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Is it possible to set Spotify as the default program when the "media" keys (play, pause, previous, next, etc) are pressed on the Mac keyboard?
For the most part when Spotify is open, the "media" keys work fine. But every once and a while iTunes will pop up when you hit them. It'd be a lot nicer if you could just specify that Spotify is the default program when these keys are triggered, as oppose to iTunes.
If it matters, I'm using Mountain Lion.
The software Beardedspice provides a user-friendly approach to prioritizing Spotify for your media keys. It runs in the background and gives you a few simple settings in the Mac menu bar. It just works.
Download and installation
It can be downloaded and installed directly from the Beardedspice homepage, or by using e.g. Homebrew:
brew install --cask beardedspice
Notes
Update 2021-01-16 - Use Beardedspice as the alternative app Mac Media Key Forwarder is no longer being updated
As there are reports of Mac Media Key Forwarder not working for some users, and the developer no longer updating the app, it is recommended to use Beardedspice.
Nevertheless, Mac Media Key Forwarder will still work fine for most people running on e.g. MacOS High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura so it remains an alternative.
Download and installation
It can be downloaded and installed directly from GitHub, or by using e.g. Homebrew:
brew install --cask macmediakeyforwarder
macmediakeyforwarder to work, but found a similar project called beardedspice which seems to have more support: github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice
I find this problem happens for me inconsistently, so I use this fairly destructive approach when it happens:
itunesSpotify also has a helper running. My guess is that it depends which one loads first.
Per comment below – you can simply remove it from your login items:
Lifehacker ran an article about this very problem a while back for Snow Leopard. http://lifehacker.com/5531707/free-your-macs-media-keys-from-itunes-grasp
The tricks we used before were far less than ideal, requiring you to start up QuickTime in the background, or do some serious hacking to system files within iTunes.app. NoMitsu has created a one-click installer that patches the remote control daemon, the app responsible for managing the media keys. Just download the patch and double-click on it. After entering your password, your media keys will be free from iTunes' grasp.
I presume you have already tried this. As I recall the media keys will control the last program that was active so if Spotify was the last media app you had open (and is currently open) then the media keys will control that. Hope this helps you out.
I'v had this problem for years and in my case it goes beyond iTunes. When working in Keynote or another application that "claims" the media keys, controlling Spotify (or other music players) won't work.
But now I've finally solved it!
Quite a long process but here goes.
Binding Media keys to one Media player, and that player only:
try
tell application "Spotify"
playpause
end tell
end try
return
try
tell application "Spotify"
previous track
end tell
end try
return
try
tell application "Spotify"
next track
end tell
end try
return
Easy as that! =)
EDIT: Karabiner does not yet work with Sierra, but a pre-release called "Karabiner Elements" does the trick. In that case, skip the first 4 steps in the above list and instead:
After looking around for a while I finally found https://github.com/zsszatmari/MagicKeys
It is not specific to Spotify but will let you select any application to launch when a media key is pressed.
There are only 2 small issues I see with it (and one is also an issue with the default iTunes behavior).
Settings>User & Groups>Login Items
Restart your computer. It will always play Spotify since it's open in the background and not itunes.
Adding on to what @sjg said, you could have Spotify opened at startup (presuming that you don't care for iTunes to open at startup) so that you can have the media keys work with Spotify right from login. Again, this is only a workaround and not really a full solution, but if you want it to be opened at startup, go to Spotify>Preferences and scroll down to "Open Spotify automatically after you login to the computer" and select Open automatically.
As suggested in the comment by Beau Smith, the app BeardedSpice do an amazing job! Not only for Spotify but also for a lot of other services (Netflix, Youtube, SoundCloud, etc.)
BeardedSpice is a menubar application for Mac OSX that allows you to control web based media players and some native apps with the media keys found on Mac keyboards. It is an extensible application that works with Chrome (Canary, Yandex, Chromium) and Safari, and can control any tab with an applicable media player.
You can go to your Applications library and manually delete iTunes.app in the terminal using:
sudo rm -rf /Applications/iTunes.app
Won't automatically make Spotify your default media player but iTunes will no longer exist on your computer.
sudo chmod -x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes
Is better going to User (Settings ->Users and Groups) and then click on "Startup items" and disable ituneshelper. By this way you don't need to kill the process every time you switch on the device.
a solution that worked for me for Mojave was to remove the execution bit from iTunes:
sudo chmod -x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes
and optionally add the media player in question under
Preferences -> Security & privacy -> Accessibility
System Integrity Protection (CIP) - csrutil disable during recovery mode.
Jan 4, 2019 at 16:54
System, but Unable to change file mode on /System/Applications/Music.app/Contents/MacOS/Music: Operation not permitted even with sudo. /sigh
Here's how this should work:
It doesn't seem that difficult to me, yet this is one of those small usability flaws of OSX that sits on a pile of things that just serves to make the overall experience sub-par.
I've created an easier implementation of Per's answer with BetterTouchTool.
tell application "Spotify"
if it is not running then launch
set frontmost to true
activate
end tell
using terms from application "Spotify"
if player state of application "Spotify" is paused then
tell application "Spotify" to play
else
tell application "Spotify" to pause
end if
end using terms from
A quick update from March 2023, for anyone else who stumbled upon this post:
At time of typing, it looks like there hasn't been a new release of Beardedspice since June 2017.
Meanwhile, Milgra, the original author of MacMediaKeyForwarder, now recommends using the Quentinlesceller fork of his project (latest release April 2022): MacMediaKeyForwarded (fork).
I can confirm that MacMediaKeyForwarder fork (3.1.1) works flawlessly with Spotify in Monterey 12.6.3.
Here is a bundle that works as a good solution:
No need to change libraries or programs or download tools. Everything you need is on hand and easy to use. The tip from 2007 still works: set with "Automator" what you want to do and asign it to a keyboard-shortcut.
The keyboard buttons do not control iTunes (installed with Retroactive) in Catalina. They control the Music app instead.
there is an option on the keyboard to either use the traditional F1, F2, etc keys, or the special features. Maybe you have selected the traditional mode.
Something that works most of the time for me is simply rebooting the program in question.
Say for instance Spotify is not playing nice with the media keys (i.e. they don't do anything when you have Spotify open). I usually quit Spotify and restart it and when it reopens the media keys automatically work again.
Obviously, this is less than ideal and definitely doesn't do anything to make Spotify the 'default' media key program, but it does act as a soft reset for the keys which can help until a better answer is created by Apple / Spotify.
Posting this April 3rd, 2020. Working perfectly well for me.
I am using shpotify with skhd. To install shpotify (command line interface for Spotify):
brew install shpotify
No need to worry about Spotify API if prompted - that is optional if you want to be able to choose tracks from the command line; play/pause, and volume settings work out of the box. Then installing skhd (amazing shortcut manager for OSX):
brew install koekeishiya/formulae/skhd
brew services start skhd
Then head over to the file ~/.skhdrc which is the configuration file for skhd and add the following:
# Spotify
fn - f8 : spotify pause
fn - f11 : spotify vol down
fn - f12 : spotify vol up
This will map your FN+Play/Pause, FN+Volume Up, and FN+Volume Down to Spotify specifically. Pressing any of those keys while Spotify is closed will automatically open it.
The added benefit of using this method is that you can control Spotify when it's playing both on your computer or an external device (i.e. Google Home), and allows more flexibility when pausing Spotify (i.e. when you open a video on the browser and OSX automatically maps the Play/Pause to the video as opposed to music playing in the background by Spotify).
