nimbus

English · Português

A terminal player (Linux and macOS) that streams the music in your Google Drive folders. Access is read-only and nothing is downloaded up front: mpv reads each track in chunks, about two minutes ahead of what is playing.

It also plays music from your own computer: home folder, external drive and USB stick. That part works even without signing in to Google.

The interface and command-line messages are currently in Portuguese.

Requirements

• Python 3.9 or newer
• mpv: brew install mpv on macOS, sudo apt install mpv on Debian/Ubuntu

The Homebrew installation brings both along.

Installation

Homebrew (macOS and Linux)

brew install allanmedeiros71/tap/nimbus

Homebrew installs mpv and Python along with it. To update: brew upgrade nimbus.

pipx

pipx creates an isolated environment for nimbus and makes the nimbus command available from any folder and any terminal, which shell completion also needs. In this case mpv is installed separately (see Requirements). On PyPI the package is called nimbus-player; the command is still nimbus.

brew install pipx          # macOS
sudo apt install pipx      # Debian/Ubuntu
pipx ensurepath            # adds ~/.local/bin to PATH

pipx install nimbus-player

After pipx ensurepath, open a new terminal so the PATH change takes effect. To update: pipx upgrade nimbus-player.

If you installed an older version from GitHub, switch to the PyPI one: pipx uninstall nimbus && pipx install nimbus-player.

To run the code from the repository (development version): git clone git@github.com:allanmedeiros71/nimbus.git and pipx install -e ./nimbus. With -e, a git pull inside the folder already updates the command; only run pipx install -e --force ./nimbus again if the dependencies change.

Alternative for development: virtual environment

cd nimbus
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e '.[dev]'

In this case the nimbus command only exists while the environment is active: run source .venv/bin/activate in every new terminal first.

Common problems

• zsh: command not found: pip: on macOS with Homebrew and on recent Debian/Ubuntu there is no standalone pip, and the system Python does not accept packages. Use pipx (above) or a virtual environment.
• zsh: permission denied: nimbus or command not found: nimbus outside the project folder: the command was only installed in the venv. Check with type -a nimbus; if no path like ~/.local/bin/nimbus shows up, install with pipx, run pipx ensurepath and open a new terminal.
• mpv não encontrado (mpv not found): install it with brew install mpv or sudo apt install mpv.

Google credentials (one time only)

nimbus uses your own OAuth client, so access stays between you and Google.

1. Open the Google Cloud Console and create a project (or use an existing one).
2. In APIs & Services > Library, enable the Google Drive API.
3. In APIs & Services > OAuth consent screen, choose External, and add your email under Test users.
4. In APIs & Services > Credentials, click Create credentials > OAuth client ID, type Desktop app.
5. Download the JSON and save it as ~/.config/nimbus/client_secret.json.

Then:

nimbus login

The browser opens asking for read permission on Drive (drive.readonly). The token is stored in ~/.config/nimbus/token.json, readable only by your user. nimbus logout deletes the token.

Visual interface

nimbus                      # opens the interface
nimbus tui "Música/Rock"    # opens with this folder already selected
nimbus tui ~/Música         # or with a folder on your computer
nimbus tui --offline        # without querying MusicBrainz/Cover Art Archive

At the top is the Playback panel: album cover, title • artist, album • genre • year, the playing/paused icon, repeat, shuffle, volume, the position in the queue and a progress bar. Below it, Directories: the folder tree (Meu Drive, Compartilhados comigo and Este computador, i.e. My Drive, Shared with me and This computer) on the left and the contents of the selected folder on the right. Enter on a song plays the whole folder starting from it. To save bandwidth and API calls, a Drive folder is only listed on the right when you press Enter or →/l on it; folders already opened and folders on your computer show up instantly, as you navigate.

Music on your computer, external drive and USB stick

The Este computador (This computer) root in the tree shows your home folder, mounted external drives and the system disk (/). External drives are looked up where each system mounts them:

• macOS: /Volumes (the system disk, which shows up there as a link to /, is left out);
• Linux: /media/<user>/… (Ubuntu, Debian), /run/media/<user>/… (Fedora, Arch), /media/… and the mount points in /mnt.

A USB stick plugged in while the interface is open only shows up after reopening nimbus. Hidden folders and files (starting with .) are not shown, and playlists (.m3u, .pls) are not added to the queue. mpv reads the files straight from disk, and the cover comes from the file itself or from an image in the folder, as with Drive.

Without a Google login, nimbus opens with only Este computador.

Cover art and metadata

nimbus uses whatever is available, in this order:

1. File tags read by mpv (title, artist, album, genre, year).
2. The file name (01 - Artist - Title.mp3) and the folder name, when tags are missing.
3. The cover embedded in the MP3 or FLAC. Only the beginning of the file, where the cover lives, is read.
4. An image in the same Drive folder (cover.jpg, folder.png, capa.jpg…).
5. MusicBrainz to fill in album, year and genre, and the Cover Art Archive for the cover. If the Cover Art Archive does not have the cover or cannot be reached from your network, the public iTunes search and then Deezer's serve as fallbacks. Only artist, title and album are sent. Use --offline or NIMBUS_OFFLINE=1 to turn this off.

In compilations (folders with tracks by different artists, judging by the file names) the cover comes first from each song's original release on the Cover Art Archive; the embedded cover and the folder image are fallbacks, since they tend to be the same on every track.

Advertising tags (phone numbers, WhatsApp, links, such as "DJ FULANO 62999999999 WHATSAPP") are ignored and the file name takes over; in those files the embedded cover is ignored too.

