Plexamp Classic

Old-school Winamp 2.9-style player for macOS and Linux, wired to Plex — including owned and shared servers.

The library browser is the bridge: search Plex artists, choose an album, and send it to the Winamp-style player.

What it does

Plexamp Classic packages Webamp, a pixel-faithful Winamp 2.9 reimplementation, in an Electron app and connects it to Plex Media Server.

• Native Panel Windows — the main player, playlist, equalizer, and visualizer are independent frameless OS windows with no transparent click-eating surface between them.
• Windowed Player mode — a conventional single application window remains available as a fallback.
• Plex library browser — search artists, browse albums, and send a complete album to the Winamp playlist.
• Plex account login and federation — PIN-based login discovers owned and shared servers, then probes LAN, public, and relay connections.
• MilkDrop visualization — Butterchurn's WebGL visualizer and bundled preset collection.
• Fractional scaling — 75%, 100%, 115%, 125%, 150%, 175%, and 200%; also available with ⌘=, ⌘-, and ⌘0.
• Media keys, classic windowshade behavior, and .wsz skin drag-and-drop.

Winamp player

MilkDrop

Requirements

• macOS (universal) or Linux x86_64
• Node.js 22 or newer
• A Plex account or a direct Plex Media Server URL and token

Run from source

git clone https://github.com/imzenreally/plexamp-classic.git
cd plexamp-classic
npm install
npm start

npm install copies the required Webamp runtime bundles from the pinned npm package into vendor/. Those generated files are intentionally not committed.

The simplest setup is Log in with Plex inside the app. For a direct LAN server, optionally copy .env.example to .env and set:

PLEX_HOST=http://your-plex-server:32400
PLEX_TOKEN=your-plex-token-here
PLEX_SECTION=

PLEX_SECTION is optional; when omitted, the first music section is selected. .env is gitignored and is used only when running from source. It is not packaged into application builds.

See Plex's documentation for finding an authentication token.

Build the macOS app

npm run dist

The unsigned build is written under dist/. Because it is not notarized, macOS may require the usual right-click → Open approval on first launch.

Build the Linux AppImage

npx electron-builder --linux AppImage

The build must run on Linux x86_64 (electron-builder's AppImage tooling is Linux-only). Build inside an older-stable container such as node:22-bullseye so the resulting AppImage's glibc requirement stays low and it runs on a wide range of distros.

The AppImage's desktop entry launches with --no-sandbox — the standard electron-builder default for AppImages, because Chromium's sandbox cannot be setuid through FUSE. The artifact is written under dist/.

Architecture

main.js                  native panel windows, validated IPC, app:// and
                         app-stream:// protocols, Plex proxy, menus, modes
 auth.js                 Plex PIN login, resource discovery, connection probes,
                         TLS-tolerant request and stream helpers
preload.js               narrow contextBridge API for all renderers
player.js / player.html  Webamp/audio leader, fractional zoom, media keys
*-window.js / .html      native playlist, equalizer, and visualizer satellites
library.js / library.html
                         server picker and artist/album browser
butterchurn-loader.mjs   Webamp Butterchurn module loader
scripts/prepare-vendor.js
                         copies pinned Webamp bundles after npm install

The app-stream:// proxy exists because many Plex servers advertise HTTPS endpoints with self-signed certificates. The main process fetches audio, preserves Range requests for seeking, and exposes only opaque temporary stream URLs to the renderer.

Security and privacy

• Plex tokens and account state are never committed.
• .env is excluded from Git and from packaged builds.
• Plex account auth is stored in Electron's per-user application-data directory.
• This repository contains no preconfigured server addresses, account names, or Plex credentials.

License and credits

Project-specific code is available under the MIT License. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for Webamp and Butterchurn license notices.

Winamp and Plex are trademarks of their respective owners. This is an unofficial project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by either company.