Apple Music

Apple Music Integration

Guide for integrating with Apple Music. Three approaches: AppleScript (direct control), UI automation (catalog without API), and MusicKit API (cross-platform).

When to Use

Invoke when users ask to:

• Manage playlists (create, add/remove tracks, list)
• Control playback (play, pause, skip, volume)
• Play an Apple Music URL (album, playlist, or song)
• Search catalog or library
• Add songs to library
• Access listening history or recommendations

Critical Rule: Library-First Workflow

You CANNOT add catalog songs directly to playlists.

Songs must be in the user's library first:

• ❌ Catalog ID → Playlist (fails)
• ✅ Catalog ID → Library → Playlist (works)

Why: Playlists use library IDs (i.abc123), not catalog IDs (1234567890).

This applies to both AppleScript and API approaches.

AppleScript (macOS)

Zero setup. Works immediately with the Music app.

Run via Bash:

osascript -e 'tell application "Music" to playpause'
osascript -e 'tell application "Music" to return name of current track'

Multi-line scripts:

osascript <<'EOF'
tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    return {name of t, artist of t}
end tell
EOF

Available Operations

Track Properties (Read)

tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    -- Basic info
    name of t           -- "Hey Jude"
    artist of t         -- "The Beatles"
    album of t          -- "1 (Remastered)"
    album artist of t   -- "The Beatles"
    composer of t       -- "Lennon-McCartney"
    genre of t          -- "Rock"
    year of t           -- 1968

    -- Timing
    duration of t       -- 431.0 (seconds)
    time of t           -- "7:11" (formatted)
    start of t          -- start time in seconds
    finish of t         -- end time in seconds

    -- Track info
    track number of t   -- 21
    track count of t    -- 27
    disc number of t    -- 1
    disc count of t     -- 1

    -- Ratings
    rating of t         -- 0-100 (20 per star)
    loved of t          -- true/false
    disliked of t       -- true/false

    -- Content rating. DO NOT trust this for filtering.
    -- On Apple Music (cloud) tracks this property is unset, and reading it
    -- RAISES "A descriptor type mismatch occurred" rather than returning
    -- false. Catching that and defaulting to false is what turns "I could
    -- not tell" into "this is clean": on a real 463-track playlist Music.app
    -- yielded zero explicit tracks where the catalog rated eight of them
    -- explicit. If a caller asked for clean content, resolve the rating
    -- against the catalog (`contentRating == "explicit"`, matching on name
    -- AND artist) and report anything you could not verify as unknown.
    explicit of t       -- true/false, RAISES on most cloud tracks

    -- Playback
    played count of t   -- 42
    played date of t    -- date last played
    skipped count of t  -- 3
    skipped date of t   -- date last skipped

    -- IDs
    persistent ID of t  -- "ABC123DEF456"
    database ID of t    -- 12345
end tell

Track Properties (Writable)

tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    set rating of t to 80          -- 4 stars
    set loved of t to true
    set disliked of t to false
    set name of t to "New Name"    -- rename track
    set genre of t to "Alternative"
    set year of t to 1995
end tell

Player State Properties

tell application "Music"
    player state          -- stopped, playing, paused, fast forwarding, rewinding
    player position       -- current position in seconds (read/write)
    sound volume          -- 0-100 (read/write)
    mute                  -- true/false (read/write)
    shuffle enabled       -- true/false (read/write)
    shuffle mode          -- songs, albums, groupings
    song repeat           -- off, one, all (read/write)
    current track         -- track object
    current playlist      -- playlist object
    current stream URL    -- URL if streaming
end tell

Playback Commands

tell application "Music"
    -- Play controls
    play                          -- play current selection
    pause
    stop
    resume
    playpause                     -- toggle play/pause
    next track
    previous track
    fast forward
    rewind

    -- Play specific content
    play (first track of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey Jude")
    play user playlist "Road Trip"

    -- Settings
    set player position to 60     -- seek to 1:00
    set sound volume to 50        -- 0-100
    set mute to true
    set shuffle enabled to true
    set song repeat to all        -- off, one, all
end tell

Matching titles with typographic punctuation / accents

whose name contains "..." is glyph-exact — unlike Music's native search command, it does not fold a straight apostrophe (U+0027) against the curly one (U+2019) Music often stores, nor accents. So whose name contains "That's a No No" misses a title stored as That's a No No. Two robust strategies:

-- 1. Match the quote-free fragments instead of the apostrophe itself.
--    Works regardless of which apostrophe variant is stored or typed.
play (first track of library playlist 1 whose ¬
    (name contains "That" and name contains "s a No No"))

