DesktopLyrics FAQ

Q: DesktopLyrics doesn't seem to be working - I don't see any lyrics. Why?

Q: So, how do I add textual lyrics information to my music files?

Q: Does DesktopLyrics work with 'Apple Music'?

Q: Does DesktopLyrics work with 'iTunes Match'?

Q: Is DesktopLyrics compatible with other apps displaying something on the Desktop?

Q: My desktop is obscured by apps all the time - how to view the lyrics conveniently?

Q: I've set DesktopLyrics not to display any user interface. How do I get it back?

Q: Why does page-turning of lyrics that are split into multiple pages to occur at the 'wrong' moment?

Q: I'm using both BitPerfect and DesktopLyrics and DesktopLyrics doesn't work. Why?

Q: Mac App Store: How can I buy/install DesktopLyrics?

Q: Mac App Store: How can I update DesktopLyrics?

Q: Mac App Store: How can I re-install DesktopLyrics?

Q: Mac App Store: How can I install DesktopLyrics on an additional Mac?

Q: Mac App Store: How can I get a refund for DesktopLyrics?

Most likely you are playing songs that don't have any lyrics set:

"The lyrics for the song have to be set in Apple's Music app, DesktopLyrics does nothing to fetch lyrics if they aren't available in directly in the played music file."

"Please note, music normally doesn't contain textual lyrics information, even when bought in online music stores. You either have to enter the lyrics manually for every track or use an application [...] to automate the process."

In this case proceed to the next question to learn how to conveniently add lyrics to your music.

However, if you really see nothing on your Desktop, maybe you've (accidentally) hidden the lyrics display. Select "Toggle Lyrics Visibility" from DesktopLyrics Dock- or Menubar-menu to switch it back to visible.

Its also possible you see nothing because you have a single-color Desktop background and the lyrics font has the same color (e.g. white on white). Just change the lyrics font color in the preferences.

The last possible cause for not seeing the lyrics or the album-art displayed on your Desktop, is you have another 3rd party app installed that also displays something on your Desktop - please read the corresponding FAQ entry.

Note that first time you launch DesktopLyrics, you'll be asked if DesktopLyrics can have 'permissions' to access the Music app. If you've clicked 'No', DesktopLyrics won't be able to interact with the Music app. If DesktopLyrics is not working although you are sure that your songs have lyrics, please review those permissions settings. To check this, go to "System Preferences => Privacy => Automation" and make sure the checkbox next to DesktopLyrics is checked. An illustratory screenshot is here.

In case you are using 'Apple Music' or 'iTunes Match' please read the respective answers below.

Automatic lyrics adding: To enter lyrics in Apple's Music app automatically you can download an specific application for this purpose like "iFetchLyrics", "Get Lyrical" or "Lyrics Finder".

Assisted lyrics adding: From the DesktopLyrics menu (see ReadMe) use:

1.) "Lyrics Search" -> "Search for Lyrics…" to search for lyrics of the current song in the Internet

2.) "Lyrics Search" -> "Set new Lyrics…" to set the lyrics you've found as the new lyrics for the current song

3.) You can define "HotKeys" for both functions in the preferences to speed up this process

Manual lyrics adding: To enter lyrics in Apple's Music app completely manually do the following:

1.) Open Apple's Music app

2.) Select a track

3.) Press Command-I or select "Information" from the "File" menu

4.) In the Information-window select the tab named "Lyrics" and enter the lyrics (you have obtained from somewhere else) here and press the "OK" button

Caveat:Please note that both assisted and manual lyrics adding may only work with local music files and not with streaming like 'Apple Music' or 'iTunes Match'.

No. While Apple Music 'includes' lyrics for many streamed songs since iTunes 12.5, these lyrics are only available for display inside iTunes or the Music app, but not available for 3rd party apps.

We've filed a bug-report with Apple about this problem (rdar://31813514). Apple closed this bug report, effectively saying they do not want 3rd party apps to be able to access the lyrics provided by 'Apple Music'. Therefore DesktopLyrics does not work for any songs streamed over 'Apple Music'. If you would like Apple to change its mind on this issue, please let them know via their feedback site, or better yet, file a bug-report containing only: "This is a duplicate of rdar://31813514".

Generally, no. Even when you add lyrics to all your Music, 'iTunes Match' may opt to replace your music with cloud-streamed copies without lyrics at any time.

