Song Rating For Mac

You may or may not know this, but iTunes and the new Apple Music app allow you to rate songs in your library. A surprisingly large number of users are not aware of this feature, as it is not exactly obvious, and you have to go out of your way to actually rate songs.

Song Rating was created to make the feature a bit more accessible. With this app, you can rate songs from your menu bar, as well as see the current track's rating. Moreover, it comes with a simple but useful playback controller that also displays album art.

This app will work with the new Music app and the old iTunes, so users who haven't yet upgraded to Catalina can also take advantage of it. You're still stuck with the bloated iTunes though, and Song Rating can't help you with that.

After launching the app, open Music or iTunes and start playing a song. If it hasn't yet been rated, you will see five small dots in the menu bar. Click any of them to award the track a certain number of stars. Alternatively, you can use the customizable hotkey to increase or decrease the rating.

When you play a song that has already been rated, it will be visible instantly. If, for some reason, you rate a song directly in Music or iTunes, it will only be shown in Song Rating when you play the track again.

If you right-click the song's rating in the menu bar or use the global hotkey, a popover will be displayed with the track's album art and info. Place the cursor over it and you will also be able to navigate between songs and play or pause the music.

The mini player is even detachable, so you can move it anywhere else on your desktop. It will remain on top of all other windows, but it cannot be resized.

If you never rated songs in your library before, Song Rating might give you the incentive to get started. It's a relatively simple app, it works great, and it's free to boot. It even comes with a basic but useful album art viewer, complete with playback controls.