epheterson/apple-music

Apple Music Integration

Guide for integrating with Apple Music. Three approaches: AppleScript (direct control), UI automation (catalog without API), and MusicKit API (cross-platform).

When to Use

Invoke when users ask to:

• Manage playlists (create, add/remove tracks, list)
• Control playback (play, pause, skip, volume)
• Play an Apple Music URL (album, playlist, or song)
• Search catalog or library
• Add songs to library
• Access listening history or recommendations

Critical Rule: Library-First Workflow

You CANNOT add catalog songs directly to playlists.

Songs must be in the user's library first:

• ❌ Catalog ID → Playlist (fails)
• ✅ Catalog ID → Library → Playlist (works)

Why: Playlists use library IDs (i.abc123), not catalog IDs (1234567890).

This applies to both AppleScript and API approaches.

---

AppleScript (macOS)

Zero setup. Works immediately with the Music app.

Run via Bash:

osascript -e 'tell application "Music" to playpause'
osascript -e 'tell application "Music" to return name of current track'

Multi-line scripts:

osascript <<'EOF'
tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    return {name of t, artist of t}
end tell
EOF

Available Operations

| Category | Operations | |----------|------------| | Playback | play, pause, stop, resume, next track, previous track, fast forward, rewind, play URL | | Player State | player position, player state, sound volume, mute, shuffle enabled/mode, song repeat | | Current Track | name, artist, album, duration, time, rating, loved, disliked, genre, year, track number | | Library | search, list tracks, get track properties, set ratings | | Playlists | list, create, delete, rename, add tracks, remove tracks, get tracks | | AirPlay | list devices, select device, current device |

Track Properties (Read)

tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    -- Basic info
    name of t           -- "Hey Jude"
    artist of t         -- "The Beatles"
    album of t          -- "1 (Remastered)"
    album artist of t   -- "The Beatles"
    composer of t       -- "Lennon-McCartney"
    genre of t          -- "Rock"
    year of t           -- 1968

    -- Timing
    duration of t       -- 431.0 (seconds)
    time of t           -- "7:11" (formatted)
    start of t          -- start time in seconds
    finish of t         -- end time in seconds

    -- Track info
    track number of t   -- 21
    track count of t    -- 27
    disc number of t    -- 1
    disc count of t     -- 1

    -- Ratings
    rating of t         -- 0-100 (20 per star)
    loved of t          -- true/false
    disliked of t       -- true/false

    -- Playback
    played count of t   -- 42
    played date of t    -- date last played
    skipped count of t  -- 3
    skipped date of t   -- date last skipped

    -- IDs
    persistent ID of t  -- "ABC123DEF456"
    database ID of t    -- 12345
end tell

Track Properties (Writable)

tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    set rating of t to 80          -- 4 stars
    set loved of t to true
    set disliked of t to false
    set name of t to "New Name"    -- rename track
    set genre of t to "Alternative"
    set year of t to 1995
end tell

Player State Properties

tell application "Music"
    player state          -- stopped, playing, paused, fast forwarding, rewinding
    player position       -- current position in seconds (read/write)
    sound volume          -- 0-100 (read/write)
    mute                  -- true/false (read/write)
    shuffle enabled       -- true/false (read/write)
    shuffle mode          -- songs, albums, groupings
    song repeat           -- off, one, all (read/write)
    current track         -- track object
    current playlist      -- playlist object
    current stream URL    -- URL if streaming
end tell

Playback Commands

tell application "Music"
    -- Play controls
    play                          -- play current selection
    pause
    stop
    resume
    playpause                     -- toggle play/pause
    next track
    previous track
    fast forward
    rewind

    -- Play specific content
    play (first track of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey Jude")
    play user playlist "Road Trip"

    -- Settings
    set player position to 60     -- seek to 1:00
    set sound volume to 50        -- 0-100
    set mute to true
    set shuffle enabled to true
    set song repeat to all        -- off, one, all
end tell

Matching titles with typographic punctuation / accents

whose name contains "..." is glyph-exact — unlike Music's native search command, it does not fold a straight apostrophe (U+0027) against the curly one (U+2019) Music often stores, nor accents. So whose name contains "That's a No No" misses a title stored as That's a No No. Two robust strategies:

-- 1. Match the quote-free fragments instead of the apostrophe itself.
--    Works regardless of which apostrophe variant is stored or typed.
play (first track of library playlist 1 whose ¬
    (name contains "That" and name contains "s a No No"))

