I’ve often heard music that I didn’t recognize and wanted to know the artist and the song. Most people I know have been in the same situation. Luckily, Apple has made the recognition of music extremely simple on any device running MacOS Sonoma 14.2. This new feature was made possible because Apple acquired Shazam back in 2018. Until recently, that feature could only be used via Siri.
The most recent update to Sonoma has made song recognition even more convenient by making it available on the Menu Bar. Now it’s just a matter of opening a drop-down menu and clicking an entry to start the Music Recognition feature. It quickly shows the song and artist and provides quick access to the song via Apple Music.
Music Recognition works whether you have Siri enabled or disabled and even syncs across your devices. It also retains the songs it’s discovered until you delete them. The feature is quick, accurate, and very helpful for music lovers.
What you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need is a device running MacOS 14.2. If you’re unsure what release your MacBook or iMac has, go to Apple > About This Mac. If the MacOS release is earlier than 14.2, go to System Settings > General > Software Update to check for updates.
Click the Apple icon in the Menu Bar and select System Preferences. From there, go to Control Center and enable the option for Music Recognition to show up in the Menu Bar. With a piece of music playing, click the Music Recognition icon to start the service.
The Music Recognition feature will hear and recognize the song fairly quickly. You can play the song on Apple Music from the drop-down or delete the entry. With this feature added to your MacOS Menu Bar, you’ll never find yourself at a loss as to what song is playing.