-- 2. For accents/ellipsis/anything: bulk-fetch names in ONE Apple Event and
--    fold in-memory. `ignoring punctuation and diacriticals` uses Apple's
--    Unicode tables (curly quotes, ellipses, café≈cafe). Do NOT access
--    `name of t` per-iteration in a loop — that is one Apple Event per track
--    (~17s on a 12k library); fetch the whole list at once (~instant).
tell application "Music"
    set allNames to (get name of every track of library playlist 1)
    set idx to 0
    ignoring punctuation and diacriticals
        repeat with i from 1 to (count of allNames)
            if ((item i of allNames) as text) contains "Fur Elise" then
                set idx to i
                exit repeat
            end if
        end repeat
    end ignoring
    if idx > 0 then play (track idx of library playlist 1)
end tell

Library Queries

tell application "Music"
    -- All library tracks
    every track of library playlist 1

    -- Search by name
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Beatles"

    -- Search by artist
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose artist contains "Beatles"

    -- Search by album
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose album contains "Abbey Road"

    -- Combined search
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey" and artist contains "Beatles"

    -- By genre
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose genre is "Rock"

    -- By year
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose year is 1969

    -- By rating
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose rating > 60  -- 3+ stars

    -- Favorite (loved) tracks. Music.app renamed Loved -> Favorite and the
    -- property with it: newer versions use `favorited`, older use `loved`,
    -- and the unsupported name can fail INSIDE a whose-filter with "The
    -- variable loved is not defined". Try `whose favorited is true` first,
    -- fall back to `whose loved is true`, each wrapped in `try`.
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose favorited is true
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose loved is true  -- legacy Music versions

    -- Recently played (sort by played date)
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose played date > (current date) - 7 * days
end tell

Playlist Operations

tell application "Music"
    -- List all playlists
    name of every user playlist

    -- Get playlist
    user playlist "Road Trip"
    first user playlist whose name contains "Road"

    -- Create playlist
    make new user playlist with properties {name:"New Playlist", description:"My playlist"}

    -- Delete playlist. Match the name EXACTLY; a `contains` fallback here
    -- turns "Work" into "Workout".
    delete user playlist "Old Playlist"

    -- Rename playlist
    set name of user playlist "Old Name" to "New Name"

    -- Get playlist tracks
    every track of user playlist "Road Trip"
    name of every track of user playlist "Road Trip"

    -- Get the FIRST N, one Apple Event per property. Read the range off the
    -- playlist itself. Do NOT stash the tracks in a variable first --
    -- `set t to tracks of pl` materializes a plain list, and a property of a
    -- plain list does not distribute: Music raises -1728 and names every
    -- track of the playlist in the error message.
    set pl to user playlist "Road Trip"
    set n to 25
    if n > (count of tracks of pl) then set n to (count of tracks of pl)
    if n < 1 then return {}                        -- `tracks 1 thru 0` errors
    get name of tracks 1 thru n of pl as list      -- `as list`: n=1 returns a
                                                   -- bare value, not a list

    -- Add track to playlist (must be library track)
    set targetPlaylist to user playlist "Road Trip"
    set targetTrack to first track of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey Jude"
    duplicate targetTrack to targetPlaylist

    -- Remove track from playlist. `contains` + `first` is a TRAP for anything
    -- destructive: it deletes whichever match sorts first, irreversibly.
    -- "Love" matches 376 tracks in a real library; "Alice" matches three
    -- playlists including a 467-track one. Enumerate first and act only when
    -- the target is unambiguous.
    set hits to (every track of user playlist "Road Trip" whose name contains "Hey Jude")
    if (count of hits) is 1 then
        delete (item 1 of hits)
    else
        -- report the candidates and let the user choose; do not guess
    end if

    -- Playlist properties
    duration of user playlist "Road Trip"   -- total duration
    time of user playlist "Road Trip"       -- formatted duration
    count of tracks of user playlist "Road Trip"
end tell

AirPlay

tell application "Music"
    -- List AirPlay devices
    name of every AirPlay device

    -- Get current device
    current AirPlay devices

    -- Set output device
    set current AirPlay devices to {AirPlay device "Living Room"}

    -- Multiple devices
    set current AirPlay devices to {AirPlay device "Living Room", AirPlay device "Kitchen"}