-- 2. For accents/ellipsis/anything: bulk-fetch names in ONE Apple Event and
--    fold in-memory. `ignoring punctuation and diacriticals` uses Apple's
--    Unicode tables (curly quotes, ellipses, café≈cafe). Do NOT access
--    `name of t` per-iteration in a loop — that is one Apple Event per track
--    (~17s on a 12k library); fetch the whole list at once (~instant).
tell application "Music"
    set allNames to (get name of every track of library playlist 1)
    set idx to 0
    ignoring punctuation and diacriticals
        repeat with i from 1 to (count of allNames)
            if ((item i of allNames) as text) contains "Fur Elise" then
                set idx to i
                exit repeat
            end if
        end repeat
    end ignoring
    if idx > 0 then play (track idx of library playlist 1)
end tell

Library Queries

tell application "Music"
    -- All library tracks
    every track of library playlist 1

    -- Search by name
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Beatles"

    -- Search by artist
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose artist contains "Beatles"

    -- Search by album
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose album contains "Abbey Road"

    -- Combined search
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey" and artist contains "Beatles"

    -- By genre
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose genre is "Rock"

    -- By year
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose year is 1969

    -- By rating
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose rating > 60  -- 3+ stars

    -- Loved tracks
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose loved is true

    -- Recently played (sort by played date)
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose played date > (current date) - 7 * days
end tell

Playlist Operations

tell application "Music"
    -- List all playlists
    name of every user playlist

    -- Get playlist
    user playlist "Road Trip"
    first user playlist whose name contains "Road"

    -- Create playlist
    make new user playlist with properties {name:"New Playlist", description:"My playlist"}

    -- Delete playlist
    delete user playlist "Old Playlist"

    -- Rename playlist
    set name of user playlist "Old Name" to "New Name"

    -- Get playlist tracks
    every track of user playlist "Road Trip"
    name of every track of user playlist "Road Trip"

    -- Add track to playlist (must be library track)
    set targetPlaylist to user playlist "Road Trip"
    set targetTrack to first track of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey Jude"
    duplicate targetTrack to targetPlaylist

    -- Remove track from playlist
    delete (first track of user playlist "Road Trip" whose name contains "Hey Jude")

    -- Playlist properties
    duration of user playlist "Road Trip"   -- total duration
    time of user playlist "Road Trip"       -- formatted duration
    count of tracks of user playlist "Road Trip"
end tell

AirPlay

tell application "Music"
    -- List AirPlay devices
    name of every AirPlay device

    -- Get current device
    current AirPlay devices

    -- Set output device
    set current AirPlay devices to {AirPlay device "Living Room"}

    -- Multiple devices
    set current AirPlay devices to {AirPlay device "Living Room", AirPlay device "Kitchen"}

    -- Device properties
    set d to AirPlay device "Living Room"
    name of d
    kind of d           -- computer, AirPort Express, Apple TV, AirPlay device, Bluetooth device
    active of d         -- true if playing
    available of d      -- true if reachable
    selected of d       -- true if in current devices
    sound volume of d   -- 0-100
end tell

String Escaping

Always escape user input:

def escape_applescript(s):
    return s.replace('\\', '\\\\').replace('"', '\\"')

safe_name = escape_applescript(user_input)
script = f'tell application "Music" to play user playlist "{safe_name}"'

Common Failures

osascript stderr messages map to a small set of environmental states. When AppleScript fails, classify before deciding what to tell the user — surfacing the raw stderr is misleading; cascading silently to an API path leaks unrelated errors (e.g. "Developer token not found" when the real problem was Music.app being closed).

| Stderr signal | What it means | What to tell the user | |---|---|---| | (-609), Connection is invalid, (-10810), isn't running, Can't get application "Music" | Music.app isn't running or has crashed mid-session | "Music.app isn't running. Open it and retry." | | (-1743), Not authorized, not allowed assistive access, assistive access | The host process (Claude Desktop, Python CLI, Terminal) hasn't been granted Automation permission for Music | "Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation, find the app running this code, enable the 'Music' toggle." | | AppleScript timed out after 30 seconds | The 30s subprocess timeout fired — Music.app stuck or still launching | "Music.app may be unresponsive — quit and reopen it." | | syntax error, expected … but found … | The script itself is malformed (developer bug) | Report the raw error — this is on us, not the user. | | Anything else | Logic-level error (track not found, playlist empty, etc.) | Surface the raw stderr; safe to cascade to API if a legitimate fallback exists. |

Don't bare-match not allowed — Music.app emits "operation not allowed on smart playlists" and similar logic-level errors that should NOT classify as Automation-denial. Match the full not allowed assistive or assistive access phrase.

