Download noTunes 3.2 (Mac) – Download Free

Apple Music and iTunes have a bad habit of starting automatically when you connect some Bluetooth headphones or press the play button on your keyboard. It’s especially annoying if you don’t have a subscription and use a different music service.

no tune is a very simple open source application that prevents music and iTunes from being launched manually or automatically. It runs in the menu bar and can be enabled or disabled with a single click, while also giving you the option to hide the menu bar icons completely.

Convenience is not always convenient

If your keyboard has media keys, like all Apple keyboards, you’ll know that hitting the play button causes the Music app or iTunes to launch, depending on your version of macOS. If the button is supposed to pause or resume playback in another service, this is usually overridden, but I ran into a few situations when I tried restarting a track in Spotify and it just opened the music app.

Another common scenario is launching an app when certain types of third-party Bluetooth headsets are connected. This doesn’t always happen, but it can be annoying when it does.

Block Apple Music and iTunes from launching

noTunes solves the problem by simply checking the music/iTunes processes and closing them as soon as they are detected. Of course, that means you can’t start them manually either, but you can always disable the app’s functionality from the menu bar.

Speaking of the menu bar icon, it can be hidden from its context menu at any time. To restore it, you need to use terminal commands, as described by the developer here.

Simple tool for the job

If you’re having problems with Apple Music or iTunes unsolicited, noTunes is a great solution, at least until Apple decides to offer additional customization options or fix auto-start errors.