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For Developers

Building from source

How to clone, set up and build SimpMusic for Android and Desktop from source.

This page covers building SimpMusic locally. It assumes you're comfortable with Android / Kotlin tooling.

Prerequisites

  • JDK 17+
  • Android Studio (latest stable recommended) with the Android SDK
  • Git (the repo uses submodules)

Clone the repository

The project uses Git submodules, so clone recursively:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/maxrave-dev/SimpMusic.git
cd SimpMusic

If you already cloned without --recursive, initialize the submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Open and build

Open the project folder in Android Studio and let it sync the Gradle project.

Pick a run configuration:

  • Android — select the Android app configuration and run it on an emulator or device.
  • Desktop — run the desktop application module (desktopApp).

Build and run.

To see all available Gradle tasks from the command line, run ./gradlew tasks. Android Studio's built-in run configurations are the easiest path for day-to-day development.

FOSS vs Full builds

The FOSS/Full split is not an Android product flavor — it's driven by the Gradle property isFullBuild. The Full build links :crashlytics (Sentry); the FOSS build links :crashlytics-empty (a no-op, for F-Droid). To build FOSS locally, the repo provides build_and_sign_apk.sh --foss. See Architecture and Project Structure.

Packaging the desktop app

The desktop distribution is packaged with Conveyor (see conveyor.conf in the repository root) producing the .msix, .dmg and .AppImage artifacts.

Community

Get involved in our community. Everyone is welcome!

SimpMusic is sponsored by:

Get free $200 credit over 60 days on DigitalOcean: GET NOW

Crowdin and Sentry both have a free enterprise plan for Open-source projects. Follow the URLs:

Check out the Vercel open-source program

SimpMusic app is FOSS and under GPL-3.0 license.

© 2023-2026 SimpMusic - @maxrave-dev

We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, YouTube, Spotify, or any other third-party brands or applications.