B-Side

YouTube Music,
in a small Mac player.

A native window the size of a record sleeve. B-Side plays through Google’s own player, hidden, and uses about a third of the memory of the web app.

Ask for early accessSee how it works

For macOS 14 and later.

Paused. Back in its sleeve.

Vibes

Streetlights counting down the road

Radio low, the windows open

Nobody needs to know

Where we go when the city sleeps

♪

Hold the wheel and hold the night

Every song’s the one we keep

Turn it up, the road is ours

Side B, track one, all the way home

Night DriveThe Low Hours
0:523:24
Liked MusicShuffled
Night drivePlaylist
FocusPlaylist
SundayRadio
RunPlaylist, shuffled
Night Drive · The Low HoursNight drive
  • Liked Music1,204 tracks
  • Night drive86 tracks
  • Focus142 tracks
  • Sunday morning38 tracks
  • Run61 tracks
  • Found on Explore17 tracks
Night Drive · The Low HoursNight drive
the low hours
SongsAlbumsArtistsPlaylists
  • Night DriveSong · The Low Hours
  • The Low HoursArtist
  • After MidnightAlbum · The Low Hours
  • StreetlightsSong · The Low Hours
  • Low Hours RadioPlaylist

Vibes

One click for a mood.

Your moods as tiles, each in a colour of its own. A tile plays a playlist in order or shuffled, Liked Music, or the radio of a track. Add, rename and recolour them as you like.

Playlists

Every playlist, private ones too.

Open one to play from any track. Make a new playlist, or add and remove tracks with a right-click. Long playlists load as you go.

Now Playing

The record turns while it plays.

Artwork, title, artist and the controls you need, on a window tinted by the cover. Pause, and the record stops like a turntable and slides back into its sleeve.

Lyrics

Lyrics that follow the song.

Line by line, in the artwork’s place. Click a line to play from there. Timings come from YouTube Music, or from LRCLIB when it has none.

Explore

All of YouTube Music, one search away.

Songs, albums, artists and playlists. An artist opens their top songs, albums and singles; a song plays on into its radio. Works without an account.

Light in every sense

A third of the memory.

The YouTube Music web app is a 4.8 MB script that grows to about 300 MB once it runs. B-Side never loads it. It starts Google’s own player on an empty page, so streams, sign-in and Premium all work as they do on the web, without the page around them.

The full YouTube Music pageabout 500 MB
B-Sideabout 175 MB
  • Audio only. When a track exists as a song and as a music video, B-Side plays the song.
  • Nothing in the background. Started at login, it waits in the menu bar at about 40 MB until you press Play.
  • Native. SwiftUI and AppKit, system menus and settings, light and dark, Reduce Motion and VoiceOver.

Out of the way

Close the window. The music plays on.

A record in the menu bar

It shows the track and holds Previous, Play and Next, every Vibe tile and every playlist.

Your Play key, your AirPods

Let B-Side start at login, and the Play key and AirPods start B-Side instead of Apple Music.

  • SpacePlay or pause
  • ⌘→Next track
  • ⌘←Previous track
  • ⌘LLike
  • ⌘RRepeat: off, all, one
  • ⇧⌘VPlay your Vibe

A key for everything

Every action is in the menu bar with a shortcut, and the media keys always work.

Flip it over.

B-Side is in early access. Write, and you get a build for your Mac.

Ask for early access

macOS 14 or later. A YouTube Music account, or none for search and radio.