Now Playing IRL
Display the real-life music playing on your computer as a sleek, customizable HUD widget inside Minecraft.
Now Playing IRL shows whatever track is playing on your desktop as a clean overlay widget inside Minecraft: song title, artist, live album cover, progress bar, and source app. Start a song in Spotify, TIDAL, Apple Music, Deezer, VLC, foobar2000, AIMP, or even a YouTube / SoundCloud browser tab, and the widget wakes up within a second or two. Pause your music and it quietly goes back to sleep.
100% client-side, so it works everywhere: singleplayer, multiplayer servers, and Minecraft Realms.
Highlights & Customization
| Feature | |
|---|---|
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193 Recognized Players & Browsers Covers streaming apps (Spotify, TIDAL, Deezer, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Qobuz, YouTube Music), desktop players (AIMP, foobar2000, VLC, Winamp, MusicBee, MediaMonkey, mpv, PotPlayer), media servers (Plex/Plexamp, Jellyfin, Kodi, Emby), Linux MPRIS players, and browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Opera GX, Vivaldi, Arc, Zen, Safari playing YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, or Twitch). |
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Real-Time Album Artwork & Vinyl Spin Uses native cover art when supplied by your media player (such as MPRIS on Linux), and otherwise looks up high-res artwork automatically from the iTunes and Deezer catalogs. Toggle cover art on or off, or let it spin like a record (including an optional TURBO speed). |
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12 Built-In Themes & Full Layout Control Anchor the widget to any screen corner or top/bottom center, scale from 50% to 250%, tune opacity, enable compact mode, scrolling marquee titles, and playback progress bars, or hide the overlay completely whenever nothing is playing. |
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Zero-Overhead Idle Polling & Privacy Automatically backs off its polling interval when no audio is playing so your CPU isn't woken up unnecessarily. Only the artist and track title are sent to iTunes/Deezer when fetching missing album art; nothing else is collected or transmitted anywhere. |
Controls & Native OS Detection
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| N | Show or hide the Now Playing widget |
| M | Open the in-game customization screen (also accessible via Mod Menu on 1.21.x) |
| , | Cycle instantly through the 12 built-in visual themes |
- Windows: Matches active audio player processes (e.g.
Spotify.exe,aimp.exe) and parses"Artist – Title"window metadata. - Linux: Queries MPRIS via
playerctl, providing track title, artist, album name, native cover URL, and live playback progress (make sureplayerctlis installed). - macOS: Queries supported desktop players directly via AppleScript (Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, Vox, etc.).
Requirements & Installation
Drop Fabric API and the matching Now Playing IRL build from the Versions tab into .minecraft/mods/:
| Minecraft Version | Required Java | Fabric Loader | Optional |
|---|---|---|---|
1.21.4 – 1.21.11 |
Java 21 |
0.16+ |
Mod Menu |
26.1 – 26.3 |
Java 25 |
0.20.1+ |
Use M in game |
Troubleshooting & Ignoring Specific Apps
- Nothing appears on screen: Make sure the widget isn't hidden (N) and that your player is actively playing (most apps stop exposing track titles while paused or minimized to tray).
- Exclude specific apps/browsers: Add any app ID you don't want displayed to the
disabledAppslist insideconfig/nowplayingirl.json. - Missing or misdetected player? Every supported app lives in
MusicApps.javaand takes a single line to add. Open an issue on GitHub with the process name and a screenshot of its window title while playing!
Links & Support
- Source Code & Issue Tracker: GitHub — MaxLananas/Now-Playing-IRL
- Community & Support: Join our Discord
This screenshot shows the Now Playing IRL music player GUI in action, displaying the currently playing song. You can see: The artist's name ("Sexion d'Assaut") The album title ("Wati House") The album cover The streaming platform being used: Spotify
This screenshot showcases the settings menu of Now Playing IRL, where players can customize the appearance and behavior of the music player in Minecraft. The options shown include: Enabled/Disabled toggle Position: Choose where the player will appear on
| Version | Minecraft | Loader | Download |
|---|---|---|---|
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
26.3
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fabric
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Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
26.1.2
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fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
26.2
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
26.1
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
1.21.11
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
1.21.10
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
1.21.9
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
1.21.8
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
1.21.7
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.1 3.1.1 |
1.21.6
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.0 3.1.0 |
26.3
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.0 3.1.0 |
26.2
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.0 3.1.0 |
26.1.2
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.0 3.1.0 |
26.1.1
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.1.0 3.1.0 |
26.1
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.0.0 3.0.0 |
1.21.11
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.0.0 3.0.0 |
1.21.10
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.0.0 3.0.0 |
1.21.9
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.0.0 3.0.0 |
1.21.8
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.0.0 3.0.0 |
1.21.7
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 3.0.0 3.0.0 |
1.21.6
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 2.6.0 2.6.0 |
1.21.10, 1.21.11, 1.21.4, 1.21.5, 1.21.6, 1.21.7, 1.21.8, 1.21.9
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 2.5 2.5 |
1.21.4, 1.21.5
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL Beta 2.0 2.0 |
1.21.4
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL Beta 1.5 1.5 |
1.21.4
|
fabric
|
Download |
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Now Playing IRL 1.0.0 1.0.0 |
1.21.4
|
fabric
|
Download |