BlogGuide5 October 20263 min read

Control YouTube from your MacBook notch

A lot of what we listen to on a Mac doesn't come from Spotify or Apple Music. It's a YouTube mix, a lecture, a podcast in a browser tab buried under twenty others. NotchDude 1.10 brings all of that into the notch: hover, and pause the video, skip ten seconds, or jump to the next track without hunting for the tab.

What you get

Browser media shows up in Music, right alongside Spotify and Apple Music, with the title, channel, artwork, and progress. From the notch you can:

• Play and pause (or press Space with the notch open).
• Skip back or forward 10 seconds, which is perfect for a line you missed in a talk.
• Go to the previous or next video when the site offers one, like the next track in a YouTube Music queue.
• Mute from the speaker button, and with Pro, scrub to any point and set the volume.
• Open the tab that's playing in one click.

It works in Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and other Chromium browsers like Arc, Brave, and Edge. YouTube and YouTube Music work straight away, and you can turn it on for other sites with audio or video too.

Set up in Safari

The Safari extension comes inside NotchDude, so there's nothing extra to download.

1. In the notch, open Music and choose Connect browser… (it shows when nothing is playing; it's also in Settings › Music).
2. Pick Safari, then Open Safari extension settings.
3. Turn on NotchDude Media and allow it on youtube.com. Then play a video.

Set up in Chrome, Arc, Brave, or Edge

1. Choose Connect browser… in Music or Settings › Music, pick Chrome (it covers every Chromium browser), and choose Get extension.
2. Add NotchDude Media from the Chrome Web Store.
3. Play a video. That's it: no pairing codes, and NotchDude works out which browser you're using by itself.

Set up in Firefox

1. Choose Connect browser… in Music or Settings › Music, pick Firefox, and choose Get extension.
2. Add NotchDude Media from Firefox Add-ons and allow it on YouTube when Firefox asks.
3. Play a video. NotchDude connects to Firefox by itself.

More than one tab playing

When more than one tab is playing, the browser name under the title becomes a menu listing each tab with its browser. Pick one to control it, or leave it on Automatic and NotchDude follows whatever is playing. Close the tab and Music goes back to Spotify or Apple Music if one of them is playing.

Other media sites

To use it beyond YouTube, open the site, click the NotchDude Media button in your browser's toolbar, and choose Turn on. Your browser asks for permission for that one site, and nothing else. Turn off removes it again. Most sites with ordinary audio or video work; a few with unusual custom players may not.

What it can and can't see

The extension only looks at the media on YouTube, YouTube Music, and the sites you turn on: the title, artist or channel, artwork, playback position, and volume. Those details go to NotchDude on your Mac and nowhere else, never to a server. It doesn't read your browsing history, cookies, passwords, or the rest of the page, and it doesn't run in private windows. The privacy policy has the full details.

Get it

Browser media needs NotchDude 1.10 or later. Choose Check for Updates… from the menu bar icon or the notch's ··· menu, or download NotchDude if you're new; your first 48 hours include every Pro feature. The user guide has the details, and the release notes list every version.