    -- Device properties
    set d to AirPlay device "Living Room"
    name of d
    kind of d           -- computer, AirPort Express, Apple TV, AirPlay device, Bluetooth device
    active of d         -- true if playing
    available of d      -- true if reachable
    selected of d       -- true if in current devices
    sound volume of d   -- 0-100
end tell

String Escaping

Always escape user input:

def escape_applescript(s):
    return s.replace('\\', '\\\\').replace('"', '\\"')

safe_name = escape_applescript(user_input)
script = f'tell application "Music" to play user playlist "{safe_name}"'

Common Failures

osascript stderr messages map to a small set of environmental states. When AppleScript fails, classify before deciding what to tell the user — surfacing the raw stderr is misleading; cascading silently to an API path leaks unrelated errors (e.g. "Developer token not found" when the real problem was Music.app being closed).

Don't bare-match not allowed — Music.app emits "operation not allowed on smart playlists" and similar logic-level errors that should NOT classify as Automation-denial. Match the full not allowed assistive or assistive access phrase.

Don't gate on is_available() alone — that only checks darwin + osascript exists. It can't tell you whether Music.app is running or whether Automation permissions have been granted. The error-categorization above is your only signal for those states.

Limitations

• macOS only — no Windows/Linux
• UI features require display — UI automation won't work headless or with Music.app minimized
• Music.app must be running — is_available() returns True as soon as osascript is on PATH, but every tell application "Music" block needs Music.app actually running. First call after a fresh boot may also trigger an Automation-permission prompt the user has to approve once.

UI Automation (macOS)

Add-to-library/playlist UI automation was removed in 0.15.0. Catalog add-to-library and auto_add→playlist run over the unified Apple Music API (developer token generated or sourced from Apple's public web player, plus a media-user-token). The old UI add path was version-fragile (it broke across macOS/Music.app releases, #37). To enable the API path: applemusic-mcp login (or login --dev with a developer token). On macOS login defaults to reading the media-user-token from a signed-in Safari — no Chrome/Playwright — provided Safari → Settings → Advanced → Develop → "Allow JavaScript from Apple Events" is enabled; login --chrome uses the Chrome web player instead (needs pip install 'applemusic-mcp[browser]'). Off macOS, login opens Chrome (Playwright ships by default there). The UI primitives below remain only for playback / play-from-URL and catalog search, not for adding.

Engines (mode pref / per-call engine=): auto (default — native Music.app for playback, Safari for the Up Next queue, the API for data on macOS; Chrome off-mac), native, safari, chrome, api. The Safari engine drives your signed-in Safari's MusicKit through the same do JavaScript channel (DRM-native, no Chrome) for play/control/now_playing/settings and the full queue — so on macOS the whole web-player surface works without Playwright. Using the queue makes its engine the active one, so playback control reaches it.

The remaining UI automation controls Music.app through System Events (Accessibility API) and CoreGraphics (mouse events).

Requirements: Display attached, Music.app visible, Accessibility permissions for System Events (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility).

Key Concepts

System Events reads and clicks UI elements by their accessibility hierarchy:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Music"
    -- Main content area
    scroll area 2 of splitter group 1 of window "Music"
    -- Search field
    text field 1 of UI element 1 of row 1 of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of window "Music"
end tell

CoreGraphics mouse events (via JXA) generate real mouse input — hover, click, and double-click:

// osascript -l JavaScript
ObjC.import("CoreGraphics");
var point = $.CGPointMake(x, y);
// hover (reveals hidden controls):
$.CGEventPost($.kCGHIDEventTap, $.CGEventCreateMouseEvent($(), $.kCGEventMouseMoved, point, 0));
// click: post LeftMouseDown then LeftMouseUp at the point.
// double-click: post two down/up pairs with the click-state field (1) set to 1 then 2.

Critical: System Events click (AXPress) does not fire Music.app's custom Play/Shuffle buttons or track rows — it returns success but nothing plays. Read element rects with System Events, then click with CoreGraphics mouse events at the element's screen coordinates. A single click only selects a track row; double-click it to play.

Playing a catalog (non-library) track natively

AppleScript has no verb to play a non-library catalog track. Deep-link the page, then drive the UI with CoreGraphics:

1. open "music://…/album/<id>" (album/playlist) or …?i=<songId> (one track)
2. Album/playlist: locate the Play button, read its position+size, CoreGraphics-click its center.
3. Single track: match the track row by name in the track list, CoreGraphics double-click it (so only that track plays, not the whole album).

