Conveniently control music playback in Apple Music and Spotify via a system-wide menu – a free tool makes it possible. It’s called Tuneful, is under an open source license and requires macOS Ventura 13 or newer.
Tuneful shows the currently playing song in the menu bar, clicking on it opens a mini player with common control options and display of the album or title cover. The project is on GitHub and is regularly updated – the current version is 1.6.1.
“Enjoy seamless control over your music, including play, shuffle and repeat options. Additionally, Tuneful lets you control the music player volume, set the audio output device, and use an optional mini player that’s always in your workspace,” explains author Martin Fekete.
Tuneful: Free menu bar control for Apple Music and Spotify.
Bild: Martin Fekete.
There are also some practical additional functions, for example Tuneful can be controlled via keyboard if desired – the corresponding combinations can be set in the system settings. Switching between Apple Music and Spotify is also possible at the touch of a button.
The program is slim (around 11 MB file size) and requires few resources. But: Tuneful is not notarized by Apple and must therefore be started for the first time using the “Open” context menu command (right-click on the program icon). Background: Notarizing Mac software requires a paid membership in the Apple developer program. Even in 2024, there is still no exception for open source developers who work purely on a voluntary basis.
