# A now playing widget for the Mac desktop that spins with your music A now playing widget on the Mac desktop shows what is playing and pauses it with one click - Waltz does it as a little turntable, cassette deck or jukebox that spins with Spotify, Music and browser tabs and wears the song's cover. - URL: https://swiftfox.studio/handbook/now-playing-widget-for-mac - About: https://swiftfox.studio/apps/waltz - Published: 2026-11-07 - Updated: 2026-11-08 - Publisher: Swiftfox Studio (https://swiftfox.studio) ## In short - Waltz follows Spotify and Music in full, names songs in YouTube Music, Spotify and SoundCloud tabs, and can spin for any app that plays sound. - Eight models - turntable, cassette, gramophone, radio, CD player, boombox, jukebox and reel-to-reel - each with parts that work: drop the needle to seek, wind a reel, drop a coin. - With nothing playing, it puts on its own wordless focus music in eight genres, from built-in tracks when the Mac is offline. - No account and nothing recorded, and the price is a one-time $4.99 after a 14-day free trial. ## What a now playing widget on the desktop is for Music on a Mac lives in a window you rarely look at. To see what is playing you switch to Spotify, open Control Center or hover over a browser tab, and to pause it you go hunting for the right app first. A small player that sits on the desktop and moves only while music plays answers both at a glance. [Waltz](https://swiftfox.studio/apps/waltz) is that player: a turntable, a cassette deck or a jukebox in a corner of the screen, spinning with whatever you are listening to and wearing the song's cover. This article walks through what it does, and everything below is in the shipping version. ## A little player on the desk, and the menu bar above it Waltz has no Dock icon and no window to manage. The player sits wherever you drag it, either **On top** of your windows or **On the desktop** behind them, and snaps to a margin near the screen edges. Its size goes from 120 to 420 points, and it remembers its spot on each display. The record in the menu bar turns while music plays. Click it for the popover: the model playing beside the song, previous, play and pause, next, and a row of small tools - copy the song's link, shuffle, repeat and a sleep timer. Under them sit **Recent**, the songs you played lately, and **Focus**, Waltz's own music. ![The Waltz popover: the turntable playing Golden hour by Lumen Bay, the transport, the Recent list and the eight models in a row](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/now-playing-widget-for-mac/fig-1.jpg "The popover: the song, the controls, what played lately and the model strip.") Clicking the player pauses it and a double-click skips to the next song; both can be changed in Settings. Scroll over any model to change the volume, click a speaker or a horn to mute it, and drop a Spotify or Apple Music link on the player to play it. The right-click menu has the sleep timer (15 to 90 minutes, or the end of the song), the sound output and the song's link. ## Which music it follows **Spotify and Music** are followed in full: title, artist, cover and the controls, seeking included. Waltz talks to both through AppleScript and their own playback notifications, so it never needs Apple's private now playing interface. **Browsers** - Safari, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera and Vivaldi - are read tab by tab. YouTube Music, Spotify's web player and SoundCloud give the song's name; YouTube, Bandcamp, Deezer, Apple Music on the web, Tidal, Amazon Music and Qobuz make the player spin for music, not for a video in the next tab. **Any app that plays sound** is a switch in Settings > Player. Turn it on and a podcast app or a game also makes the player turn, with Waltz's own label on it. **Not during calls** is on by default, so FaceTime, Zoom and Teams never make it spin. ## Eight models, and what their parts do Every model is drawn as the real thing, and its parts work. The cover goes where it would on a real one: the record label, the cassette sticker, the disc under a CD player's lid, and the colours of the model follow the cover. ![Waltz's Player settings with the eight models: turntable, cassette, gramophone, radio, CD player, boombox, jukebox and reel-to-reel](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/now-playing-widget-for-mac/fig-2.jpg "Eight models, each one playing the song its own way.") - **Turntable** - drop the tonearm to play; where it lands is where the song starts. The 33 and 45 keys skip songs. - **Cassette** - wind a reel to seek, tap the A/B side for the next song. - **Gramophone** - turn the crank to play, lift the soundbox to pause. - **Radio** - the power knob turns it on and off, the tuning knob plays the next song. - **CD player** - open the lid to pause, close it to play on. - **Boombox** - four keys, a volume slider, and the antenna picks the sound output. - **Jukebox** - drop a coin to play, or to skip if something is already on. - **Reel-to-reel** - a lever plays and stops, the reels seek, the counter skips. Each model also puts on a new song its own way, and from 8 pm to 7 am the **night look** dims it a shade and lights its lamps. ## Focus music when nothing plays Press play when nothing is playing and Waltz puts on wordless music to work to, in eight genres: lofi, jazz hop, piano, baroque, ambient, downtempo, synthwave and game music. **Play focus music from** picks where it comes from: Spotify playlists, free internet radio, or ten tracks built into the app, which play without a connection. **Auto** takes the best one available and falls back to the built-in tracks when the Mac is offline. ![The Focus tab in the Waltz popover: the source picker with Auto, Spotify, Radio and Waltz, over eight genre tiles](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/now-playing-widget-for-mac/fig-3.jpg "Eight genres, and a choice of where the music comes from.") From 1 December to 6 January every genre plays its Christmas version and a little snow falls in the popover. There is no setting for it; it simply ends with the season. ## Listen mode **Listen mode** hears the sound your Mac is already playing, only while it is on. It names a song Waltz cannot read with Shazam - a radio stream, a video, a mix - moves the models with the beat (the speakers, the VU bars, the needles) and stops the record as soon as a browser tab pauses. Nothing is recorded or saved; only a short signature of the sound goes to Shazam to find the match. It needs macOS 14.2 or later. ## Permissions, and why each one ![Waltz's Sources settings: Spotify, Music, Google Chrome and Safari, each switched on](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/now-playing-widget-for-mac/fig-4.jpg "Each music app is a switch, and each one asks macOS once.") - **Automation**, once for Spotify, Music and each browser you use, so Waltz can ask what is playing. Without it the player still spins, it just cannot show the title or the cover. - **System Audio Recording**, for listen mode only. - **Accessibility**, for the media keys in browser tabs - in the direct download only. None is asked for at launch: each prompt appears only when you press its button. ## What it deliberately does not do - It is not a music player with a library. Your music stays in Spotify, Music or the browser, and Waltz shows and controls it. - It does not read every app's song title. macOS keeps that behind a private interface, so other apps get the player's motion, not their song names. - It has no account and no cloud. Recently played is kept on your Mac only and goes away when you switch it off. ## What it costs, and what else to look at Waltz runs on **macOS 14 or later** and takes about 30 MB. It is a **one-time $4.99 purchase** with a 14-day trial that needs no card and no email - the license is permanent. The full specification is on [the Waltz page](https://swiftfox.studio/apps/waltz). How it compares with Sleeve is in [Sleeve alternatives for Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/sleeve-alternatives-for-mac). If you would rather have a timer than music on your desk, [Pawodoro](https://swiftfox.studio/apps/pawodoro) runs focus sessions with a cat for company, and [Tideline](https://swiftfox.studio/apps/tideline) lays the day's tasks out between your meetings.