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Use macOS Media Keys for Third-party Apps

June 03, 2026

Do you use an app other than Apple Music to listen to music on your Mac? Personally I use Feishin, sometimes TauonMusicBox or Manet.

Perhaps you've experienced the same frustration I've dealt with: sometimes your media keys work to skip, play, and pause. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they launch Apple Music, right when you're trying to pause your music before a video call!

To grant full access to media keys on your mac:

  1. Open System Settings.

  2. Navigate to Privacy & Security.

  3. Open Media & Apple Music.

  4. Click the + button and add each of your music-playing apps (the dialog helpfully opens up the /Applications folder after you authenticate).

  5. Click the < (back) button to navigate back to the Privacy & Security menu.

  6. Open Accessibility.

  7. Click the + button and add each of your music-playing apps (the dialog helpfully opens up the /Applications folder after you authenticate).

Quit and re-open your music apps. In their settings, make sure you enable 'global media hotkeys' (or similar; that's what Feishin labels it).

If Apple Music keeps launching when you hit the media keys, consider installing noTunes to stop that annoying behavior.