Don't gate on is_available() alone — that only checks darwin + osascript exists. It can't tell you whether Music.app is running or whether Automation permissions have been granted. The error-categorization above is your only signal for those states.

Limitations

• macOS only — no Windows/Linux
• UI features require display — UI automation won't work headless or with Music.app minimized
• Music.app must be running — is_available() returns True as soon as osascript is on PATH, but every tell application "Music" block needs Music.app actually running. First call after a fresh boot may also trigger an Automation-permission prompt the user has to approve once.

---

UI Automation (macOS)

For catalog features without an API token. Controls Music.app through System Events (Accessibility API) and CoreGraphics (mouse events).

Requirements: Display attached, Music.app visible, Accessibility permissions for System Events (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility).

Key Concepts

System Events reads and clicks UI elements by their accessibility hierarchy:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Music"
    -- Main content area
    scroll area 2 of splitter group 1 of window "Music"
    -- Search field
    text field 1 of UI element 1 of row 1 of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of window "Music"
end tell

CoreGraphics mouse events (via JXA) trigger hover effects that reveal hidden UI controls:

// osascript -l JavaScript
ObjC.import("CoreGraphics");
var point = $.CGPointMake(x, y);
var event = $.CGEventCreateMouseEvent($(), $.kCGEventMouseMoved, point, 0);
$.CGEventPost($.kCGHIDEventTap, event);

The Hover Trick

Music.app hides per-track Play and "Add to Library" buttons until the mouse hovers over a track row. To interact with them programmatically:

1. Find the track's UI element position via System Events
2. Move the mouse there via CoreGraphics (generates real hover events)
3. The hidden checkbox (play) and button (Add to Library) appear in the accessibility tree
4. Click them via System Events

Search via UI

1. Set the search field value: set value of searchField to "query"
2. Press Return: key code 36
3. Wait for results to load (~4 seconds)
4. Parse the "Top Results" list from scroll area 2
5. Each result is a UI element with description = name, static texts for type/artist

Note: The type separator in results uses Unicode three-per-em space (U+2004) + middle dot (U+00B7): Song꘎·꘎Radiohead

Window Recovery

Music.app can run without a window. To ensure a window exists:

tell application "Music" to activate
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Music"
    if (count of windows) is 0 then
        click menu item "Music" of menu "Window" of menu bar 1
    end if
end tell

Fragility

UI paths break when Apple updates Music.app's layout. Centralize paths as constants and test after macOS updates. Use Accessibility Inspector.app to explore the current hierarchy.

The search field location changed between macOS 15 (sidebar outline row) and macOS 26/Tahoe (toolbar group). The server probes for the toolbar element at runtime using an AppleScript exists check and falls back to the sidebar path — so both OS versions are supported without hardcoding. If UI search ever breaks on a new macOS version, inspect the search field path first.

Tool routing (when to use which top-level action)

When a user asks for something, the right MCP tool depends on whether they're searching their library or the catalog. Easy to confuse — gating wrong here leads users into "Developer token not found" rabbit holes when the operation could have worked tokenlessly.

| Goal | Use | Notes | |---|---|---| | Find a song the user already has | library(action='search', query='...') | Local library only. AppleScript on macOS, API otherwise. | | Find a song in Apple Music's full catalog | catalog(action='search', query='...') | Tries API first, falls back to Music.app UI search on tokenless macOS. | | Add a catalog song to the user's library | library(action='add', track='...') | API path with token, UI automation path on tokenless macOS. | | Add a song (in library OR catalog) to a playlist | playlist(action='add', track='...', auto_search=True) | auto_search=True is required to reach the catalog when the song isn't already in the library. Default is False to avoid unwanted library writes — set it to True for "fill this playlist" workflows. | | Browse charts / recommendations | discover | API only. No UI fallback for this one. |

If library(action='search') returns "No songs found in library", it is not a hint to set up an API token — it's a hint to try catalog(action='search') or playlist(action='add', auto_search=True) instead. The tokenless macOS path covers all of these.

Compound flows (no API)

Recipes for replicating applemusic-mcp's catalog features without an API token. Gate each user request on "does this need catalog access?" — pure library and playback ops stay in AppleScript; only catalog lookups go through UI automation.

Add a catalog song to the user's library

If the user gave a single combined string like "Silvera - GOJIRA", split on - before searching so the catalog query gets a clean name.

