I have a 2010 MBP on Lion, and use Spotify pretty heavily - is there any way that I can have my remote control spotify, rather than it waking up iTunes every time (which would be fine but I don't have any playlists)?



You could try SpotifyIrRemote which works on Lion.

  • Awesome! Worked a dream. – George Pearce Feb 27 '12 at 22:28

You could use an iOS Spotify remote instead.

There are a few options listed on Spotify's website


Best way to do this is to use spotify itself, from an idevice (ipad, iphone) with spotify installed. If using the same spotify account, one can control what plays (and what volume).


There is a plugin for spotify called Spotify Mac Remote, you can get it from the developers website here. It works great with my universal remote, should work just as great with the apple remote.

developers description:


  • I installed this, but unfortunately while it stops the remote using iTunes, it doesn't seem to hook fully to Spotify - I'm running Lion, is tehre something else I need to do? – George Pearce Jan 11 '12 at 12:35
  • I'm still running Snow Leopard so I can't really tell you anything in regards to Lion. Play/pause, prev/next & volume is working properly. I didn't do anything special. – Holm Jan 11 '12 at 20:49
  • I guess you could try mailing the guy who made the plugin. – Holm Jan 11 '12 at 20:50

I just made an app that lets you control Spotify with your Apple remote


(I will make the source available soon)

  • Can someone tell me why this was down voted? – jLynx Dec 3 '15 at 23:56

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