizing with devices, plugins, and audio formats via GStreamer.
For more information about all changes in Rhythmbox 3.5, refer to the official release commit. The music player is also available for installation from Flathub as a Flatpak package.