If you have another app installed that displays something on your Desktop there is a good chance that one app will obscure the other app, making it invisible. This may e.g. cause DesktopLyrics seemingly not displaying anything or display the lyrics but not the album-art. If you don't see DesktopLyrics displaying anything, we recommend to disable all other apps displaying something on your Desktop to test if they prevent DesktopLyrics from showing up.

Specifically we've also noted an incompatibility with 'LiveDesktop' and 'EarthDesk' that DesktopLyrics will automatically detect when launched. Those apps do not prevent the lyrics from showing up, but can prevent the cover-art from being displayed. There is a simple workaround to get the cover-art to show: 1.) Enable the 'Use window background' setting in DesktopLyrics 2.) Click 'Configure…' next to 'Use window background' 3.) Click on the Color-well next to 'Background color' 4.) Set the 'Opacity' to 0% in the Color-picker. This workaround should make the cover-art visibile despite these other apps running. The only drawback is that the cover-art may obscure the lyrics if they overlap, so you should make sure they can't overlap. If this does not solve the issue, or you have an incompatibility with another app, just let us know and we will help you.

There are several options to quickly and conveniently view the lyrics even if your desktop is obstructed with windows from other apps all the time:

• Use the 'Exposé: Show Desktop' functionality built right into Mac OS X - it can be activated with the keyboard (hot key) or the mouse (screen corner)

• Use DesktopLyrics's 'Presentation Mode', which can be invoked from DesktopLyrics's menu or with a hot key combination. It can be configured to cover all other apps or just the desktop.

• Use DesktopLyrics's 'Tooltip', invoke it by resting your mouse curser upon the menubar icon (if enabled) or with a hot key combination

If DesktopLyrics is already running then just double-click it again in the Finder. It will be hidden again the next time you start it, unless you change the preferences.

If DesktopLyrics isn't currently running, you can hold down "alt" while launching (double-clicking) it, this will make it visible and also change the preferences to be visible in the future.

BitPerfect and DesktopLyrics work together fine in their default settings, but not if you manually enable the "Minimize iTunes interaction" preference in BitPerfect.

Make sure that either "Minimize iTunes interaction" is unchecked in BitPerfect or that "Hide lyrics when iTunes is paused" is unchecked in DesktopLyrics and the apps will work fine together.

Only if both if these settings are activated, DesktopLyrics will not show anything because BitPerfect makes iTunes believe it is paused which in turn will make DesktopLyrics invisible.

Textual lyrics information only contains information about which lyrics are sung in a song, but not about when these lyrics are sung.

(Exception: there are some karaoke lyrics-formats that contain timing information, but these are rare and difficult to obtain and therefore unsupported by DesktopLyrics).

Currently there is no speech recognition technology available anywhere in the world that would be advanced enough to recgnize the lyrics in a song and provide this timing information on-the-fly.

Therefore DesktopLyrics uses a simple method for its 'automated page-turning' feature, turning 2-page lyrics after exactly half of the play-time, 3-page lyrics after 1/3 and 2/3 of the play-time, etc.

In case you want more precise automated page-turns, you can tell the 'time-codes' when to turn the pages by selecting 'Lyrics Pages=>Define Timecodes…" from its menu.

Even more conveniently, you can just hold down 'shift' when manually turning pages (by clicking the page-turn buttons or with the hot-key combination) to 'record' the time and make DesktopLyrics turn this pages of this song at this exact moment on subsequent plays.

Note: if you do not let songs play uninterruptedly but use pause or fast-forwarding, automated page-turning (and recoding) will not work.

IMPORTANT: if you previously tried out the "TRYOUT" version DesktopLyrics, you have to manually uninstall it before buying the full version

The procedure is the same as with any other app available on the Mac App Store:

1.) Click the black "Download on the Mac App Store" badge on the DesktopLyrics product homepage

2.) On the next page click the blue "view in Mac App Store" badge below the DesktopLyrics icon

3.) Now in the Mac App Store application click on the price tag below the DesktopLyrics icon and confirm with your credentials

In the case that step two doesn't open the Mac App Store application, you may be using a internet browser that is not compatible with the Mac App Store links. Either try Safari or the alternative procedure:

1. ) Open the Mac App Store by clicking its icon in the Dock or selecting "App Store…" from the Apple-menu in your top left screen corner.

