2021 Macbook Pro Play/Pause F8 button Spotify default

I don't use Apple Music, but I do use spotify, so I set the pause/play button "F8" key (on newer M1 Pro and M1 Max Macbook Pros) to launch Spotify instead of Apple Music. It works great, but then the play/pause button doesn't work anymore for playing and pausing inside of spotify.

What additional action can I add to get back this functionality? The current default I have now tries to launch spotify every time even if the application is open. How can I make this better? Thanks

Maybe you can create a conditional activation group that checks whether spotify is running - and only have the play / pause button configured if it's not already running:


However it seems the button only reacts for spotify after you have once clicked the play button manually

Unfortunately, No. This is not working. Now it launches Apple Music by default again.

It’s working fine here, could you post a screenshot of your activation group?




When "spotify is on" I made the other group to go back to pause/play functionality, but if spotify is closed, before this tool can catch it (and launch spotify) it launches Apple Music by default.

With both groups enabled nothing happens when I click the play button. With just one, launch spotify enabled, it launches spotify, but then the pause play function does not work. With just the pause play function enabled, it launches Apple Music even if spotify is already open, and does not pause or play. So basically, the "Pause/Play" command inside of BetterTouchTool just launches apple music if routed to that.

you don’t need the spotifyon group, that setup would just cause an endless recursion where the play button triggers itself. However Spotify only reacts to the play button after it has been launched AND you have started at least one song manually. I think this is designed like this by spotify

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Thanks that helps, but actually now it's just a gamble whether spotify launches or apple music. I'm hoping someone will tell me how to disable apple music launching on the Apple forums (ehhh).

weird, BTT should detect that spotify is not open anymore latest 5 seconds after it has closed.

And it still sometimes trigger Apple Music ? :-/

Yes, I guess these Mac's are so fast to open Apple Music that sometimes it opens Spotfiy and Apple Music at the same time :confused:

That should not be possible - maybe a bug in BTT. I'll try to reproduce this!

Could you try one more thing: add an additional config for the play button, but this time set it to "Trigger on Key Up" and don't assign any action:

Worth a try...

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I think I have found a solution.

Keep your SpotifyOff group like it is, but additionally add the SpotifyOn group again. Then configure the play pause button for that group to send the space key to spotify using the "Send shortcut to specific app" action. Space is used in Spotify for play/pause.

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Hi @ProjectileObjects @Andreas_Hegenberg , don't know if you are still experiencing this issue, but i've solved it.

  • You should only use "spotifyNotRunning"
    then:
    -1- launch spotify
    -2- delay by 1 sec (spotify start up time)
    -3- send space to spotify
    Now when spotify is not running, it will open it and start playing your music. Since spotify is now running, the previous action will not apply, meaning that the normal play/pause function takes affect and controls your music.

Hope this helps! Took me a couple of hours to figure out :wink:
P.S. I'm using a M1 Max Macbook Pro


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Hi,

I had a similar need - usually the play (f5) button is ovveridden by other app e.g. youtube in my case. To always have access to play/pause Spotify I have two simple keyboard shortcuts created. They use apple script to handle the issue flawlessly.

ctrl + play/pause for starting spotify playback
ctrl + shift + play/pause for pausing spotify playback


Maybe my setup will help someone :smile:

Best regards,
Dominik

Thank you, this helped me a lot :smile:

I found a simple solution using AppleScript (no need for conditional activation group). Hope this helps.

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Greetings,

Sorry for such a late comment on this post.

I just stumbled upon this as I was trying to have the same thing happen rather Apple Music open upon clicking the play/pause key on my keyboard. I am first wondering what Mac application is being used? Script editor?

Also, is the script visibly on the image attached for your step? Or, is there an alt website with that script?

Thank you,
Best regards

This works perfectly! Thank you.

October 16, 2023.

Macbook air 15 inch, m2.
MacOS Sonoma 14.0.
BetterTouchTool 4.204.