Helium presents your music through a set of dedicated views, each showing your library from a different angle. All views are accessible from the navigation bar on the left side of the main window.

The navigation bar

  • The navigation bar on the left side of the window contains a button for each view.
  • Click any button to switch to that view instantly.
  • The bar can be expanded (showing icons and labels) or collapsed to icons only — click the toggle at the top of the bar to switch between the two modes.
  • To choose which view buttons are visible, go to Options → Visual → Navigation Buttons, where each view has an individual checkbox to show or hide its button.
  • A "Small navigation bar icons" option on the same settings page reduces the icon size for a more compact layout.

Views

  • Music Explorer — Presents your library as a tree of nodes that you can expand to drill down and filter your music. Selecting a node displays the matching tracks to the right, where results can be filtered further and shown as releases. You can customise which root nodes appear and configure the child nodes they contain (Premium).
  • Releases — Shows all releases in your library and can be displayed as thumbnails, cards, a carousel, or a split view with a list on the left and details on the right. A filter panel above the results makes it easy to narrow down what is shown. Double-click any release to open its detail page.
  • Artists — Similar to the Releases view but focused on artists, with display options including thumbnails, cards, or a split view with artist details on the right. Double-click any artist to open their detail page.
  • Labels (Premium) — Displays all labels derived from releases in your library, with thumbnail and card display options. Double-click any label to open its detail page.
  • My Computer — Lets you select a folder and scan it recursively for music files without adding them to your main library. This makes it ideal for reviewing and correcting tags on files before importing them into your collection.
  • Tracks — Provides a straightforward way to browse every track in your library. Use the filter above the track list to narrow down results quickly.
  • Playlists — The central place for managing both standard playlists and smart playlists. Toggle between the two playlist types from the top bar in the left pane; the right pane displays the tracks from whichever playlist is selected.
  • Genres (Premium) — Displays all unique genres in a list on the left, with an optional top-level Genre Styles layer that groups related genres together (for example, Rock containing Hard Rock and Metal). Selecting a genre or style shows matching artists, albums, and tracks on the right. Double-click an artist or album to open its detail page.
  • Years (Premium) — Lists all unique release years on the left; selecting a year shows the corresponding albums and tracks on the right. Toggle between albums and tracks using the top menu, and double-click an album to open its detail page.
  • Statistics (Premium) — Displays a range of statistics about your music library presented in various ways.
  • Play Queue — Shows the ordered list of tracks queued for playback. You can add, remove, and reorder tracks, search within the queue, and jump directly to any track by double-clicking it. The Play Queue can also be docked as a panel in the right sidebar.
  • Active Track — Focuses the view on the track that is currently playing or was last played, showing its full detail page with links to the related artist, album, genre, and year. Sub-tabs include Overview, Similar, Playing History, and Lyrics. The navigation bar button is disabled when no track is playing or paused.
  • Theatre Mode — A full-screen display that shows the current track's cover art, artist name, and title, with support for a slideshow of album images at configurable timing intervals. An optional lyrics and now-playing panel can be shown alongside the artwork. Open Theatre Mode via the Visualizations button in the player bar or from the application menu.
  • Search Results — Displays results after performing a search, showing matching artists, albums, and tracks depending on what was found. Double-click an artist or album to open its detail page.
  • Insights (Premium, will be introduced in Helium 18.1) — A family of analytical views that surface statistics, charts, and highlights for your music library. An Insights button appears in the toolbar of the Releases, Artists, Labels, Genres, Years, and Tracks views when available.

Navigating between views

Back and Forward arrow buttons appear in the top header bar, giving you a full navigation history of every view you have visited during your session. Click Back to return to a previously visited view — such as an album or artist detail page you navigated away from — and click Forward to move ahead again. Any entries that refer to items that have since been deleted, such as removed albums or artists, are skipped automatically.