This month in digital music libraries - December 2025
December 24, 2025 in digital music by Dan Gravell
December’s digital music scene continued themes from recent months: self-hosters sharing NAS builds as storage infrastructure becomes increasingly important, while streaming service frustrations drive users back to music ownership. Whether building custom storage servers or migrating away from streaming platforms, this month reinforced that controlling your music library starts with the hardware it lives on and the files you actually own (oh and don’t forget the software!)
Building your music storage fortress
The month opened with an impressively clean DIY NAS build, showcasing that dedicated music storage doesn’t have to mean ugly server racks in the closet.
A very smart looking DIY #NAS build blog.briancmoses.com/2025/11/diy-... Thanks @briancmoses.com
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 1 December 2025 at 15:30
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For those with tighter budgets or more sustainable leanings, repurposing an old Windows PC as network storage offers a practical alternative to buying new hardware.
Fixing up an old PC to use as a #NAS www.howtogeek.com/turned-old-w...
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 9 December 2025 at 15:30
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Reclaiming ownership from streaming platforms
While NAS builds provide the infrastructure, users continue finding reasons to fill them with audio files. A sobering reminder that Spotify’s “free” tier comes with data privacy costs you might not want to pay.
If you're not paying for the product.... etc etc jayd.ml/2025/11/10/s...
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 5 December 2025 at 15:31
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The migration stories keep coming - this time from Apple Music - with the pleasant discovery that revisiting your library often unearths forgotten treasures.
Another #TakeBackControl post - this time from @AppleMusic wonderfulfrog.com/posts/take-t... "A nice side-effect of poring over my music library has been re-discovering music I had long forgotten about. " - I notice this when importing the same library to different players sometimes
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 19 December 2025 at 15:31
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Finally, a straightforward reminder: if you want to actually support artists, streaming pennies don’t cut it - buy the music.
"If you want to actually support your favorite artists, buy their music outright. " birchtree.me/blog/more-on... Thanks @birchtree.me
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 21 December 2025 at 15:30
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Happy Christmas, and here’s to a 2026 filled with music… you actually own!
Photo by Bruno Bučar on Unsplash
