lyricsx alternative for mac (2026): 3 apps to replace the abandoned classic

tldr: lyricsx is abandoned. three apps actually replace it in 2026 — lyricfever is the explicit spiritual successor (line sync, menu bar, closest 1:1), karacookie is what lyricsx might have become (per-word karaoke reveal, zero setup), lyricglow does word reveal + multi-source (spotify + apple music + youtube music). pick based on which part of lyricsx you’ll miss most.

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if you’re here, you probably opened lyricsx last week and noticed it hadn’t updated in a while. or the lyrics stopped loading on a few tracks. or you read somewhere that the github repo went quiet.

lyricsx was the go-to floating lyrics overlay for spotify and itunes on macos for years (roughly 2017 to 2022). open source. clean. line-by-line synced. it just worked. the last meaningful update landed around 2022-2023 and the github repo has been effectively dormant since.

that orphaned a lot of users. this post is the migration guide i wish existed when i first started looking.

full disclosure up front: i built karacookie, one of the three replacements below. i’ll be honest about where lyricfever is the better pick.

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what made lyricsx great (so we know what to replace)

before picking a replacement, it’s worth naming what lyricsx actually did well — because most modern apps either over-build or under-build relative to it.

• floating window, always-on-top — survived fullscreen, sat over your editor
• line-by-line synced lyrics — sharp enough timing for sing-along
• clean minimal ui — no chrome, no ads, no pushy onboarding
• free and open source — mit-ish license, code on github
• supported spotify + itunes/apple music — both major mac music sources
• zero setup — read the playing track via applescript, no developer account, no oauth

the bar for a replacement: do all of the above, ideally lighter, ideally with some modern visual choices.

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option 1: lyricfever — the explicit spiritual successor

lyricfever literally calls itself “spiritual successor to lyricsx” in its github readme. it’s not a vague tribute — it’s a swift-native rewrite by aviwad that takes lyricsx’s design and rebuilds it for current macos.

what it does:

• free, gpl, swift native
• menu-bar mode (small lyrics line above the menu bar) + floating window mode
• line-by-line sync (same as lyricsx)
• supports spotify and apple music
• lyrics from netease, lrclib, musixmatch in fallback
• actively maintained, fast issue response, growing star count

why it’s the closest 1:1 lyricsx replacement: the philosophy matches. it’s a small, focused, mac-native app that does what lyricsx did, but written against modern swift and modern macos apis. if you loved lyricsx for what it was, install lyricfever and you’ll feel at home in 30 seconds.

where it falls short of lyricsx (and where it doesn’t):

• it doesn’t do per-word karaoke reveal. that’s intentional — lyricsx didn’t either
• floating window themes are limited compared to karacookie or lyricglow
• some non-english tracks (japanese, hindi) have lower hit rates than musixmatch desktop

pick lyricfever if: you want the thing you already had, modernized. you don’t want feature creep. you don’t care about karaoke per-word reveal.

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option 2: karacookie — what lyricsx might have become

(full disclosure: karacookie is the app i build.)

if lyricfever is “lyricsx, modernized,” karacookie is “the visual direction lyricsx might have taken if it kept shipping through 2024-2026 — when apple music’s big animated lyrics became the new aesthetic standard.”

what it does:

• free, mit, swift native, ~5 mb
• per-word karaoke reveal — each word lights up and bounces as it’s sung, interpolated from line timing
• six themes (minimal, crystal, bloom, spotlight, concert, neon)
• per-track color — the wipe pulls the dominant tone from the current album art, so every track has its own visual mood
• click-through hotkey so the floating bar doesn’t intercept clicks while you work
• zero setup — open the app, hit play, click one macos applescript prompt, done. no spotify developer account, no oauth, no client id
• works on spotify free

why it’s a lyricsx successor: it keeps all the things lyricsx got right — floating, always-on-top, no setup, free, oss, both spotify and apple music — and adds the one thing lyricsx never got the chance to ship: a per-word reveal that matches apple music’s big-lyrics era.

where it falls short of lyricsx:

• v0.2 still. you’ll find rough edges. some japanese tracks fall back to line sync because word timing isn’t in lrclib for them
• macos only (lyricsx was also mac only, but worth noting)
• younger codebase, smaller test surface, fewer years of edge cases handled

pick karacookie if: you want the modern apple-music-style upgrade lyricsx never got to ship. you liked lyricsx’s zero-setup and oss values but want the visual to feel like 2026, not 2018.

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option 3: lyricglow — multi-source word reveal

lyricglow is the third real option. free, source available, swift native, made by amir teymoori.

what it does:

• word-by-word reveal with a soft glow effect (visually distinctive)
• supports spotify, apple music, and youtube music (the only one of the three that covers youtube music)
• floating window, always-on-top
• ~50 mb ram

why it’s a lyricsx successor: it picks up lyricsx’s free + open-spirit baseline and extends the source pool. if you live across multiple music apps — spotify for personal listening, youtube music for music-video discovery, apple music for the family plan — lyricsx couldn’t handle that, lyricglow can.

where it falls short:

• larger memory footprint than karacookie or lyricfever
• only one core visual style, no theme switching
• smaller lyrics-source pool than musixmatch, so misses on long-tail non-english tracks

pick lyricglow if: you bounce between spotify, apple music, and youtube music. you want word-by-word reveal with a different aesthetic from karacookie’s. you value multi-source flexibility over theme variety.

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comparison table

feature	lyricsx (legacy)	lyricfever	karacookie	lyricglow
status	unmaintained	actively maintained	actively maintained	actively maintained
line sync	yes	yes	yes	yes (with word)
word reveal	no	no	yes	yes
menu bar mode	no	yes	no	no
floating window	yes	yes	yes	yes
themes	1	limited	6	1
spotify	yes	yes	yes	yes
apple music	yes	yes	yes	yes
youtube music	no	no	no	yes
license	mit-ish, dormant	gpl	mit	source available
ram	~20 mb	~30 mb	~5 mb	~50 mb

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migration — what to do with your old lyricsx install

if you’re switching, do it cleanly:

1. quit lyricsx — cmd+q from the menu bar icon. it’ll still half-work if you leave it, but no updates are incoming
2. install your replacement — pick one of the three above. each install takes about 60 seconds (download, drag to /applications, open, allow applescript)
3. remove lyricsx from login items — system settings → general → login items → remove lyricsx. otherwise it’ll launch in the background alongside your new app
4. drag /applications/lyricsx.app to trash — if you want a clean break. or keep it as a fallback for tracks your new app misses. up to you.

you don’t have to delete lyricsx — running both temporarily is fine. but one of them should be your default, and the new one is the one that’s getting fixes.

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which one should you actually pick?

short version:

• want exactly what you had, but maintained? → lyricfever
• want the apple-music-style modern upgrade? → karacookie
• also use youtube music? → lyricglow

lyricfever is the safer choice if you loved lyricsx as it was. karacookie is the more ambitious choice if you want the visual direction lyricsx never got to take. both are valid, neither is wrong.

i’d suggest installing lyricfever and karacookie side by side for a week and seeing which one you reach for. they’re both free, both ~30 mb combined, and they don’t conflict (they each just read the currently playing track — they don’t control playback).

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faq

(answered in the structured data above — your search engine should show these directly.)

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related reads

• karacookie — lyrics that move with the music — the product page
• best spotify lyrics app for mac (2026): 7 floating overlays tested — the full comparison
• karacookie vs lyricfever — which one should you actually install
• how to get apple music style lyrics for spotify