iTunes mini-player is back thanks to a free Mac app

Download this free new Mac app if you’d like to regain the functionality of the old iTunes mini-player and control Apple Music on any modern version of macOS.

The Music MiniPlayer app by Mario Guzman is showcased in this screenshot. Use this app to control Apple Music on any modern macOS version with a pixel-perfect replica of the iTunes minimalist mini-player.
  • Music MiniPlayer is a free app created by Mario Guzman with which you can control Apple Music on any modern macOS version. The Music app provides its own mini-player, but Mario’s app is a perfect replica of the classic mini-player feature which was tremendously popular among iTunes users.
  • The app is a simple, effective controller for the Music app on your Mac. Upon launch, Music MiniPlayer will seek permission to control the Music app.
  • It offers all the basic controls and minimal interface like the original, plus features not found in iTunes’ mini-player such as streaming audio and playlist navigation.

Music MiniPlayer revives the classic iTunes mini player

Once you have opened the Music app, you need to launch Music MiniPlayer. And boom, just like that, you’re instantly transported back in time when iTunes was all the rage. When Apple split iTunes up into several apps, its Music app ended up lacking some of iTunes functionality such as a very minimalist mini-player. A floating mini-player was one of the best features of iTunes. It hid the iTunes window from plain sight, replacing it with a tiny mini-player that included basic playback controls. Read: How to use the Music app’s mini-player on your Mac

Music MiniPlayer replicates the look and feel of iTunes’ mini-player down to every pixel. Mario drew the entire user interface in code using Apple’s Core Graphics and Core Animation frameworks to achieve crisp details for both Retina and non-Retina displays. Read: How to add, remove and manage music on your Apple Watch

More importantly, the app introduces some helpful features that the iTunes mini-player never supported. For instance, there’s a drawer you can slide to pick any playlist. From there, you can also turn shuffle and repeat modes on or off. It also supports streaming audio with a slightly adapted set of controls just for streaming.

Guzman has also developed another app that replicates the look and functionality of the original iTunes widget that launched in 2005, simply dubbed Music Widget.

Pricing and availability

Music MiniPlayer requires macOS Big Sur or newer and Apple’s Music app. Written in Swift using Apple’s AppKit framework, the app is 100 percent native and includes code for both Intel-based Macs and Apple silicon ones. As mentioned earlier, Music MiniPlayer is provided completely free of charge.

To download Music MiniPlayer for macOS, visit Guzman’s GitHub page.