with the windows down
Up Next
Brimtune for Mac
Brimtune turns the notch on your Mac into a small stage for whatever you're listening to. Cover, controls and lyrics, right where your eyes already are.
Free. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.
Hover the island at the top to try it.
We took the long way home
with the windows down
and the city humming
a song we didn't know
01 Lock screen
Music, lyrics and your playlists, before you even sign in.
02 Quiet by design
No Dock icon, no window, no fan noise. Brimtune waits for something to happen instead of constantly checking, so your Mac barely notices it's there.
1.5%of one core, with music paused
36MBof memory
0accounts, ads or trackers
03 It keeps going
A slim strip around the notch: the cover on one side, a live waveform on the other. Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music or Spotify in Safari and Chrome.
Cover, progress, play and skip. Move away and it tucks itself back in.
Synced lyrics light up as they're sung. Running early or late? Click the line being sung and it catches up.
Type right in the island, press Return, and it plays in YouTube Music.
Open any playlist from your YouTube Music account, see every song and play the one you want. Up Next shows what's coming.
Start one from the menu bar. It counts down next to the cover, and tells you when it's done.
From your calendar, with a button that joins the call.
With their battery, so you know before the call starts.
04 Full-screen player
Click the cover and your whole screen fills with its colours, slowly moving, with the lyrics beside it. Keep scrolling to sing along.
We took the long way home
with the windows down
and the city humming
a song we didn't know
every light turned green
like it knew the words
so we sang it anyway
The waveform follows what your Mac plays. It listens in memory and never records.
05 And the little things
Your listening history, grouped by day. Click a song to hear it again.
Around the notch on your MacBook. On an external display, a small island floats at the top.
A tiny island icon holds the rest: timers, the stopwatch, history and the full-screen player.
New versions download quietly and keep your permissions. You'll see what changed.
No account, no ads, no trial, no tracking.
06 The idea
It sits in the notch doing nothing at all, until there's something worth seeing. Then it shows you, and gets out of the way.
07 Install
Security
Allow applications fromApp Store & Known Developers
“Brimtune” was blocked to protect your Mac.
Open AnywayFileVault
Lockdown Mode
08 Questions
No. It waits for something to happen instead of constantly checking. With music paused it uses around 1.5% of one processor core and 36 MB of memory.
No. On Macs and external displays without one, Brimtune shows a small floating island at the top centre of the screen, and only when something's playing.
The Apple Music and Spotify apps, and YouTube Music or Spotify in Safari or Chrome. For covers, progress, Up Next and your playlists from the browser, turn on Allow JavaScript from Apple Events in that browser: in Safari it's under Settings, Advanced, "Show features for web developers", then the Developer tab; in Chrome it's View, Developer. The setup guide shows you where and checks it's on.
Apple only skips that warning for developers in its paid programme. Brimtune is signed by its maker, so macOS asks you to confirm once in Privacy & Security. After that it opens like any other app, and updates keep your permissions.
Nothing leaves your Mac except the song details needed to find lyrics and covers. There's no account and no tracking. The privacy policy lists exactly what goes where.
Yes. The code is on GitHub under the GPL-3.0 licence: read it, build it yourself, report a bug or send a fix.
Choose Quit Brimtune from its menu bar icon, then drag Brimtune from Applications to the Bin. To remove its history too, delete the folder Library/Application Support/Brimtune in your home folder.
09 What's new
1.0.7Latest
1.0.6
1.0.5
Free. For macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.
