ByTune is a free, open-source YouTube Music desktop app for Windows & macOS. Stream music, keep your own library, and get word-synced lyrics, a fullscreen player, a mini player and real downloads — in one fast, native app. If ByTune has earned a spot on your taskbar, consider starring the repo (the ★ button, top right) — it's how other people find the project.
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ByTune is a free, open-source music player for Windows and macOS, built with Electron, React and TypeScript. It plays streaming music from YouTube Music (no login required) alongside your own local files, and wraps both in a proper desktop player: a queue, synced lyrics, playlists, downloads, listening stats and keyboard shortcuts.
It started as a desktop port of the GPL-licensed BitChord Android player, then grew into a full desktop app of its own — now shipping natively on Windows and macOS from one codebase.
Highlights
- YouTube Music on the desktop — home feed, search across songs / videos / albums / artists / playlists, album and artist pages, all without an account
- Word-synced lyrics — the current line (and word) highlighted in time with the music, auto-scrolling, click any line to jump; YouTube Music lyrics with an LRCLIB fallback when they're missing
- Fullscreen Now Playing — big artwork, queue and lyrics in one view; optional YouTube canvas video clips
- Mini player (picture-in-picture) — a compact always-on-top window that stays out of the way
- Local music library — import folders, get albums/artists/sorting, with non-music audio (voice notes, clips) filtered out
- Downloads — save any track as a
.m4afile, with live progress and configurable folder and quality - Replay — your listening counted over time: top artists, top songs, hours, monthly and hourly patterns
- Windows integration — media keys and the SMTC media overlay, custom title bar with snap-layout-aware caption buttons, right-click context menus
- macOS integration — native traffic lights, a real app menu with playback controls, close-to-hide playback, Keychain-backed secrets
Captured on the Windows edition — the macOS edition shares this same interface behind native Mac chrome (traffic lights, app menu bar).
Album pages, artist pages and the persistent player bar: every view keeps playback, the queue and lyrics one click away.
Click the artwork in the player bar (or press N) for a cinematic view: large artwork, a live visualizer, the queue and word-synced lyrics — all tinted by the colors of the current track.
The mini player is a real picture-in-picture window: always on top, resizable, with playback controls on hover. Work in something else and keep the music one glance away.
Lyrics open in the main view or the fullscreen player, highlight the current word, auto-scroll, and let you click any line to seek there. If YouTube Music has no lyrics for a track, ByTune falls back to LRCLIB.
Search songs, videos, albums, artists and playlists from YouTube Music, with live suggestions as you type. Press / to jump to the search bar from anywhere.
A proper queue: see what's playing and what's next, reorder by drag, add with "Play next" or "Add to queue" from any track's right-click menu, and keep the music going with Autoplay when the queue ends. Shuffle, repeat (off / all / one) and crossfade are one click away.
Your library persists on disk and restores on launch: liked songs, your own playlists, downloads and listening history — with an optional account to keep it safe even if this computer's app data is wiped.
Import folders from your PC and they sit beside your streaming library — full track lists, album and artist browsing, embedded artwork, and a filter that hides short recordings and voice notes.
Save any track as a .m4a file, with live progress, an "Open folder" shortcut, a configurable download location and quality options up to the app's "Lossless" setting.
Streaming quality ceilings, download quality, crossfade and Auto Mix, skip silence, autoplay, pitch-preserving playback speed, lyric behavior, appearance (liquid glass, reduced motion) and local-music management — all in one settings page.
