Getting started

Three things: install it, tell it where your projects are, and make an account if you want to send anything out.

1. Install

Download the .dmg from dawter.app, open it, and drag DAWTER to Applications. It is an Apple silicon build and needs macOS on an M-series Mac.

The first time you open it, macOS may say it cannot verify the app. That is expected on a build that is not yet notarized by Apple, and troubleshooting explains how to open it anyway and what the warning actually means.

2. Point it at your projects

DAWTER does not go looking through your whole disk. You choose the folders, and it reads what is inside them — your Music folder, an external drive, your Dropbox, a Google Drive folder, or all of those at once. Add folders under Settings, then run a scan.

A first scan on a large library takes a while, because every project file is opened and read for its tempo, key and length. After that, DAWTER watches the folders and picks up changes as you work.

Folders and scanning goes into which file types it understands and how to exclude things.

3. An account, if you want to send anything

Scanning, organising, tags, notes, bounce detection and playback all work without an account, and always will. An account is what lets you share a link, because a link has to be served from somewhere.

You can make one in the app, or on this website at dawter.app/login. It is the same account either way: the app is where your library lives, and the website is where your plan, your links and your support tickets are.

What to do first

Open a song and look at More Info. That is where DAWTER shows what it worked out — the bounces it matched, where each one lives, the tempo and key it read out of the project file, and the notes and tags you add yourself. If a song looks wrong anywhere, it is almost always visible there.