mpv can play media within archives
Posted on 2024-08-18
It turns out, the mpv media player (one of my all-time favorite utilities) can play media files located inside of a compressed archive. If you have a bunch of FLAC files in a zip archive, and tell mpv to play that zip archive... it just does.
I set up a "shuffle" script using find, sort -r, and mpv so that I could randomly listen to music from my collection without loading everything into a bulky media library of sorts. It accidentally fed mpv one of the albums I hadn't extracted yet, and I was happily surprised when it started playing it anyhow!
I love it when the software I use surprises me in pleasant ways. Kudos to the mpv developers for this fantastic hidden feature!