1. UI search for the target (§ Search via UI)
2. Pick the first Song result whose name + artist match — do not fall back to a non-Song result; fail cleanly if no Song matched. Stale search state can lead to wrong-result clicks otherwise.
3. Get the result's element position via System Events
4. Move the mouse there via CoreGraphics to trigger hover — the hidden "Add to Library" button becomes reachable in the accessibility tree
5. Click it via System Events
6. Clear the search field so the next call starts from fresh state
7. Poll search_library via AppleScript until the track is visible locally (typical 0.5–8 s; iCloud can stall longer — cap at ~18 s, then give up cleanly)

Add a catalog song to a specific playlist

Compose "add to library" (above) → then AppleScript duplicate the new library track into the target playlist:

tell application "Music"
    set targetTrack to first track of library playlist 1 ¬
        whose name contains "Silvera" and artist contains "GOJIRA"
    duplicate targetTrack to user playlist "Road Trip"
end tell

Don't click "Add to Playlist" menu items via UI — the AppleScript duplicate path is more reliable. Even if you have a dev token, don't hit POST /v1/me/library/playlists/{id}/tracks — it returns HTTP 500 for any playlist not originally created via API (the default for playlists made in Music.app). duplicate works for any playlist.

Post-add verification

The UI path can silently click the wrong result under stale search state, and AppleScript state lags briefly after a fresh add. Always verify the expected track actually landed:

tell application "Music"
    set matches to (every track of user playlist "Road Trip" ¬
        whose name contains "Silvera" and artist contains "GOJIRA")
    return (count of matches) > 0
end tell

Retry once after a ~1 s sleep before failing. If the second verify still fails, trust it — the add did not land, surface the error instead of claiming false success.

---

MusicKit API

Cross-platform but requires Apple Developer account ($99/year) and token setup.

Authentication

Requirements:

1. Apple Developer account
2. MusicKit key (.p8 file) from developer portal
3. Developer token (JWT, 180 day max)
4. User music token (browser OAuth)

Generate developer token:

import jwt, datetime

with open('AuthKey_XXXXXXXXXX.p8') as f:
    private_key = f.read()

token = jwt.encode(
    {
        'iss': 'TEAM_ID',
        'iat': int(datetime.datetime.now().timestamp()),
        'exp': int((datetime.datetime.now() + datetime.timedelta(days=180)).timestamp())
    },
    private_key,
    algorithm='ES256',
    headers={'alg': 'ES256', 'kid': 'KEY_ID'}
)

Get user token: Browser OAuth to https://authorize.music.apple.com/woa

Headers for all requests:

Authorization: Bearer {developer_token}
Music-User-Token: {user_music_token}

Base URL: https://api.music.apple.com/v1

Available Endpoints

Catalog (Public - dev token only)

| Endpoint | Method | Description | |----------|--------|-------------| | /catalog/{storefront}/search | GET | Search songs, albums, artists, playlists | | /catalog/{storefront}/songs/{id} | GET | Song details | | /catalog/{storefront}/albums/{id} | GET | Album details | | /catalog/{storefront}/albums/{id}/tracks | GET | Album tracks | | /catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id} | GET | Artist details | | /catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id}/albums | GET | Artist's albums | | /catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id}/songs | GET | Artist's top songs | | /catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id}/related-artists | GET | Similar artists | | /catalog/{storefront}/playlists/{id} | GET | Playlist details | | /catalog/{storefront}/charts | GET | Top charts | | /catalog/{storefront}/genres | GET | All genres | | /catalog/{storefront}/search/suggestions | GET | Search autocomplete | | /catalog/{storefront}/stations/{id} | GET | Radio station |

Library (Requires user token)

| Endpoint | Method | Description | |----------|--------|-------------| | /me/library/songs | GET | All library songs | | /me/library/albums | GET | All library albums | | /me/library/artists | GET | All library artists | | /me/library/playlists | GET | All library playlists | | /me/library/playlists/{id} | GET | Playlist details | | /me/library/playlists/{id}/tracks | GET | Playlist tracks | | /me/library/search | GET | Search library | | /me/library | POST | Add to library | | /catalog/{sf}/songs/{id}/library | GET | Get library ID from catalog ID |

Playlist Management

| Endpoint | Method | Description | |----------|--------|-------------| | /me/library/playlists | POST | Create playlist | | /me/library/playlists/{id}/tracks | POST | Add tracks to playlist |

Personalization

| Endpoint | Method | Description | |----------|--------|-------------| | /me/recommendations | GET | Personalized recommendations | | /me/history/heavy-rotation | GET | Frequently played | | /me/recent/played | GET | Recently played | | /me/recent/added | GET | Recently added |

