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This article will show you How to Enable iTunes ‘Now Playing’ Notifications on Mac. If you own a Mac, you probably already know about a cool notice software called Growl. Growl is an application that shows system messages and application alerts in a stylish window.
It has been possible to use Growl to show which songs are “Now Playing” while using iTunes, but it often requires using different MacOS applications and software. But did you know that the Mac already has the same features built in by default? iTunes added support for iOS and the great iTunes Radio feature. It also added a small feature that lets you see changes in songs in the OS Notification Center.
Even though it’s a pretty small feature, there have been a lot of tweaks and apps from third parties that do similar things, so it’s nice to have it built in. This hidden feature lets you set up “Now Playing” messages from iTunes that will show up in the dock of your Mac. Apple hasn’t talked about this feature yet, and no one knows why. However, some people think that Apple plans to add a new messaging system to OS, which will be released soon in an update.
How to Enable iTunes ‘Now Playing’ Notifications on Mac
- Quit iTunes if its opened.
- Go to “Finder” > “Applications” > “Utilities” to launch Terminal
- Type and execute these commands one after one in Terminal window.
defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool TRUE defaults write com.apple.dock notification-always-show-image -bool TRUE killall Dock
- You will observe “Now Playing” Notifications appear above iTunes in dock when you will play any media file
Best iTunes Alternatives
MusicBee
MusicBee can be a good option to iTunes for playing and managing your music files. With logarithmic volume scaling, gapless playing, a 15-band equalizer for fine-tuning your music, and the ability to sync music between different devices, it turns your computer into a jukebox.
MusicBee stands out from its rivals because it has features that none of its rivals have. Some of these features are integration with Sound Cloud, the ability to change the theme, and auto-tagging, which instantly sorts your music collection. But there’s more. MusicBee is one of the best free iTunes alternatives for iPhone because it has a lot of WinAmp apps that make your music sound even better.
Vox
Vox has a lot to offer music lovers who want to listen to high-quality music. The most interesting thing about it, though, is that it can play Hi-Res music at up to 24bit/192kHz. That’s four times better than the usual sound quality of 44kHz.
Vox can play songs from your computer as well as from YouTube, SoundCloud, and more than 30,000 Internet Radio Stations. Vox also works with many different file formats, such as FLAC, APE, CUE, and M4A, making it a full music player and a strong alternative to iTunes.
MediaMonkey
If you have a lot of music, you know how hard it is to look through it all to find a song whose words suddenly come back to you. MediaMonkey can help you arrange more than 100,000 songs, audiobooks, music videos, and podcasts. It also automatically sorts files into groups based on tags and metadata, which makes it a great option to iTunes for Windows.
What’s the best? It also looks for files that are missing tags and information and adds them for you. It can also get rid of similar files, make playlists, and change the names of files so they are easier to find. MediaMonkey can also share music files between multiple devices, stream them over Bluetooth or Chromecast, and even change their file formats.