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Assuming I have songs with lyrics already added to them, how do I easily view them when listening to a song?

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  • @Am1rr3zA : Given the accepted answer, the requirement you added in was not part of my question. Ideally I did not want an entirely seperate application, but zenopolis' answer provided third party software that integrates into iTunes. It's quite a bit buggy, but I'm using it and I love it. Needless to say, I rolled back your edit, because it was inaccurate.
    – Jason Salaz
    Feb 12, 2011 at 20:53

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I’m not sure how long it has been there, but the last three or more versions of Music/iTunes have lyrics display built in. When a song is playing, if it has lyrics installed, the lyric icon will be highlighted. Tap it, and the lyrics appear. When the next song starts, the lyrics will automatically change, too. Unfortunately, they don’t automatically scroll. enter image description here enter image description here

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  • You’re referring to iOS, right?
    – Jason Salaz
    Sep 20, 2020 at 15:48
  • iOS, iPad, MacOS—all of them. I doubt it was there when you posted the question, but it’s there now and has been for more than a year. I use it to follow along with audio for my language learning.
    – WGroleau
    Sep 20, 2020 at 20:02
  • Huh, I so rarely ever used the mini player, and certainly never since the great iTunes -> Music breakout happened. Same layout as AppleTV music playback, nice. However, I have different behavior than you described. The lyrics in songs without timed lyrics aren't showing up at all for me, lyrics with timed (live) lyrics do automatically scroll, I'll have videos of this soon.
    – Jason Salaz
    Sep 20, 2020 at 22:44
  • I don't use mini-player. I added images, but somehow they weren't saved. Now they are. I don't have AppleTV nor a subscription to Apple Music. But the non-scrolling behavior as in the images works for me with all songs in which I have added lyrics with Get Lyrica or by hand-pasting.
    – WGroleau
    Sep 21, 2020 at 4:06
  • I can't believe I didn't notice that icon on the toolbar. Sounds like we both learned something, because if you use the mini player you get live lyrics if the song data includes it. I'm not sure if it exists outside of Apple Music streamed (backed?) tracks though. I haven't actually looked into the data format and seen if I can get it on my own imported tracks. And also iTunes Music Store purchased tracks I have no idea about.
    – Jason Salaz
    Sep 21, 2020 at 4:59
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With reference to the current version (iTunes 10):

Without adding third party software, you will need to actively select the currently playing song to view its lyrics.

  • ⌘+I opens the Info window for the selected song
  • esc closes the Info window

If you open the Lyrics tab in the Info window, it will open in the same tab the next time you open it.

Visualizers

If you want to view the lyrics without interacting with your Mac, you might want to consider adding a third party visualizer. One such visualizer is Cover Version (freeware).

(NOTE: With OS 10.7.4 & iTunes 10.6.3, CoverVersion shows my lyrics with a upper case letter height of three pixels. I opened the info window and changed the font from 12 pt. to 144 pt., but it didn't change the Viz. But it's open source, so I could fix it if I were sufficiently ambitious.)

After you have installed the visualizer, you will need to select it in iTunes. For example:

View > Visualizer > Cover Version

  • Use ⌘+T to toggle the visualizer on/off
  • You can choose the menu item View > Visualizer > Options... to configure some visualizers

    (For example, in Cover Version you can switch off the background graphics to make the lyrics easier to read)

Other Third Party Software

If you want to display lyrics while using your Mac for other tasks, you'll need to use a third party application.

Examples include:

  • Get Lyrical from Shullian Productions (Donation Ware)
  • LessLyrics from Ixhan (Freeware)
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  • Disclaimer - I haven't tested Get Lyrical or LessLyrics myself
    – David Kennedy of Zenopolis
    Feb 10, 2011 at 11:45
  • I KNEW something like Cover Version had to exist! Thank you!
    – Jason Salaz
    Feb 11, 2011 at 15:40
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There's no built in way without right-clicking/control-clicking the song and selecting Get Info but you can download widgets such as Desktop Lyrics

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  • Don't suppose you'd know of anything that works in the sidebar? Or perhaps a bottom bar? (Like the album art bar, but full width of iTunes, or at LEAST the full width of the library pane.)
    – Jason Salaz
    Feb 4, 2011 at 22:32
  • You could look through the software on the apple website here apple.com/downloads/macosx/ipod_itunes but I don't think you can get plugins for iTunes on the Mac which would show anything in the actual iTunes window.
    – conorgriffin
    Feb 4, 2011 at 22:42
  • If the lyrics show in Get Info, they will also show in the sidebar. I don’t recall whether that was available in 2011, but I have been using it for a long time.
    – WGroleau
    Sep 20, 2020 at 15:03
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Get Lyrica from the Mac App Store, it's only $2 and worth much more. This will find lyrics for songs in iTunes and add them automatically to the song file. Very cool.

As to displaying lyrics automatically when the song plays... sounds like a feature Lyrica should add! I'll mail the developer.

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I search a lot about this issue before and the best free solution I was found is to use Get Lyrical. it didn't use your lyric that added to them with iTunes.

enter image description here

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  • 1
    But I want it to use the lyrics I have.
    – Jason Salaz
    Feb 5, 2011 at 4:23

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