Listening Post
A macOS app that identifies music playing around you, constantly. Local first. Automate using Shortcuts, export to files, or scrobble to Last.fm and ListenBrainz. It's your data.
For macOS 15.6+. Currently in public beta.
Free during beta. After that: Perpetual upgrade licenses. No subscriptions.
After downloading, check
our forum for
updates, discussion, and support.
Music Is Everywhere.
But Your Scrobbler Isn't Listening.
There are apps for keeping track of your Apple Music or Spotify listens. They send them to Last.fm or ListenBrainz so you can get music recommendations based on what you listened to. Which is cool! But. BUT.
What about the radio in the background? The music at the nice coffee shop where you often work? The bangers in the videos you watch? That's all music you're experiencing, and very likely also music that you enjoy — but it "doesn't count", because it's not happening in Apple Music or Spotify.
Listening Post keeps an open ear to the music around you. It hears what you hear via your Mac's mic. And then, if you like, it scrobbles the track info to Last.fm or ListenBrainz, adds it to your Apple Music library (if you have a subscription), or writes it to local files. Or runs an automation. Your call.
Here's How It Works.
Recognition
Every minute, Listening Post briefly uses the mic to check for playing music. When it detects a song, the track is saved to its internal database.
Enrichment
After recognition, the app queries external services for additional metadata, like ListenBrainz or Last.fm track links, and the release year. Each source is only queried when its corresponding channel is enabled.
It Posts Your Listens (Eh? EH? 😅)
Recognized tracks wait in a queue (default: 5 mins) before being sent anywhere. This gives you time to skip false positives or tell the app to forget particularly awful songs before they're recorded.
Channels: Track Destinations
Channels are output destinations where Listening Post sends recognized tracks. Each can be independently enabled or disabled.
These are the channels Listening Post supports so far. It's early days, and there are more to come.
Last.fm
Apple Music
Local Files
macOS Shortcuts
Your Data. Truly. Locally.
As nice as Last.fm is, it shouldn't be your source of truth! Services jack up prices, decide you're not their target demo anymore, or shut down their APIs so you lose access to the raw data.
Listening Post stores your data on your machine, where it belongs, and happily exports to local files as it goes along, in formats you can work with. You share to scrobbling services rather than fully rely on them.
Personally, I hate having to ask external services for my own data. With Listening Post, my listening history is mine from the start. #DigitalSovereignty
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