Playback & streaming services
Connect Apple Music in one click or set up Spotify with your own Client ID. How the player picks a service, and the settings behind matching.
CatchIt! plays tracks through the streaming service you're subscribed to — Apple Music, Spotify, or both. The player sits at the bottom of every tab; which service it uses is up to you.
Choosing your playback service
In Settings → Player Settings, Play tracks with picks Apple Music or Spotify; you can also switch from the status bar. You can match tracks on both platforms, but only one player runs at a time — this choice decides which service plays when a track is available on both. Switch any time without re-running Research; the matches stay attached.
When your preferred service can't play a specific track but the other one can, CatchIt! quietly routes that track to the other service and shows a "Playing on …" badge in the player header, so you always know what's sounding.
Apple Music — the recommended path
Open Settings → Player Settings → Apple Music and hit Connect. The guided setup card walks you through the system permission — once — and you're done.
Apple Music is recommended for a simple reason: Shazam returns Apple Music IDs directly, so matching is deterministic — you get exactly the version that was recognized. The status chip reads Subscribed when playback is fully available, or Search Only if you're connected without an active Apple Music subscription (you can still research and match tracks, but not play them).
If playback fails or the status looks wrong, go back to Settings → Player Settings → Apple Music and hit Reconnect in the Connection block. It clears the app's cached Apple Music state and checks your access and subscription again — an Apple Music track that's playing stops, and the Authorization Status badge refreshes. Once you're connected, Disconnect… sits next to it: it opens System Settings → Privacy & Security → Media & Apple Music, because macOS doesn't let an app remove its own Apple Music access — you turn it off there.
Spotify — one-time setup with your own Client ID
Spotify support requires you to create your own personal Spotify Developer Client ID. It's a one-time setup; it works permanently after that. Here's why and how.
Why: CatchIt! connects to Spotify through a personal Client ID that you create — same Spotify account, same data, same playback. It routes through your developer credentials.
How:
Open the Spotify Developer dashboard
Go to developer.spotify.com/dashboard and sign in with your Spotify account.
Create your app
Click Create app. Name it whatever you want (e.g., "CatchIt! personal"). Description: "Personal use with CatchIt!".
Set the Redirect URI
Copy the Redirect URI from CatchIt!'s Settings → Player Settings → Spotify panel and paste it into the Spotify dashboard.
Save and copy the Client ID
Save the app. Copy the Client ID that Spotify shows you. You only need the Client ID, not the Client Secret. CatchIt! uses a PKCE flow that doesn't need the secret.
Paste the Client ID into CatchIt!
Paste the Client ID into CatchIt!'s Spotify panel and tap Save.
Connect
Tap Connect. CatchIt! will prompt you to log into your Spotify account and authorize playback access. You're done.
Status: the Spotify panel's Connection row reads Connected (green) when you're set up, Not Connected (orange) when you've saved a Client ID but haven't connected, and Client ID Required when nothing's set up yet.
Premium vs Free: full playback needs Spotify Premium — the player's status chip shows Premium or Free. On a Free account you still get a 30-second preview per track, which is often enough to classify.
Revoking: You can disconnect from CatchIt! at any time. You can also revoke your Client ID directly from your Spotify Developer dashboard. CatchIt! falls back to limited mode — you'll still see your captures and classifications, but you won't be able to play through Spotify.
The player
The bar at the bottom shows whichever service is currently sounding — album art, title / artist / album, a seek slider, and skip-15s / play-pause controls. The progress bar takes the colour of the service that's playing — green for Spotify, pink for Apple Music. The arrow keys drive it from anywhere: ← / → for 15 seconds, Shift + ← / → for 60.
What the player tells you when it isn't playing is as useful:
- "Connect your Spotify account to play tracks" / "Authorize Apple Music to play tracks" — the service isn't connected yet.
- "Apple Music Subscription Required" — connected, but no active subscription.
- "Connecting to …" with a spinner — cold start; the service is warming up and playback resumes by itself.
- "No … Results" — the selected track has no match on the active service. Run Research, or switch the preferred service.
How matching works — and the two dials behind it
Apple Music matching is deterministic when a Shazam ID is present. Spotify matching is a search: CatchIt! runs a cascade of search strategies and scores each candidate against the Similarity Threshold. Settings → Tracks Search holds the dials:
- Similarity Threshold — how confident a title+artist match must be to count as a hit. Higher = stricter, fewer but cleaner matches; lower = looser.
- Max Search Retries — present in Settings, but it currently has no effect on matching.
Mismatches still happen on tracks with many remixes or generic names — the fix is a fresh Re-search all, or switching that track to Apple Music. See Troubleshooting.