| Feature | ByTune |
|---|---|
| Streaming from YouTube Music (no login required) | ✅ |
| Search (songs / videos / albums / artists / playlists) | ✅ |
| Word-synced lyrics with click-to-seek | ✅ |
| Fullscreen Now Playing view | ✅ |
| Mini player (picture-in-picture) | ✅ |
| Queue with reorder, play next, autoplay | ✅ |
| Playlists, liked songs, listening history | ✅ |
| Local music library (folder import) | ✅ |
| Downloads (.m4a, configurable folder & quality) | ✅ |
| Listening statistics (Replay) | ✅ |
| Crossfade, Auto Mix, skip silence, playback speed | ✅ |
| Optional account with library backup | ✅ |
| Windows media keys + SMTC overlay | ✅ Windows |
| Native traffic lights & hidden-inset title bar | ✅ macOS |
| macOS menu bar with playback controls | ✅ macOS |
| Close-to-hide: music keeps playing, Dock restores | ✅ macOS |
| Keychain-backed secret storage | ✅ macOS |
| Apple Silicon + Intel builds | ✅ macOS |
| Keyboard shortcuts | ✅ |
| Artwork-driven ambient theming (dark) | ✅ |
| Light theme | ❌ (dark only, by design) |
- Desktop-first. A real window, media keys, keyboard shortcuts, a taskbar- and Dock-friendly mini player — not a website in a wrapper.
- Open source. GPL-3.0; every line is inspectable and contributions are welcome.
- Two libraries, one player. Streaming from YouTube Music and your own files, side by side, with the same queue, lyrics and downloads.
- No login required. Guest mode keeps your data on this computer; accounts are optional.
- Free, in the open. No subscriptions, no locked features, no dark patterns.
ByTune is not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube/Google.
On a Mac, ByTune behaves like a Mac app:
- Native traffic lights. The window uses the real macOS close/minimize/fullscreen buttons in their standard place; the UI leaves room for them instead of drawing fake ones.
- A real menu bar. ByTune · File · Edit · View · Playback · Window — with live playback checkmarks (Play↔Pause, Shuffle, Repeat), Settings… ⌘,, backup import/export ⌘O/⌘S, and Find ⌘F.
- Closing the window keeps the music playing. Like Apple Music or Spotify: the red button (or ⌘W) hides the window and playback continues; click the Dock icon to bring it back. ⌘Q is the real quit.
- Media keys and Now Playing. Play/pause, next and previous respond to the keyboard's media keys, and the current track is published to the system Now Playing info.
- Keychain-backed secrets. Sign-in tokens are sealed with the macOS Keychain via Electron's safeStorage, not written as plain text.
- Retina and Apple Silicon. The UI is HiDPI-sharp, and native arm64 and Intel builds ship together.
| Action | Windows | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| Play / pause | Space · media keys | Space · media keys |
| Seek ±5 s | ← / → | ← / → |
| Previous / next track | Shift+← / Shift+→ | Shift+← / Shift+→ |
| Volume · mute | ↑ / ↓ · M | ↑ / ↓ · M |
| Shuffle · Repeat | S · R | S · R |
| Queue · Lyrics · Now Playing | Q · L · N | Q · L · N |
| Focus search | Ctrl+F or / | ⌘+F or / |
| Fullscreen Now Playing | N | Ctrl+⌘+F |
| Settings… | — | ⌘+, |
| Import / export backup | — | ⌘+O / ⌘+S |
| Close window (keeps playing) | — | ⌘+W |
| Quit | — | ⌘+Q |
Shortcuts never hijack typing — they only fire when a text field isn't focused. On macOS, menu accelerators are deliberately transport-free so they can't steal keystrokes from the app.
Is ByTune free?
Yes. It's open source under GPL-3.0, with no subscriptions, no ads and no locked features.
Does it need a YouTube Music Premium or Google account?
No. ByTune streams from YouTube Music without logging in — an account is only used if you turn on the optional cloud backup for your library.
Is this the official YouTube Music app?
No. ByTune is an independent, open-source desktop player that uses YouTube Music as a streaming source. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube or Google.
Which platforms does it run on?
Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), and macOS 11 or later on Apple Silicon and Intel. The Windows edition is the more mature of the two; macOS builds are newer.
Can I save songs for offline listening?
Yes — any track can be downloaded as a .m4a file, with your choice of folder and quality.
