For Mac Β· macOS 15 or later
Point the Mac at any music and the tempo appears in seconds: a track on the speakers, a rehearsal, a record, a DJ set, or Apple Music playing on the same machine. No recording, no account, and nothing you are listening to gets paused.
On the Mac specifically
The detection engine is shared with the iPhone and Android builds. Everything below is what the Mac version does with it.
Two detection engines run in parallel, autocorrelation and onset peak-picking, and a confidence indicator tells you when the reading is solid rather than settling. The number updates as the music moves.
MagicBPM listens through the microphone, so Apple Music, Spotify, a DAW or a browser tab carry on while it works. No pause, no ducking, no switching apps to start a measurement.
Click Identify and you get the title and artist next to the tempo, using Apple's music recognition. Free to use, and it opens straight into Apple Music.
Space starts and stops listening or the metronome, T taps a tempo, ββ and ββ nudge it, and β1 to β4 move between BPM, Metronome, History and Settings. Every one of them is in the menu bar too.
Ambiguous tracks can settle an octave from the pulse you feel. The Β½x, 1x and 2x rail under the reading moves it where you meant, and MagicBPM hints which alternative is likelier.
Tempo detection never leaves the Mac: audio is analyzed live and discarded, never recorded, never uploaded, never used to build a profile. Song identification sends a fingerprint of the sound, not the sound.
In the window
First run
If the number keeps moving, get the microphone closer to the source, cut the background noise, or narrow the tempo range in Settings when you already know roughly what to expect. A built-in laptop microphone works well; an external one pointed at the speakers works better.
Also on board
On a phone? The same engine is on iPhone and Android, and the iPhone app brings a haptic metronome to the Apple Watch. Prefer to try something first? The browser metronome and tap tempo need no download at all.
Free, with a one-time Pro upgrade
Detection, the metronome, tap tempo and one-shot song identification are free, and the Mac build shows no ads. Pro is a single purchase, never a subscription, and it is shared with your iPhone.
Good to know
macOS 15 Sequoia or later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The Mac App Store listing carries the exact current minimum, since it moves with each release.
Same app, same detection engine, same App Store record. What differs is the shell around it: a sidebar instead of a tab bar, a resizable window, a menu bar, and keyboard shortcuts for everything you would otherwise tap. The Lock Screen controls, vibration on the beat and the Apple Watch metronome are iPhone features and are not part of the Mac build.
No. The Mac app is the same App Store product, so Pro is one purchase across every Apple device signed in to your Apple Account. If it does not show up, Restore Purchases in Settings brings it back.
Yes, as long as the sound comes out of the speakers. MagicBPM listens through the microphone, so Apple Music, Spotify or a browser tab keep playing on the same Mac while it locks the tempo. Headphones are the one case that cannot work, because the microphone has nothing to hear. More on that here.
Yes. Live tempo detection, the metronome with all its time signatures and subdivisions, tap tempo and one-shot song identification are free, and the Mac build shows no ads. MagicBPM Pro is a single one-time purchase, not a subscription: it adds automatic song identification, the Detected Songs history, and twelve extra metronome sounds.
No. Tempo detection runs entirely on the Mac: audio is analyzed in real time and discarded, never recorded and never uploaded. Song identification, when you use it, sends a compact acoustic fingerprint of the sound, never the audio itself, to Apple's Shazam service. See the Privacy Policy.
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