Play something in the Music app on your Mac and your Slack status becomes the track. Stop playing and it clears itself. That's the whole feature.

You don't sign in to Apple Music

There's no Apple ID login, no permission screen, no account access. TuneStatus asks the Music app already running on your Mac what's playing, using macOS's built-in automation. It reads a song title and an artist name from an app you already have open. It never talks to Apple's servers, and it has no idea what else is in your library.

What it costs

Apple Music support is TuneStatus Pro: $4.99, one time. Not a subscription — there's no renewal, nothing to cancel, and nothing that can lapse. Spotify support is free and stays free; you only need Pro if you want the Music app read too. Payment is handled by Stripe, so your card never touches tunestatus.com.

Getting there

Download the app, unzip it, drag it to Applications, sign in with Slack. Then open TuneStatus and click Upgrade — you'll be back in the app about thirty seconds later with Apple Music reading. macOS will ask once whether TuneStatus may control the Music app; that prompt is the automation permission, and it's the only one you'll see.

↓ Download for Mac — Free

What Slack sees

One thing: your own status. TuneStatus can set it, read it (so it never clobbers a status you typed yourself), and look at your workspace's custom emoji list so it can use :applemusic: if you have it — 🎵 if you don't. No messages, no files, no channels, nothing about anyone but you. The privacy policy lists every field it stores, and how it works walks through the whole loop.

The honest limits

You need the Music desktop app, playing on the Mac that's running TuneStatus. Radio and some streaming stations don't report a track that macOS can read, so those show nothing rather than something wrong. Podcasts are never shared. If Spotify and Music are both playing, Spotify wins. And if you set your own status — "In a meeting", "Heads down" — your status wins, and your music comes back when you clear it.

Other players

Spotify and Apple Music are the two that work. Tidal, YouTube Music and Amazon Music don't expose what's playing to other apps on a Mac at all, so no tool can read them — ours included. More on which music apps can show in your Slack status.