Getting started

MixMusic is a free desktop player for Spotify and YouTube Music on macOS, Windows and Linux. This page installs it and shows you around.

MixMusic puts both services in one window: one search looks through YouTube Music and Spotify at once, one queue plays tracks of either, and your liked songs and mixes hold tracks of both. YouTube Music plays as soon as you open it, with no account. Spotify, and your own YouTube Music library, are there once you sign in. MixMusic has no account, server, analytics or telemetry of its own, and it is open source, under the MIT license or the GPL 3.0.

Install

Download the file for your system from the latest release:

• macOS 12 and later, on Apple silicon or Intel: mixmusic-<version>-macos-universal.dmg. Open it and move MixMusic into your Applications folder.
• Windows 10 and 11, on x64 or Arm: the installer, mixmusic-<version>-windows-<arch>-setup.exe, or the portable zip, mixmusic-<version>-windows-<arch>-portable.zip, which you unpack anywhere and start with MixMusic.exe.
• Linux, on x64 or Arm64: the .deb for Debian, Ubuntu and their derivatives, the .rpm for Fedora and openSUSE, the AppImage for any Linux (make it executable with chmod +x, then open it), the Flatpak for any Linux on x64, or the .tar.gz archive with its install.sh, which installs MixMusic in your home folder.

<arch> is amd64 for x64 and arm64 for Arm. Each release lists SHA256SUMS to check the downloads with, and files you don't need, which installed copies update from. The README has the full table of downloads.

The installers, the portable zip and the Linux archive update themselves: MixMusic looks for a new version at start and every few hours, and asks before it installs one, unless you let it install updates by itself. The .deb, the .rpm, the AppImage and the Flatpak can't replace their own files, so MixMusic tells you when a new version is out and downloads its file for you. Settings › About shows your version and the newest one.

The first launch

• macOS. The app isn't notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open it, macOS says it can't check it. Open it anyway from System Settings › Privacy & Security › Open Anyway, or run this once in Terminal:

  xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/MixMusic.app
  

• Windows. The installer isn't signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn about it: choose More info, then Run anyway. Signing in to YouTube Music and playing Spotify in MixMusic itself need the WebView2 Runtime, which Windows 11 includes. On Windows 10, install it from Microsoft.

• Linux. MixMusic needs GTK 3, and PulseAudio (which PipeWire serves too) or ALSA. Signing in to YouTube Music needs WebKitGTK 4.1, the tray icon needs libayatana-appindicator3, and keeping your sign-ins in the system's keyring needs libsecret. The .deb and the .rpm install them and the Flatpak brings them; for the AppImage and the archive:

  # Debian and Ubuntu
  sudo apt install libgtk-3-0 libpulse0 libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 libayatana-appindicator3-1 libsecret-1-0
  # Fedora
  sudo dnf install gtk3 pulseaudio-libs webkit2gtk4.1 libayatana-appindicator-gtk3 libsecret
  

• yt-dlp, on every system. MixMusic finds the audio of most YouTube Music tracks itself. For the rest, such as tracks made for children, it runs yt-dlp. Until yt-dlp is there, Home says "Some tracks need yt-dlp", with a button that installs it; Settings › Playback › Tools installs it too, and MixMusic keeps the copy it installed up to date. yt-dlp needs a JavaScript runtime: Deno, Node.js, Bun or QuickJS, which MixMusic finds once you install one. The Flatpak has Node.js.

MixMusic opens on Home in the Blend layout. Your settings and library stay in a data folder of your own: %AppData%\MixMusic on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/MixMusic on macOS and ~/.config/MixMusic on Linux.

The Flatpak

The Flatpak runs MixMusic in a sandbox, which sees the network, the sound server, the display and the GPU, and none of your home folder. It keeps its settings and library in ~/.var/app/io.github.fzn0x.mixmusic, apart from a .deb, .rpm, AppImage or archive copy, and both can run at once. The README tells how to bring another copy's settings and library over.

In the Flatpak, start at login goes through your desktop, which may ask you first, and a yt-dlp of your own must be in ~/.var/app/io.github.fzn0x.mixmusic, as the sandbox sees no other folder. A Discord app that isn't a Flatpak shows what plays only if it was running when MixMusic started.

The window

The sidebar

The sidebar on the left goes to MixMusic's pages: Home, Search, Explore, Library, Stats, Marketplace and Settings, then the pages plugins add. Under them, Your mixes lists your liked songs, your downloads once you have some, and each mix you made, with how many tracks each holds; its + button makes a new mix. At its foot, a card shows what plays, and opens the now playing page. The button beside MixMusic's name folds the sidebar to its icons, as Ctrl+B (⌘B on macOS) does; in a narrow window it folds by itself.