Each resolved song is saved in ~/.cache/nimbus/tracks.json, keyed by its Drive file ID: next time, the corrected title, artist, album and cover show up instantly, without querying Drive or the internet ("salvo", saved, on the data line). Nothing is written to Drive, which stays read-only. If the internet fails, the track is looked up again next time. Delete tracks.json to redo everything. Writing the corrections into the files themselves is on the backlog.

Covers and responses are cached in ~/.cache/nimbus. The "dados: … · capa: …" (data: … · cover: …) line in the panel shows where each piece came from.

The cover is drawn with colored blocks, which works in any terminal with colors. In terminals with real image support you can ask for higher resolution: NIMBUS_COVER=kitty (kitty, Ghostty, WezTerm), NIMBUS_COVER=sixel (foot, WezTerm, Konsole, iTerm2) or NIMBUS_COVER=auto to detect. If garbage shows up instead of the cover, go back to the default (NIMBUS_COVER=blocks). NIMBUS_COVER=off hides the cover.

Command line

nimbus ls                          # root of My Drive
nimbus ls "Música/Rock"            # path from My Drive (case doesn't matter)
nimbus ls https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/<id>   # folder URL or ID, shared ones included
nimbus play "Música/Rock"          # plays the folder in order
nimbus play "Música" -r -s         # includes subfolders, random order

nimbus ls ~/Música                 # folder on your computer
nimbus play /Volumes/PENDRIVE -r   # USB stick on macOS
nimbus play /media/$USER/HD/Discos -s   # external drive on Linux
nimbus ls "Este computador"        # home folder and mounted drives

nimbus ls "Shared with me"                 # what other people shared with you
nimbus ls "Shared with me/Friend's Records"
nimbus play "Shared with me/Friend's Records" -r

"Compartilhados comigo" (Shared with me) shows up as a folder at the root of nimbus ls. Shared with me, @compartilhados and @shared also work, which is useful if you have a folder of your own with that name. Shared folders can also be opened by URL or ID, like any other.

A path is on your computer when it starts with /, ~, ./ or ../ (file://… also works). Anything else is looked up on Drive, so for a relative folder on your computer use ./Discos, not just Discos.

Folder completion (zsh and bash)

With completion enabled, Tab completes Drive folder names in nimbus ls and nimbus play, one path segment at a time, including inside "Shared with me". Paths on your computer (~/Mú<Tab>, /Volumes/<Tab>) complete too. Case and accents don't need to match.

zsh (default on macOS): add to the end of ~/.zshrc

autoload -Uz compinit && compinit   # if your .zshrc doesn't have it yet (oh-my-zsh already does this)
eval "$(nimbus completion zsh)"

bash: add to ~/.bashrc (on macOS, ~/.bash_profile)

eval "$(nimbus completion bash)"

Open a new terminal and test with nimbus ls Mú<Tab>. The eval needs the nimbus command on the PATH, which is why the Homebrew or pipx installation is recommended. Listings are cached for 5 minutes in ~/.cache/nimbus, so a newly created folder may take that long to show up on Tab.

Keys during nimbus play: space pauses, n next, p previous, ←/→ back or forward 10s, +/- volume, q quits.

How it works

• drive.py lists folders and files through the Drive API v3 (with support for shared drives, "Shared with me" and shortcuts). Audio is detected by MIME type or by extension.
• player.py starts mpv in idle mode and controls it through the JSON IPC socket. Each track is the API URL files/<id>?alt=media, with the Authorization: Bearer … header sent through the socket, never on the command line.
• local.py lists folders on your computer and finds mounted drives; library.py combines Drive and the computer and routes each request to the right source. Local items have the ID local:<path>.
• playback.py manages the queue and asks for a refreshed token before each Drive track. Local files go to mpv by path, with no token.
• tui.py is the visual interface (Textual). mpv events arrive on their own thread and the screen only reads the state on a timer, so network and IPC never freeze the interface.
• metadata.py combines tags, file name, embedded cover, folder image and MusicBrainz/Cover Art Archive.
• cli.py has the command-line commands and opens the interface when no command is given.
• completion.py generates the completion scripts and answers Tab with the Drive folders.

Useful variables: NIMBUS_CONFIG_DIR changes the configuration folder, NIMBUS_MPV points to another mpv executable, NIMBUS_COVER chooses how to draw the cover (blocks, kitty, sixel, auto, off) and NIMBUS_OFFLINE=1 turns off internet lookups.

Tests

source .venv/bin/activate   # development virtual environment (above)
pytest

The playback and interface tests use a real mpv and a local HTTP server that mimics Drive (it requires the token and answers Range requests).

Releasing a version

Just create and push a tag on main: git tag v0.3.2 && git push origin v0.3.2. The version number comes from the tag itself (via setuptools-scm), so there is no number to edit in the code.

The release workflow runs the tests, publishes nimbus-player to PyPI, creates the GitHub Release with the packages and updates Formula/nimbus.rb in the homebrew-tap repository. The formula is generated by scripts/homebrew_formula.py.

One-time setup:

• PyPI: on pypi.org, Your projects → Publishing → Add a new pending publisher with project nimbus-player, owner allanmedeiros71, repository nimbus, workflow release.yml and environment pypi.
• Homebrew: create the public repository allanmedeiros71/homebrew-tap and a fine-grained token with Contents: read and write on it only; save it as the HOMEBREW_TAP_TOKEN secret in this repository. Without the secret, the workflow publishes to PyPI and only warns that it skipped Homebrew.