The Hover Trick (per-row controls)

Music.app hides per-track Play / "Add to Library" controls until the mouse hovers over a row:

1. Find the track's UI element position via System Events
2. Move the mouse there via CoreGraphics (generates real hover events)
3. The hidden checkbox (play) and button (Add to Library) appear in the accessibility tree
4. Click them via CoreGraphics at their coordinates (not System Events AXPress)

Search via UI

1. Set the search field value: set value of searchField to "query"
2. Press Return: key code 36
3. Wait for results to load (~4 seconds)
4. Parse the "Top Results" list from scroll area 2
5. Each result is a UI element with description = name, static texts for type/artist

Note: The type separator in results uses Unicode three-per-em space (U+2004) + middle dot (U+00B7): Song꘎·꘎Radiohead

Window Recovery

Music.app can run without a window. To ensure a window exists:

tell application "Music" to activate
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Music"
    if (count of windows) is 0 then
        click menu item "Music" of menu "Window" of menu bar 1
    end if
end tell

Fragility

UI paths break when Apple updates Music.app's layout. Centralize paths as constants and test after macOS updates. Use Accessibility Inspector.app to explore the current hierarchy.

The search field location changed between macOS 15 (sidebar outline row) and macOS 26/Tahoe (toolbar group). The server probes for the toolbar element at runtime using an AppleScript exists check and falls back to the sidebar path — so both OS versions are supported without hardcoding. If UI search ever breaks on a new macOS version, inspect the search field path first.

Tool routing (when to use which top-level action)

When a user asks for something, the right MCP tool depends on whether they're searching their library or the catalog. Easy to confuse — gating wrong here leads users into "Developer token not found" rabbit holes when the operation could have worked tokenlessly.

library(action='search') returns one page: limit (default 25) caps the results and offset pages through larger result sets. The text header shows start-end of total, so when end < total there are more results — bump offset by limit to fetch the next page (mirrors action='browse').

If library(action='search') returns "No songs found in library", it is not a hint to set up an API token — it's a hint to try catalog(action='search') or playlist(action='add', auto_add=True) instead. The tokenless macOS path covers all of these.

Compound flows (no API)

Recipes for replicating applemusic-mcp's catalog features without an API token. Gate each user request on "does this need catalog access?" — pure library and playback ops stay in AppleScript; only catalog lookups go through UI automation.

Add a catalog song to the user's library

If the user gave a single combined string like "Silvera - GOJIRA", split on - before searching so the catalog query gets a clean name.

Step 0 — resolve the canonical title FIRST (do not skip this). Hit the free, tokenless iTunes Search API (https://itunes.apple.com/search?term=<name>+<artist>&entity=song&country=<storefront>) and pick the best match, scoring artist-primary: when the user named an artist, a result by a different artist is the wrong track even if its title is an exact match — reject it rather than risk a silent wrong-add (e.g. "Lemons"/"Brye" must resolve to Brye's "LEMONS (feat. Cavetown)", not "Lemons" by Hairitage). Use the resolved canonical title for the UI query below. This matters because Apple's autocomplete is ranking-sensitive: a vague query ("Lemons") surfaces popular homonyms and misses obscure tracks, while the canonical title ("LEMONS (feat. Cavetown)") makes the exact row appear.

Then, version-dependent surface:

• macOS 26 / new Music (Music ≥ 1.6.x): the search autocomplete pop-over IS in the accessibility tree, and catalog deep-links no longer navigate. Use the pop-over:
  1. UI search with the canonical title (§ Search via UI)
  2. Pick the first Song result whose name + artist match — do not fall back to a non-Song result; fail cleanly if no Song matched. Stale search state can lead to wrong-result clicks otherwise.
  3. Click the row → it navigates to the song detail page
  4. Hover the track row via CoreGraphics — the hidden "Add to Library" button becomes reachable. If you find a "Download" button instead, the track is already in the library (that's success, not failure).
  5. Click "Add to Library" via a real CoreGraphics click (SwiftUI buttons ignore AXPress)
• macOS 15 / old Music (Music ≤ 1.5.x): the autocomplete pop-over is not in the accessibility tree, but open-ing the resolved music://…?i=… deep-link DOES navigate to the album page. Deep-link to the resolved URL, find the highlighted track row, hover, and click its "Add to Library" button there.

Finally: 6. Clear the search field so the next call starts from fresh state 7. Verify the add. The pop-over UI is authoritative for the iCloud library — trust its success even if the next step lags. Poll search_library / a direct library playlist 1 lookup until the track is visible locally (first appears ~3 s; iCloud can stall longer — cap at ~18 s). A verify miss after a UI-confirmed add means "still syncing," not "failed."