• Home has your own tiles first: Jump back in plays the track you played last, then Liked songs and Your mixes, and Add Spotify while you aren't signed in to it. Then come your shelves, such as Recently played, and those of YouTube Music and Spotify. The pivots at the top keep Everything, only Yours, only Spotify's or only YouTube Music's.
• Explore has YouTube Music's new albums, singles and trending songs, its charts, and its moods and genres, each with playlists of its own.
• Library has your liked songs, mixes, podcasts, downloads and history, and your library on each service you signed in to: see Your library.
• Stats shows what you listened to, day by day.

The top bar

The top bar holds the back and forward arrows, and Refresh this page, which asks the services again for what the page shows (F5, or ⇧⌘R on macOS). Pulling a page down past its top refreshes it too. Then comes the search box, "Search Spotify and YouTube Music" (Ctrl+F, ⌘F on macOS), which suggests searches as you type: see Playing music. Once you scroll down a playlist, an album, an artist or your liked songs, the top bar shows its cover and name, with Play, Shuffle and Download. The button at the right of the top bar, which shows its key, opens the command palette.

The player bar

The player bar runs along the foot of the window. In the Expressive layout it floats over it.

• On the left, what plays: its cover, which opens the now playing page (and its menu, on a right click), its title, which opens its album, and its artists. The line under the title says "via YouTube Music" for a Spotify track that plays from YouTube Music, "on Spotify" for one on Spotify Connect, the speed when it isn't 1×, and "waiting for the network" when the network dropped. In a wide window, the track that plays next shows under it. The heart likes the track and the thumbs-down dislikes it.
• In the middle, Shuffle, Previous, Play or Pause, Next and Repeat, and the seek bar with the time and the length.
• On the right, the 5.1 button for a track that has a 5.1 surround mix, Lyrics, Queue, the cast button while a Chromecast, a Google Home or Nest speaker, or a TV with Chromecast built in is on your network, the Spotify Connect devices when Spotify tracks play on Spotify Connect, Speed, the volume, and the mini player.

Up next, lyrics and now playing

• Up next, the queue, opens at the right of the window from the Queue button, or with Ctrl+J (⌘J): the track playing, then what plays after it. See The queue and Up next.
• The lyrics panel opens in the same place from the Lyrics button, or with Ctrl+Shift+L (⇧⌘L): see Lyrics. For a podcast episode, the same button shows its details.
• The now playing page gives the track the whole window: open it with its cover in the player bar, the card in the sidebar, or Alt+4 (⌥4). It shows the cover with a visualizer over its foot (or the picture of a music video, if you turn that on), the artists and the album, the seek bar, play and next, like and dislike, the lyrics, the widgets of plugins, and at its foot the songs, playlists and artists YouTube Music relates to the track.

The command palette and shortcuts

The command palette, Ctrl+K (⌘K on macOS), finds every command by its name, plugins' commands too, with its key beside it. Type anything and it also offers to search for it, and to search the settings for it. These keys work from the start; Settings › Shortcuts changes any of them, and gives keys to the commands that have none:

On macOS, ⌘ takes the place of Ctrl in every one of them. The media keys of your keyboard and headphones work too, and Settings › Shortcuts can set keys that control the music from any app.

What works without an account

With no account at all, MixMusic:

• searches YouTube Music and plays it, with its home shelves, Explore, artists, albums, playlists, podcasts and radios;
• keeps your liked songs, dislikes, mixes, history and stats on your computer;
• shows lyrics, downloads tracks to play without the network, and keeps the tracks you played in its offline cache;
• shows what plays on your Discord profile, from the Discord app on your computer, with nothing to set up (Settings › Desktop turns it off).

Every account is optional, and you add them in Settings › Accounts.

What each account adds

• YouTube Music. Sign in with Google's own page in a window MixMusic opens, or import the session of a browser you signed in with. You get your home feed, your library (playlists, albums, artists you follow and liked songs), likes and dislikes that reach YouTube Music, saving albums and playlists, making and deleting playlists, and a brand channel of your account if you have one. What you play joins your YouTube Music history, so its home and radios learn from it, and podcast episodes go on where you left them on your phone. Tracks play the same signed in or out.
• Spotify. Spotify lets an app serve up to five accounts, and only while the app's owner has Premium, so you sign in with a Spotify app of your own: Spotify walks you through it. You can then search Spotify too, see your Spotify library, and like, save and follow there. Spotify tracks play in MixMusic itself (with Premium, on Windows), on Spotify Connect (with Premium), or from their recording on YouTube Music, which needs no Premium.
• Last.fm. Paste the API key and shared secret of a Last.fm API account of yours, and approve MixMusic in your browser: what you listen to joins your Last.fm profile once half of a track, or four minutes of it, played. Scrobbles made offline are sent once you're back online.

Next

• Playing music: search, the queue, radios, the sound and speed.
• Your library: liked songs, mixes, downloads, history and stats.
• Lyrics: synced lyrics, translations and Latin letters.
• Podcasts: shows, episodes and where you left them.
• Troubleshooting, when something doesn't work.