Product guide

01

Recipes, mixes and Listen

A recipe holds the rules: artists, blocks and limits. A mix is a specific list of tracks built from a recipe. Listen plays a recipe without building a mix and adds new batches by itself. A recipe saves itself with every change. New recipe starts from an empty recipe, a copy of the open one or the Front row template, and the previous one stays in your Collection. The menu next to the name switches recipes and has Duplicate, Rename and Delete. Save a mix to keep the exact result.

02

Listening without end

After you tap Listen, music starts at once and the recipe screen stays open; the mini player shows ∞ and the recipe name. When fewer than 3 tracks or about 20 minutes are left in the queue, a new batch arrives. Within a session the same recording never returns, not even on another release, and the order of artists changes every round. When a recipe runs out of new tracks, you can play it again or change the recipe. A finished session joins the history as a listening session: you can continue it with the current rules or save the played tracks as a mix.

03

Your artists

A new installation starts with an empty list. You can import your favourite artists from Apple Music or add any artist from the catalogue with search. The app checks your favourites by itself every few hours and never removes anyone from the list. Swipe left to remove an artist (Delete on the Mac); removed artists can be restored from their own section. Select all and Deselect all make it easy to pick artists for a recipe.

04

Discographies and Top

A mix draws from the artist’s complete Apple Music discography. The same song on several releases (album, single, compilation) counts once. Discographies download in the background on every device and refresh daily; until then the artist uses their 20 most popular tracks. The Apple Music Top block picks from the chart for your account’s region, for example 3 tracks from the Top 10.

05

Groups, proportions and exceptions

The number of tracks per artist is shared, and you can set exceptions for a single artist: track count, Top, versions, period and albums. Groups in the advanced rules replace the per-artist count with group weights; within a group the share is split evenly. Period balance keeps the proportion of years across the whole mix. Logical conditions (must match, any one is enough, excludes) check the title, album, years, live version and artist.

06

Years, versions and albums

The period block limits release years. The recording type block chooses studio, live or all versions. Album variety caps the tracks from one release. In the artist rules you can tick the albums the artist’s songs should come from; with none ticked, every album counts. The list comes from the discography, where each recording appears once, on its first regular album. In the advanced rules you can leave out remasters, deluxe and anniversary editions, instrumental and karaoke, acoustic and unplugged, and a cappella versions. Versions are recognised from metadata, so this is approximate. Strict filters may give a shorter result — the report will show it.

07

Time limit, pins and variants

The time limit (in 15-minute steps) is a budget, not a promise of an exact length: the engine picks tracks that fit and keeps the shares. Pinned tracks count towards the time and the shares. A new variant asks whether to keep your pins; drawing only the unpinned tracks changes the rest. From a track’s menu you can swap it, exclude the track or album from the recipe, or draw the artist again.

08

Avoid repeats

The avoid-repeats block remembers recently built mixes and tracks played in Listen, but not listening outside MixRule. It can leave those recordings out or just pick them less often. The fixed Top part still follows the chart.

09

Discovering similar artists

The discovery block asks Apple Music on your device for artists similar to the ones you chose. It suggests only artists who are not on your list, including deselected ones. Tracks are drawn from their Top N (1–20). Similar artists do not join your permanent list until you add them. Discovery does not need a MixRule account.

10

Favourites and CarPlay

The heart in the player (iPhone, Mac, CarPlay) and in a track’s menu adds a track to your favourites or removes it. You can keep up to 500 favourites; they belong to your collection, so they sync with your account and are included in exports, but Apple Music does not know about them. The Favourites block adds a chosen number of random favourites to a mix and to every Listen batch. CarPlay has Listen, Saved and Recipes tabs: a recipe starts listening, and a saved mix plays in order, shuffled or from a chosen track.

11

Collection, account and data

Your Collection holds all recipes (with a play button), saved mixes and history. You can share a mix as a list with links or save it as a playlist in Apple Music. On the Mac, Listen is ⌘↩ and Build mix is ⌘G. You create an account with Sign in with Apple; it syncs recipes, mixes, favourites and removed artists across iPhone, Mac and the browser. In Settings you can export the whole collection, start over or delete your account.

Privacy and access

The product website uses no analytics or advertising. The native app works without an account: recipes, mixes and favourites stay on the device. It fetches discographies, Top charts and similar artists from Apple Music directly on the device. The web app and synchronization require a MixRule account. You sign in with Apple, so MixRule stores no passwords. You can delete the account in Settings. Sign out on shared devices.