Unable to Set Finish Time for Selected Tracks in Music App

Question

Question:

I'm trying to use AppleScript to automatically set the start and stop times for selected tracks in the macOS Music app. While the start time is correctly set to 10 seconds, the stop time (finish) does not get applied.

Here’s the code I’m using:

tell application "Music"
    set selectedTracks to selection
    repeat with aTrack in selectedTracks
        set trackDuration to (duration of aTrack) / 1000 -- Duration in seconds
        set start of aTrack to 10.0 -- Set start time to 10 seconds
        set finish of aTrack to (trackDuration - 10.0) -- Set stop time 10 seconds before the end
    end repeat
end tell

The issue is that the start time gets set correctly, but the stop time does not change and the "Stop" checkbox is not checked in the Options tab of the track info. How can I correctly set the stop time and ensure the checkbox is activated?

Any help or advice would be appreciated!

I am a beginner und have used ChatGPT. I work on macOS 15.0 Sequoia Beta, Music 1.5.0.174

Answer 1

Solution:

Thank you for the feedback, and you were right—there was no need to divide the duration by 1000. The duration property in AppleScript for the Music app returns the time in seconds, not milliseconds.

Here is the updated and working AppleScript:

tell application "Music"
    set selectedTracks to selection
    repeat with aTrack in selectedTracks
        -- Get the duration of the track (in seconds, no need to divide by 1000)
        set trackDuration to duration of aTrack
        
        -- Set the start time to 10 seconds
        set start of aTrack to 10
        
        -- Set the stop time 10 seconds before the end
        set finish of aTrack to (trackDuration - 10)
    end repeat
end tell

Changes:

• Removed the division by 1000, as the duration is already returned in seconds.
• The start and finish times are set directly using seconds.

This script works perfectly now! Thanks again for pointing out the mistake.

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