Music Sync
Pause and resume Spotify or Apple Music automatically, in step with your focus sessions.
Music helps a lot of people lock in — but reaching for the pause button every time a break starts breaks the flow. Music Sync hands that off to FocusMo: your player pauses and resumes automatically as your sessions start, break, and end.
Enable it in Settings → Music. The first time you turn it on, macOS asks permission for FocusMo to control your music app — the same Automation permission used by the Things 3 integration. If you ever deny it by mistake, re-enable it under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.
Supported players
| Player | Control | Auto-start |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Music | Pause / resume / volume | Pick a playlist by name |
| Spotify | Pause / resume / volume | Paste a playlist link |
| Everything else (browser tabs, other apps) | Media-key toggle¹ | — |
¹ The optional "Also control other players" setting sends a system play/pause key press, which covers YouTube and other browser-based music. It's a blind toggle — FocusMo can't read those players' state — so it may start playback if nothing was playing. Off by default.
Pause & resume
Once on, FocusMo watches your session and pauses your music when you leave your "music time," then resumes it when you're back. Two rules keep it from being annoying:
- It only resumes what it paused. If you stop the music yourself mid-focus, FocusMo leaves it alone — it won't restart it at the next break or session.
- It never carries music across sessions. When a session ends, nothing auto-resumes into the next one.
You decide when music belongs, with Music during:
- Focus (default) — music plays while you work and pauses on breaks.
- Breaks — the reverse: silence while you focus, music on your breaks.
Other options:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pause when session ends | Stops music when you finish a session (only if it was playing) |
| Fade volume gently | Ramps the volume down and back up instead of a hard cut. Turn it off if you want the abrupt stop as a clear "break time" signal |
Auto-start playlists (Pro)
Instead of pressing play yourself, let FocusMo kick off a playlist when a session begins. In Settings → Music → Focus Playlist, turn on Start playlist automatically, choose your player, and pick the playlist:
- Apple Music — load your playlists and choose one from the list.
- Spotify — paste a playlist link (
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/…); FocusMo converts it automatically.
Auto-start is deliberately polite: it only starts music if nothing is already playing, and (in Focus mode) only at the start of a fresh session — never when you're coming back from a break, since silence there means you chose to stop.
Per-project playlists (Pro)
Different work, different soundtrack. Open a Project in the editor and use its Music tab to give that project its own focus playlist. When a session runs under that project, its playlist takes over; projects without an override fall back to your global Focus Playlist.
Notes
- Music Sync uses your own Spotify or Apple Music app and account — FocusMo doesn't stream anything itself, so your subscription, library, and login all work exactly as they do normally.
- Everything runs locally on your Mac through AppleScript automation. No account linking, no data leaves your machine.