How to favorite the current song in Apple Music from the menu bar
You are working, a song comes on and you want to keep it. The favorite button lives in the Music window, which is behind everything else. Here are three ways to favorite the current song without hunting for that window.
Way 1: the Music window
Bring Music forward, click the star next to the song title in the player at the top. The song goes to your Favorite Songs playlist and the star fills in. It works every time and it costs you a context switch
Way 2: the Music menu bar
In Music, open the Song menu and choose Favorite. The menu item is also there for the song that is playing now, so you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts, using the exact menu title
The catch: app shortcuts only fire while Music is the frontmost app. So this is still a window switch, only a faster one
Way 3: a star in the menu bar
Likeit puts one star in the Mac menu bar. Click it and the song playing in Music becomes a favorite. Click again to remove it. The star is filled when the song is already a favorite, so one glance tells you the state
- It works with songs from your library, with Apple Music streaming and with radio
- Right-click for the song title and Quit
- It never launches Music by itself and it collects nothing
Likeit needs macOS 14 or newer. The first time you click the star, macOS asks whether Likeit may control Music. Allow it once and that is the whole setup
Which one to pick
If you favorite a few songs a week, Way 1 or 2 is fine. If you favorite songs while working in another app, the menu bar star saves the switch every time, and that is what Likeit is for