Getting Started

Getting Started

This page walks through first launch, signing in, and the handful of settings worth changing before you start listening.

First launch

The first time Orchard opens, it shows a welcome window before the main interface. Once that completes, the main window opens and the setup guide appears in Settings → Setup, tracking which optional pieces are configured.

Signing in

Orchard signs in to YouTube Music through an embedded browser session rather than by asking for your password directly. Open the profile menu and choose to sign in. A browser window opens on Google's own sign-in page, and Orchard keeps the resulting session cookies locally so it can restore your sign-in on later launches.

You can browse and play a good deal of the catalog without signing in, but your own library, likes, playlists, listening history, and personalized recommendations all require an account.

To use more than one account, use the account switcher in the profile menu. Orchard caches each signed-in session and can restore them without a fresh browser sign-in.

Age-restricted tracks

Age-restricted content requires a signed-in session. Orchard plays these tracks where most YouTube Music clients cannot, which is worth knowing if you have been trained by other clients to expect songs with profanity in the title to fail. Sign in first, then see Explicit and Age-Restricted Tracks.

The interface

• Home is the personalized YouTube Music feed.
• Search covers songs, videos, albums, artists, playlists, and podcasts.
• Library holds your playlists, albums, artists, and liked music.
• Pins are items you have pinned for quick access.
• Release Radar collects new and upcoming releases from artists you follow.
• Recently Played is your local play history.
• Replay is your local listening statistics. See Replay.
• Settings is where everything below lives.

Worth setting up early

Crossfade. Crossfade is on by default in Standard mode. Switch it to Smart in Settings → Playback → Crossfade mode for beat-matched transitions. See Smart Crossfade.

Song Cache. Enabled by default at 512 MB. Raise it in Settings → Song Cache if you replay the same music often and want instant starts. See Song Cache.

Audio Engine. The ten-band equalizer and automatic EQ live in Settings → Audio Engine. See Audio Engine.

Discord and Last.fm. Discord Rich Presence is on by default. Last.fm scrobbling needs you to authorize Orchard once, from Settings → Last.fm. See Integrations.

Close to tray. Off by default, so closing the window quits Orchard. Turn it on in Settings → Application if you would rather it keep running in the tray.

Theme. Dark by default, with OLED and System options in Settings → Appearance.

Keyboard and system controls

Orchard registers system media keys, and it exposes playback to your operating system's media controls, so play, pause, next, and previous work from your keyboard, lock screen, and desktop media widget.

Where Orchard stores your data

Everything is local, under Electron's per-user data directory:

Platform	Path
Windows	%APPDATA%\Orchard
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Orchard
Linux	~/.config/Orchard

That directory holds session state, the song cache, installed artist packs, and connected Orchard Connect devices. Renderer preferences (queue, audio profiles, Replay events) live in the renderer's local storage inside the same tree. See Privacy and Data.

Next steps

• Settings Reference documents every option.
• Playback and Queues covers day-to-day playback behavior.
• Troubleshooting covers what to do when something misbehaves.