Beardie

Beardie is a macOS utility that lets users control a range of media players—including web‑based services such as SoundCloud and YouTube, native applications like Apple Music and Spotify, and Sonos systems—directly from the keyboard. It builds on the BeardedSpice project and adds features such as smart player selection, configurable keyboard shortcuts, and a command to raise or hide the active player window, enabling seamless toggling between work and listening contexts.

The application works with standard Apple media keys and can manage multiple open players or browser tabs simultaneously, automatically guessing which source to control based on activity. Users can also manually set the active player or switch between open players via shortcut keys. For web players, Beardie requires a browser extension that communicates over encrypted WebSockets, and the app can install a self‑signed certificate to facilitate this exchange.

Beardie runs on macOS 10.15 or later, provides automatic notifications for new releases, and supports customizable “media strategies”—JavaScript templates that define how specific sites are controlled. It is distributed as source code and binary releases, with users able to build the application themselves if notarization is unavailable.