By Jason Snell

January 23, 2024 4:55 PM PT

Now playing: Customizable Mac music status via Sleeve 2

I listen to music on my Mac all day long, but It’s been a long while since I’ve displayed the currently playing track anywhere. I’ve gotten back into the habit thanks to the $6 utility Sleeve 2 by Replay.

What made me instantly buy Sleeve was its extensive capability to customize the currently playing track information. You can choose to show album art at a wide range of sizes (or omit it entirely), with your choice of corner rounding. You can choose display track name, album name, and artist name, and display them in a variety of fonts and weights. There’s customization for text alignment, drop shadows, and pretty much anything else you might want. You can set the track information to float above everything, always say on the Desktop layer, or float above briefly when the track changes, then land back on the desktop.

But what also distinguishes Sleeve 2 are the other Music-extending features that have been rolled in. The app integrates not just with Music (which I use) but Spotify, and it’ll also scrobble songs to Last.fm if you’re a latter-day scrobbler. And perhaps most importantly, it lets you program systemwide hot keys for controlling playback—and of course, you can opt to have those playback controls appear on the track information, too.

It’s the perfect example of a simple, low-cost Mac utility that makes life a little bit better. I’m happy to have my music back on my desktop again.

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