menubar-ticker - Show the current song

Menu Bar Ticker is a simple macOS menu bar item that displays the current artist and song playing in Music (aka iTunes) or Spotify.

There are no other fancy features.

Idle

Active

Installation

Download the latest release and extract Menu Bar Ticker.app from the menubar-ticker-vX.Y.Z.tar.bz2 archive. Move it into the Applications folder. Follow Apple's instructions to start the app automatically when you log in.

Since the app is not signed, you will need to right-click and select "Open" the first time you launch the app. A dialog will appear:

"Menu Bar Ticker.app" can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.

Click "Open". If the app does not appear in the menu bar, right-click on the app again and select "Open".

The first time you run Music or Spotify together with Menu Bar Ticker, a dialog will appear for each app:

"Menu Bar Ticker.app" wants access to control "Music.app". Allowing control will provide access to documents and data in "Music.app", and to perform actions within that app.

Menu Bar Ticker needs permission to read the current song.

Click "OK".

Changelog

This project lives at GitHub. Version numbers follow the Semantic Versioning specification.

v2.0.0

• Add support for Apple Silicon
• Drop support for pre-Catalina macOS (use v1 if you're running an older macOS)
• Drop support for pre-Catalina iTunes.app
• Drop support for Rdio (RIP)

Verified to work with the following on February 14, 2021:

• macOS Catalina (10.15.7)
• macOS Big Sur (11.2.1)
• Music 1.0.6.10
• Music 1.1.3.3
• Spotify 1.1.52.687.gf5565fe5

v1.1.0

• Add support for Music.app in macOS Catalina

Verified to work with the following on January 28, 2020:

• macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)
• macOS Catalina (10.15.2)
• iTunes 12.8.2.3
• Music 1.0.2.37
• Spotify 1.1.24.91.g4ca6d5eb

v1.0.0

• First release with support for iTunes, Rdio, and Spotify

Verified to work with the following on July 19, 2019:

• macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)
• macOS Mojave (10.14.5)
• iTunes 12.8.2.3
• iTunes 12.9.5.5
• Spotify 1.1.10.540.gfcf0430f

Contributors

• Jonathan Anderson
• Robin Macharg