Application — Electron · React 18 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · Zustand
Streaming & audio — youtubei.js (YouTube Music / InnerTube) · bgutils-js (BotGuard PO tokens) · music-metadata (local files)
Backend (optional account) — Supabase (auth + library backup)
Build & tooling — Vite · esbuild · electron-builder (NSIS installer on Windows · DMG/ZIP for Apple Silicon and Intel on macOS) · Node's built-in test runner
Windows 10/11 (64-bit) — grab the installer from the latest release:
Download ByTune-Setup.exe ← always points at the newest build
Also available on the website and the releases page.
macOS 11+ (Apple Silicon & Intel) — the macOS edition is new. DMG and ZIP artifacts are attached to the releases page as they're cut, and you can always build the current code yourself: npm run dist:mac produces ByTune-<version>-arm64.dmg / ByTune-<version>-x64.dmg in release/. On first launch of an unsigned build, right-click ByTune.app in Applications and choose Open (needed once). Signing and notarization steps live in MAC_BUILD_AND_SIGNING.md, the distribution checklist in DISTRIBUTION.md, and current caveats in MAC_KNOWN_LIMITATIONS.md.
Run the installer, launch ByTune, and pick Continue as guest (data stays on this computer) or create an account for cloud backup.
Every release asset has a published SHA-256 checksum. Check yours against the list below (current as of v1.0.1):
| Asset | SHA-256 |
|---|---|
ByTune-Setup.exe |
a0a712b16047b9ceac26f5dc862a5f9db92041c78983aa01b44db760f3e1324c |
ByTune-1.0.1-arm64.dmg |
4c5301df28fe16a37a887a34318d72ce04447418b8b82abb1cf860189cdf7273 |
ByTune-1.0.1-arm64.zip |
e4a9a11dd412db0da36aaa820008e50017aa19606d1518d5e70c63c91df3991c |
ByTune-1.0.1-x64.dmg |
64816c1b19efd2ec2213f4a79a8d8d63bfb5cb17e70ebea8a9818e3927901062 |
ByTune-1.0.1-x64.zip |
2e06fefae815eb57d62c0656472d740e010bc9a554897ee6d701036eb26f9634 |
# Windows (PowerShell)
Get-FileHash .\ByTune-Setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256# macOS / Linux
shasum -a 256 ByTune-1.0.1-arm64.dmgThe installers are unsigned (no code-signing certificate yet), so Windows SmartScreen and macOS Gatekeeper will warn on first run — the checksum table above is the way to confirm the file you downloaded is the one this project built.
git clone https://github.com/rishiteja21/ByTune.git
cd ByTune
npm install
npm run dev # vite + electron with hot reloadUseful commands:
npm test # unit tests (node --test)
npm run typecheck # tsc --noEmit
npm run dist # build + package for the current platform
npm run dist:win # NSIS installer into release/ (Windows)
npm run dist:mac # DMG + ZIP, arm64 + x64, into release/ (needs macOS)See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup details, tests and pull-request guidelines. Bug reports and feature ideas go to the issue tracker.
UI (React views + components)
│
Application state (Zustand stores: player · library · settings · ui)
│
Audio engine & player bar (playback, MediaSession, shortcuts)
│ IPC (contextBridge preload)
Electron main process
├─ music-service YouTube Music search / albums / playlists / lyrics / streams
├─ stream-proxy local range-aware media proxy
├─ downloads track downloader with progress events
├─ pip mini player window (always-on-top, state-synced)
├─ mac-menu native menu bar template + command bridge (macOS)
├─ supabase auth (username / Google / guest) + cloud backup
└─ persist JSON persistence for your library & settings
│
Providers & storage (YouTube Music · LRCLIB · local files · optional Supabase account)
A deeper dive — including how anonymous YouTube Music streaming works (BotGuard PO tokens, InnerTube client rotation, the local stream proxy) and how persistence, Auto Mix analysis and local-music scanning are implemented — lives in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.
ByTune is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 (see LICENSE). It began as a fork of the BitChord Android player, which shares this license — thank you to its author for building in the open.
Please use ByTune responsibly and in accordance with the terms of the services it accesses.
- Website: https://bytune.space/
- Releases: https://github.com/rishiteja21/ByTune/releases
- Latest Windows installer: https://github.com/rishiteja21/ByTune/releases/latest/download/ByTune-Setup.exe
- macOS build & signing: MAC_BUILD_AND_SIGNING.md
- Architecture deep dive: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
- Issue tracker: https://github.com/rishiteja21/ByTune/issues