Your media keys.
Your music app.
Mac Media Keys Forwarder sends your keyboard's play, pause, next, and previous keys to the app you actually want to control. Not Apple Music. Not some random browser tab. Just your music.
Mac Media Keys Forwarder sends your keyboard's play, pause, next, and previous keys to the app you actually want to control. Not Apple Music. Not some random browser tab. Just your music.
Every macOS user knows the feeling. You tap the play button on your keyboard expecting Spotify to resume and instead Apple Music launches out of nowhere. Or some browser tab starts playing a video you forgot about.
macOS tries to be smart about media key routing, but you want your keys to always control one specific app. It's frustrating. Mac Media Keys Forwarder fixes this by intercepting your media keys before macOS can misroute them and sending them exactly where you want.
Pick your music app and all media keys go there. Always. No exceptions.
Intercepts media key events before macOS can route them to Apple Music or any other unintended app.
First-class support for the two most popular players, with native AppleScript integration.
Add any media app through the Configure Apps panel. If it plays music, you can control it.
A tiny music note icon. Click to switch apps. Stays out of your way otherwise.
Your selected app persists between launches. Set it once and forget about it.
Grab the latest release, unzip, and drag to Applications.
Click the music note in the menu bar and select your preferred music player.
That's it. Your media keys now go where they should.
Mac Media Keys Forwarder isn't on the Mac App Store because it needs Accessibility permissions that sandboxed App Store apps can't request. The app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it will open without any Gatekeeper warnings. You'll just need to grant Accessibility permission in System Settings, which the app will prompt you for.
Mac Media Keys Forwarder is free and open source. If it saves you from even one unwanted Apple Music launch, consider buying me a coffee.
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