Tuneful For Mac

macOS allows you to control playback and see album art via the menu bar Now Playing icon, but its design could be better, and the controls on offer are quite limited.

Tuneful aims to expand upon it, giving you a much better look at your music’s album art and more controls to play with. It also comes with an optional desktop mini player and supports both Apple Music and Spotify.

Once the app’s been authorized to manage playback, you can start playing music and then control it from the menu bar. Tuneful shows the song’s album art, title, and artist, using a smart layout that makes everything easy to see.

The playback controls are extensive: play/pause, skip, shuffle, and repeat, along with the ability to change system volume and select the desired output device. I found the app very intuitive, and it looks much better than the built-in Now Playing music controller.

If you right-click Tuneful’s menu bar icon, you can enable the mini player. This is reminiscent of Silicio, though with fewer customization options. It comes with limited playback controls and will always stay on top of other windows.

The mini player is a good way to keep an eye on what’s playing at all times, and it does look quite nice. However, some more size options, and the ability to snap it to screen edges, would make it even better.

While Apple Music and Spotify are by far the most popular services, support for others would surely be appreciated. Some additional visual customization options would also be welcome, and maybe a hotkey for toggling the mini player.

I also noticed that, when using Spotify, a selection border appears around the album art in both the menu bar display and mini player. This doesn’t happen when Apple Music is used, and you get the option to mark songs as Loved when hovering over the album art.

Tuneful is a great app, especially if you’re after a menu bar music controller. The mini player isn’t quite as advanced as I’d like yet, but it may get some improvements in the future.