You Should Try MediaMate to Manage Audio and Video on Your Mac
I listen to a lot of music while I work and like to quickly check what’s playing, so I chose MediaMate . It’s an independent Mac app that costs €7 (roughly $7.50) that shows the current track either as an extension of the MacBook’s “snip” or as a translucent pop-up window. It may appear every time the track changes, every time you adjust the volume, or every time you hover your mouse over a label.
This is useful for quickly checking what’s playing, as well as finding out which media application currently “owns” the media control keys. For example: Sometimes I press play on an online video while listening to music. I press pause to pause the music only for the video to stop. It’s annoying because I don’t really understand what’s going on, but with MediaMate I can at least see in real time what app I’m pausing and playing.
MediaMate also replaces the clunky volume and brightness pop-ups with slimmer ones. Granted, it’s a minor cosmetic change, but I appreciate it. You can even combine this with a currently playing section in the cutout, as shown at the top of this article. Another option is to install a thin surround display at the bottom of the screen.
All of this can be customized in the settings – you can choose from four different volume and brightness overlay styles and slightly customize how they all work. If you’re the kind of person who likes to customize things and isn’t entirely happy with the way macOS handles volume and brightness overlays, it’s worth a download.