A Better Way to Load Your Shokz

A few months ago, my wife spotted a Shokz pop-up at a runDisney event. What caught her attention was that these particular headphones work underwater. A few months later, I picked up a pair of OpenSwim Pro as a Christmas gift.

She was excited to give them a shot on her next swim. Then we read the manual and learned something we hadn't thought about. Bluetooth doesn't work underwater. The signal gets absorbed in the first few inches of water but.... that's why these headphones have onboard storage. For swimming, you load MP3s directly onto the device like an iPod Shuffle.

Which led to the next question. How do you load the music?

I plugged them in and showed her how to drag files from her Music folder onto the drive that appeared on her desktop. That part worked but she's not a "techie" so then came the questions. How do I take a song off? How do I add new ones later? How do I know what's already on there?

I thought to myself "we can't be the only ones asking these questions" and I went looking for a Shokz app. The app they offer is for managing the bluetooth side of the headphones. Their guidance was to drag and drop files which isn't hard, exactly, but it's tedious for anyone who doesn't think of a file system as a place to "manage" music.

So I built the app I wished existed.

Introducing Conduxor

Conduxor is a small Mac app for moving audio onto a USB device. It works with OpenSwim, OpenSwim Pro, and any audio player that mounts as a drive.

You plug the headphones in and select them from a list of devices. You can choose music from your Apple Music library or add any folder on your Mac as a source. Just check a box for the audio you want copied over to teh headphones and un-check to remove. Really easy for anyone and doesn't require digging into your files to drag and drop audio.

A few things happen for you along the way. Files land in folders like /Music/Artist/Album/ on the device. Filenames get cleaned up for FAT32, so forbidden characters and overlong names don't break the transfer. Tracks already on the device get skipped, so you'll avoid trying to copy the same album twice. You can also tap the play icon for a 30-second preview before you copy.

When the transfer finishes, you can eject the headphones from Conduxor and you're done.

Why doesn't Shokz just make this?

This was really the question that stuck with me and I asked it myself before I started. Shokz does make a mobile app, but it's for EQ settings and firmware updates targeted at the bluetooth feature of the headphones. Why not a simple music app for swimmers?

My guess is that shipping native desktop apps for Mac and Windows is a real investment for something that already "works" without one. The OpenSwim mounts as a plain USB drive on purpose. Every operating system supports it for free. That's a reasonable call for Shokz and it's not overly complicated if you have absic computer skills.

I also came across an open-source app called Sync and Swim. It works, but you have to gather your music into a folder first, then point the app at the folder. Conduxor reads your Apple Music library directly. You see your artists and albums right in the app, the same way you do in Music. I really wanted the process to have as little friction as possible for copying audio right before you head out for your swim.

Is it safe to install?

Here is what Conduxor does and doesn't do.

It reads audio files from your Music library and from folders you pick. It writes those files to a USB drive you select so it never goes online. There is no account needed or cloud sync. It never makes changes to your Music library or touch any file outside the device.

Conduxor ships through the Mac App Store, which means it's sandboxed, signed, and reviewed by Apple. The OS only lets it touch the folders and the USB volume you grant it. If you've installed an App Store app before, this is the same flow.

Conduxor only does one thing: move audio from your Mac onto a removable drive. You always know what's on the headphones. That felt like the right shape for a utility to be useful and not get in the way. Load a few songs and go for a swim, not much to think about it.

Where to get it

Conduxor is available in the Mac App Store. It runs on macOS 14 and later and works with OpenSwim, OpenSwim Pro, and any USB audio player that mounts as a removable drive.