Ratings

| Endpoint | Method | Description | |----------|--------|-------------| | /me/ratings/songs/{id} | GET | Get song rating | | /me/ratings/songs/{id} | PUT | Set song rating | | /me/ratings/songs/{id} | DELETE | Remove rating | | /me/ratings/albums/{id} | GET/PUT/DELETE | Album ratings | | /me/ratings/playlists/{id} | GET/PUT/DELETE | Playlist ratings |

Storefronts

| Endpoint | Method | Description | |----------|--------|-------------| | /storefronts | GET | All storefronts | | /storefronts/{id} | GET | Storefront details | | /me/storefront | GET | User's storefront |

Common Query Parameters

| Parameter | Description | Example | |-----------|-------------|---------| | term | Search query | term=beatles | | types | Resource types | types=songs,albums | | limit | Results per page (max 25) | limit=10 | | offset | Pagination offset | offset=25 | | include | Related resources | include=artists,albums | | extend | Additional attributes | extend=editorialNotes | | l | Language code | l=en-US |

Search Example

GET /v1/catalog/us/search?term=wonderwall&types=songs&limit=10

Response:
{
  "results": {
    "songs": {
      "data": [{
        "id": "1234567890",
        "type": "songs",
        "attributes": {
          "name": "Wonderwall",
          "artistName": "Oasis",
          "albumName": "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?",
          "durationInMillis": 258773,
          "releaseDate": "1995-10-02",
          "genreNames": ["Alternative", "Music"]
        }
      }]
    }
  }
}

Library-First Workflow (Complete)

Adding a catalog song to a playlist requires 4 API calls:

import requests

headers = {
    "Authorization": f"Bearer {dev_token}",
    "Music-User-Token": user_token
}

# 1. Search catalog
r = requests.get(
    "https://api.music.apple.com/v1/catalog/us/search",
    headers=headers,
    params={"term": "Wonderwall Oasis", "types": "songs", "limit": 1}
)
catalog_id = r.json()['results']['songs']['data'][0]['id']

# 2. Add to library
requests.post(
    "https://api.music.apple.com/v1/me/library",
    headers=headers,
    params={"ids[songs]": catalog_id}
)

# 3. Get library ID (catalog ID → library ID)
r = requests.get(
    f"https://api.music.apple.com/v1/catalog/us/songs/{catalog_id}/library",
    headers=headers
)
library_id = r.json()['data'][0]['id']

# 4. Add to playlist (library IDs only!)
requests.post(
    f"https://api.music.apple.com/v1/me/library/playlists/{playlist_id}/tracks",
    headers={**headers, "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={"data": [{"id": library_id, "type": "library-songs"}]}
)

Create Playlist

POST /v1/me/library/playlists
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "attributes": {
    "name": "Road Trip",
    "description": "Summer vibes"
  },
  "relationships": {
    "tracks": {
      "data": []
    }
  }
}

Ratings

# Love a song (value: 1 = love, -1 = dislike)
PUT /v1/me/ratings/songs/{id}
Content-Type: application/json

{"attributes": {"value": 1}}

Limitations

• No playback control - API cannot play/pause/skip
• Playlist editing - can only modify API-created playlists
• Token management - dev tokens expire every 180 days
• Rate limits - Apple enforces request limits

---

Common Mistakes

❌ Using catalog IDs in playlists:

# WRONG
json={"data": [{"id": "1234567890", "type": "songs"}]}

Fix: Add to library first, get library ID, then add.

❌ Playing catalog songs via AppleScript:

# WRONG
play track id "1234567890"

Fix: Song must be in library.

❌ Unescaped AppleScript strings:

# WRONG
name = "Rock 'n Roll"
script = f'tell application "Music" to play playlist "{name}"'

Fix: Escape quotes.

❌ Expired tokens: Dev tokens last 180 days max. Fix: Check expiration, handle 401 errors.

---

The Easy Way: applemusic-mcp

The applemusic-mcp MCP server handles all this complexity automatically: AppleScript escaping, token management, library-first workflow, ID conversions.

Install:

git clone https://github.com/epheterson/applemusic-mcp.git
cd applemusic-mcp && python3 -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Configure Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Apple Music": {
      "command": "/path/to/applemusic-mcp/venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["-m", "applemusic_mcp"]
    }
  }
}

On macOS, most features work immediately. For catalog features or Windows/Linux, see the repo README.

| Manual | applemusic-mcp | |--------|----------------| | 4 API calls to add song | playlist(action="add", auto_search=True) | | Copy URL + open in Music | playback(action="play", url="...") | | UI hover + click to add to library | library(action="add") with UI fallback | | Track library changes manually | library(action="snapshot") | | AppleScript escaping | Automatic | | Token management | Automatic with warnings |