2.) Enter "DesktopLyrics" in the top right search bar and press enter

3.) Click on DesktopLyrics's icon or name in the search results

4.) Now click on the price tag below the DesktopLyrics icon and confirm with your credentials

Please note that every aspect of buying/installing/updating/re-installing DesktopLyrics works the same as with any other application offered on the Mac App Store and is the sole responsibility of Apple.

We have no direct or even indirect influence over this and in case anything doesn't work as expected you should contact Apple for support.

Apple's official documentation for the Mac App Store is here and here and their support is here (online) or here (telephone).

The procedure is the same as with any other app available on the Mac App Store and updates are always free of charge on the Mac App Store:

1.) Open the Mac App Store by clicking its icon in the Dock or selecting "App Store…" from the Apple-menu in your top left screen corner.

2.) Click on the "Updates" tab at the top

3.) Click the "Update" button next to DesktopLyrics in the list or click "Update All" at the top

4.) In case you don't see DesktopLyrics in the list of available updates, but you are sure there is an update available, you may have "hidden" DesktopLyrics. In this case:

4.1.) Select "Show my account" in the "Store" menu of the Mac App Store

4.2) Click "Show hidden purchases" in the "iTunes in the Cloud" section

4.3) Click "Unhide" next to DesktopLyrics and goto step 2

We have no direct or even indirect influence over this and in case anything doesn't work as expected you should contact Apple for support.

Apple's official documentation for the Mac App Store is here and here and their support is here (online) or here (telephone).

The Mac App Store allows you to re-install all purchased apps an unlimited number of times. The procedure is the same as with any other app available on the Mac App Store:

1.) Open the Mac App Store by clicking its icon in the Dock or selecting "App Store…" from the Apple-menu in your top left screen corner.

2.) Click on the "Purchases" tab at the top

3.) Click the "Install" button next to DesktopLyrics in the list

4.) In case you don't see DesktopLyrics in the list of purchases (but you are sure that you have purchased it), you may have "hidden" DesktopLyrics. In this case:

4.1.) Select "Show my account" in the "Store" menu of the Mac App Store

4.2) Click "Show hidden purchases" in the "iTunes in the Cloud" section

4.3) Click "Unhide" next to DesktopLyrics and goto step 2

5.) In case you see DesktopLyrics in the list but the "Install" button is greyed out and not clickable, this means that DesktopLyrics is already installed. In this case you likely don't need to re-install DesktopLyrics but if you want to do so anyway you can just delete it (in the Finder) and restart the Mac App Store to enable the option to install it again.

We have no direct or even indirect influence over this and in case anything doesn't work as expected you should contact Apple for support.

Apple's official documentation for the Mac App Store is here and here and their support is here (online) or here (telephone).

The Mac App Store allows you to install all purchased apps on an unlimited number of Macs free of charge. The procedure is the same as with any other app available on the Mac App Store:

1.) Open the Mac App Store on the additional Mac by clicking its icon in the Dock or selecting "App Store…" from the Apple-menu in your top left screen corner.

2.) Click on the "Purchases" tab at the top

3.) Click the "Install" button next to DesktopLyrics in the list

4.) In case you don't see DesktopLyrics in the list of purchases (but you are sure that you have purchased it), you may have "hidden" DesktopLyrics. In this case:

4.1.) Select "Show my account" in the "Store" menu of the Mac App Store

4.2) Click "Show hidden purchases" in the "iTunes in the Cloud" section

4.3) Click "Unhide" next to DesktopLyrics and goto step 2

You could also just copy your version of DesktopLyrics to the other Mac's application-folder with file-sharing and it should work as expected. You may need to authenticate with your Mac App Store credentials on the first launch.

We have no direct or even indirect influence over this and in case anything doesn't work as expected you should contact Apple for support.

Apple's official documentation for the Mac App Store is here and here and their support is here (online) or here (telephone).

Why do you want a refund? If there is anything we could do to make DesktopLyrics fit your needs just let us know, we are determined to make every customer happy! If you still want a refund you have to contact Apple, as they are handling everything related to the purchase and we can't give you a refund ourselves. To get a refund from Apple click on the "report a problem" link next to DesktopLyrics in the purchase receipt Apple has e-mailed to you. Your best chance at success is to do this as soon after purchase as possible and explain them that you purchased it by accident or exactly why you think you bought the wrong app. We don't have any influence over Apple's decision whether to refund you or not (most of the time it shouldn't be problem and they will just refund you).