However I want the option to expand it as I find new music here and there.

With Jellyfin or other self hosted media player you'll be able to add files as you like. I usually buy music in FLAC format from Bandcamp and Qobuz to add to my own library. That's in addition to other music I ripped from CDs over the years.

but are there good options to “sync” the library to my phone other than just simply drag and drop the media?

Some Jellyfin apps have an offline mode (Finamp is one of them) so you can stream music online from your Jellyfin server or mark albums/songs to download within the app and then be able to play that music offline. I use it since I don't have unlimited mobile data but still want to have some music on my phone for offline play. Not sure if that's the best way but so far it works for my usage.

Well, for starters you could start buying CDs again and then do your own FLAC rips from those.

🏴‍☠️"Drink up, me harties! YO-HO!"🏴‍☠️

My combo is Jellyfin+Symfonium

With Symfonium you can manually download playlists and favorites for offline, and/or have a "rolling cache" where the most frequent listens are automatically kept synced for offline listening.

My collection is far too large to keep on my phone in its entirety, but with Symfonium I don't need to, and if I'm ever caught without internet, I've still plenty to listen to.

Jellyfin does not organize the music, it's a way to browse and access it. For a nice client for desktop, look at Feishin.

To actually organize the music, you want something like Picard.

I found an old $5 mp3 player in a discount bin and get my CD's from the local library where I convert them to mp3's. CD's from the library give you quite an eclectic mix of music. I just delete my mp3 files from time to time, knowing I can get them at the local library again.

Syncthing might work for your usecase.

If you are already doing Jellyfin, you can sync as much or little to your phone as you want. Just use finamp. It's a very nice player for Android that connects to your Jellyfin and allows you to download any synced music on the go or stream it directly.

Musopen DVD

For some PD classical music.

It's gone downhill in some regards (enshittification for free accounts), but I'm still using Plex and plexamp for my audio setup. Works equivalent to a self hosted Spotify.

SoulSeek

Im using syncthing to sync my music with my phone. It's really easy to setup and reliable. As a mediaplay on your PC I can really recommend Fooyin cause it's fast, highly customizable, and has good searching functionality. On my Phone I'm running Symphony. Everything is FOSS of course :)

Syncthing? Personally I just use my nextcloud server. Autosyncs every 15 or so minutes to my phone, and from PC it's automatic.

Go on eBay and buy some iPods. You'll need a new battery and new storage but it's available and very easy to do. Also, check out some YouTube videos on iPods and iPod upgrading

If you are wanting to pay, I’ve been happy with TIDAL. Cheaper, pays the artists more, offline download available, and importing your entire Spotify library is not many clicks. Playlists, likes, everything

Not off line at all, but I have been using funkwhale, guess you can upload your own personal pod. I do use a third party pod, but that is 'cause I'm ignorant on how to create my own server to stream my music.

I think a couple of the Android MP3 player apps offer library syncing with PC music library managers. I think that Gone Mad Music Player will sync with MusicBee over Wi-Fi.

Personally, I wound up just loading files directly to a DAP because it's just easier with the amount of music I'm loading at any given time.

What I do is download an album, pass it through music brainz picard to fix the tags, drop the files to my DAP, and then backup the files to my NAC. Pretty simple really.

https://github.com/afkarxyz/SpotiFLAC

You can selfhost a navidrome server and stream the files from there. I dont know how tech savy you are but that is what I do.

Drag and drop's gonna be your best bet. Use whatever phone ap to build playlists the like and sort it that way.

You can use Tailscale to connect to a server remotely and just stream all of your music.

And I would recommend Syncthing to sync a "favorites" folder to your phone so you always have your favorite music.

I'm not sure if Plex is still viable to stream your own music content without paying...but it is an option.

I have nextcloud server and Inuse Power Ampache 2 to stream directly from it

Jellyfin, then use Syncthing to sync it to any other device you want, whether that's your phone, or another PC/laptop.

I have that exact system myself, and it works quite well. However, the main downside is that unless you're using a client that can support it somehow, your playlists won't sync, only the music files themselves, so if you make a playlist on your phone's music player, it wouldn't sync to your PC's Jellyfin instance, and vice versa.

Thanks for all the advice here!

Soulseek/Nicotine+ has been excellent for filling out my library of music, Syncthing is a very clear winner for syncing all of my music to my phone, I've begun using Symphony for playing my music too.

It's honestly revived my love for music! Goodbye spotify

I think one of the aspects here is you want for drag and drop. Self hosting and jellyfin etc do take time and some resources inc storage and vpn to setup. It’s not as simple as I just want that song.

There is a hunt through soulseek to find the right song. Then there is the making sure it goes to the right place. Then the file name, matching albums covers etc and general library management. Then setting up vpn etc to your phone

It’s a learning curve and then is still not a setup where it’s just find an add. But it’s a step away from big tech.