Microsoft: Here’s our new media player for Windows 11 to replace the Groove Music app | ZDNet

Microsoft has released a new Media Player app for Windows 11 and it’s available for Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel to try out today, bringing music and video content together. 

The new Media Player app is meant to reflect the look and feel of Windows 11, which got a visual revamp despite overall being a minor update. 

Media Player will let Windows 11 users browse, manage, and watch their local video collection. 

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“All your content in the music and video folders on your PC will appear automatically in your library, but you can also tell Media Player where to look for additional content in app settings,” says Dave Grochocki, principal program manager lead for Microsoft Windows Inbox Apps.  

As a music library, it lets users browse and play music as well as create and manage playlists. Any music and playlists from Groove Music will also automatically shift to the Media Player, which replaces the Groove Music app. There’s also a dedicated playback view that displays album art in the full screen and mini player mode.     

At some point the new Media Player app may replace the legacy Windows Media Player app currently on Windows 11. However, Microsoft says the legacy music app will continue to be available in Windows Tools. Also, now that video is combined with music, it doesn’t require the standalone Movies & TV app. 

Microsoft hasn’t clarified when the Media Player app will be available to general users and notes that during testing with Insiders there are some issues preventing playback from network locations. There are also a few glitches affecting editing album metadata, sorting library content with accented characters, and UI elements disobeying the user’s app theme preference. 

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Microsoft also plans to “add new ways to browse your music and video collections and manage your play queue.”      

The new Media Player app is part of Microsoft’s effort to revamp its core ‘inbox’ apps for Windows 11, which includes Calculator, the Snipping Tool, Mail & Calendar, and more.