How to use Record Keeper

Start here

You do not need an account to listen. Open a playlist, press play, and the music starts.

Sign in with Google when you want the site to remember things: your hearts, your play history, the playlists you build, and the songs you have hidden. Signing in is also what lets you put a room on air so friends can queue songs from their phones.

Finding a playlist

Record Keeper opens on playlists. The welcome strip at the top puts three picks in front of you: the newest public playlist, the one whose songs have the most plays on YouTube, and the one played most here in the last 30 days. Below that is the full explorer, with Explore Artists and Explore Songs beside it when you would rather browse by artist or by song.

Sort and search from the controls above the list. Open a playlist to see its songs, press play to start from the top, or shuffle the whole thing.

Playing music

Click any song for Play now or Add to queue. Play now starts it immediately. Add to queue puts it at the end of what is coming up.

The queue

• Reorder with the arrows on each row, or Move up and Move down in its ⋯ menu.
• Play this song next jumps a song to the front of the line, and it holds even with shuffle running.
• Search inside a long queue with the box at the top of the list.
• Save Playlist turns the whole queue into a playlist you can come back to.

Shuffle can follow your taste

In Playback under Settings, pick how shuffle behaves:

• Discovery: bring songs forward that do not get played much.
• Favorites First: lean on what you already like.
• Less Repeats: push songs you played recently back.
• No Preferences: an even shuffle.

On a phone

The phone player is built around big buttons: shuffle, back, a large play, forward and repeat under the video. One panel underneath switches between the words and the playlist.

Hearting songs

Every song carries a heart. It is a playback reaction: you send it from the player while a song is playing, and it stamps the moment you were at. Right-click a heart on a computer, or hold it down on a phone, to take the last one back.

Building a playlist

A playlist is a queue you kept. There are three ways to build one.

• From what is playing. Queue up songs however you like, then Save Playlist in the player.
• Song by song. The ⋯ menu next to any song has Add to playlist. The tick is the toggle: tapping a playlist that already has the song takes it back out.
• From a YouTube playlist. Start a playlist draft, search YouTube playlists or paste a playlist link, look through the songs it found, and tick the ones you want. You are never forced to take all of it.

Or use Add music: paste a YouTube link, type a song, paste a whole list of songs from your notes, or add a screenshot of a video, a playlist or a setlist. Songs already here play straight away, the rest are found on YouTube, and you can save the lot as a playlist from the same screen.

Manage Playlists in the account menu is where they all live. A playlist can be private to you or public, and a public one has its own shareable page.

Lyrics

When a song has timed lyrics, the player lights the line that is singing. Plain lyrics show as a scroll without the highlight.

Lyrics are looked up in an openly licensed lyrics database when a song is added. If the song is not in there, Record Keeper does not invent them, and they are never scraped from anywhere else. Any signed-in listener can add or fix them, and everyone then gets them.

Some music videos have a long instrumental intro. The Versions menu on a song lets you shift the lyric timing for that upload without changing the song itself.

Listening together

Turn a room on from Settings → Online Jukebox and it becomes a shared listening space. Send the code (or a short address you choose) to the people you are with. Anyone who opens it joins with no sign-in and no app, browses what is available, and adds to the same queue you are playing.

The room is your player, seen from outside

Whatever is in your queue is what the room shows, at the same second, with the same line of the song lit up. Songs guests add turn up in your own queue marked Added by their name.

What guests can and cannot do

Guests are numbered until they choose a name. You set how many songs one person may have waiting.

Give the room a short address

recordkeeper.stream/yourword is easier to pass on than a six-character code. Set it in the console next to the room name. Both save together.

A room that has gone quiet

An offline station is not a dead page. Visitors are told the room is offline and offered the last running order you broadcast, sent straight to their own Record Keeper player, where it behaves like any other queue.

Sharing

A public playlist has its own page you can send. Copy the link from the playlist, or open it and share from the browser. Anyone who gets the link can listen without signing in.

Private playlists stay on your account. Make one public from Manage Playlists when you are ready for other people to find it.

How the site works

Everything you hear is a public YouTube video. Record Keeper organizes and plays them. It does not host music. When you press play you are watching a YouTube video, and the artist and the label get that view exactly as they would if you had opened it on YouTube yourself.

Lyrics come from an openly licensed lyrics database, and from listeners typing them in.

Background play on a phone

A YouTube embed stops the moment your screen locks. Nothing we can build changes that. So if you want a song to keep going with the screen off, you upload your own audio file for it, and only your account can ever hear that file.

Everyone gets 500 MB of upload storage. The meter under Audio Storage in Settings shows what you have used. You must have the right to store and personally play whatever you upload.

Common questions