A desktop remote control for Spotify. Control Spotify from a convenient widget that sits at the bottom of your desktop.
With Spotify Mini, you can pause, play, change tracks, and view the current track, all without opening the main Spotify window. It is fully animated, and uses the 2010 Spotify skin.
This is a small project I made in 2010 using the Spotify-o-matic API wrapper to interact with Spotify. It is written in VB, and has largely been untouched since then. The source code is published at GitHub. Please note that this widget is entirely unaffiliated with Spotify itself.
Video via FlixGamez on Youtube
Features
- Play, pause and change tracks in Spotify from the desktop
- Drag title to move into different positions on the desktop
- Compact mode to hide the track title
- Animated and skinned interface
Limitations
- Assumes taskbar is positioned to the side or top of the desktop (as mine is…)
- Ability to search and open the Spotify window is currently disabled (Spotify is now installed in the user directory, and I haven’t got round to properly updating it…)
- Spotify should not be minimised (though it’s okay if it’s behind other windows)
Download
The source code is available here. If you just want to run it, click the link here:
Note that Windows may block the file for security. If you trust the file (i.e. if you trust me) and you are having problems, you may need to right-click on the file, go to properties, and click the ‘unblock’ button.
Credit to user yatiak on GitHub for bug fixes.
What about Spotify Mini with album cover too ?
Not sure the best way to go about that – at the moment it sends commands by using the keyboard shortcuts programmed into the main Spotify window, and it gets the track/artist names by reading the window title. I would have to find a cleverer way to get the album cover. Others have achieved it though, so I may look into it. Thanks for your question 🙂
Yea . The ONLY one that actually works is called Gadgetify. Not too bad but … LOL
http://www.jiisoft.com/gadgetify/
When I try to clink the download link I just go back to your webpage and not be able to download it.
Thanks for letting me know – should be fixed now.
good job dude 🙂
I hope you will improve it 🙂
Nice app! 🙂
Can you add optional “save to your music” (plus button)? I don’t need anything else 😉
Hi Marcin, thanks for your feedback!
Spotify Mini works by sending keyboard shortcuts to the Spotify window. If the shortcut exists in this list then it’s very easy to add a new function. But unfortunately, saving tracks isn’t in the shortcut list. I have been experimenting with other ways of interacting with the Spotify window, but they always end up feeling ‘hacky’ and don’t work half of the time.
Hopefully, Spotify will add more shortcuts to new version of the program, and if so, I’ll be sure to look at adding support for more features.
Thanks for answer, James 🙂
Is anybody having trouble with Spotify Mini since the last Spotify update? It has stopped working on my computer and I’ve been too busy to fix it, but no one else seems to have commented here – is it just me?
They’ve done something to stop this working (I’m the developer of a standalone command-line app that performs a similar function). My *guess* is this is to coincide with the introduction of Spotify Remote for mobile devices available with paid-for Premium accounts only. The methods exposed here would allow you to circumvent a pay-for feature. Charming 🙁
I have just created a fix of sorts, which still allows me to send play/pause/change track commands to the Spotify window. The only change I can see is that the track names are no longer displayed in the taskbar/Spotify window title, which means I can no longer skim track names and play/pause information. When I originally wrote Spotify Mini, I made the mistake of assuming that there would always be track information to parse, and when there isn’t, that’s what causes the crash.
Do you mean the ‘Spotify Connect’ feature? That’s been available for a few months now. Though they generally don’t make it particularly easy to interact with the Spotify window on the desktop, so it wouldn’t surprise me if something cunning is going on!
Oops, forget what I just said, just seen that the fix doesn’t work while the window is minimised! Oh dear…
It would be great if your widget could show lyrics in an small rectangular box that you could put next to the window you are working on. What do you think?
Sounds like a great idea! I don’t have time to work on this nowadays so I’ll have to leave it as is though. As always, the source code is available in the article – maybe some budding developer reading this might like to take this on as a little project? 🙂
It’s not working on Windows 10. I would love to have a widget like iTunes. Spotify widget that you made is showing some kind of error. There are 2 options. One is that continue to the app and the other is quite. Continue is not working. This happens when i play something on Spotify. When i pause and run the exe it opens in the taskbar showing play music from Spotify but after playing it shows an error. 🙁
Thanks for heads-up. Spotify have changed the format of the main window title (again!), which means Spotify Mini can’t read the song name. I’ll fix and upload after the Christmas holiday – I’m currently away from my main PC for the break.
Is there any update on that widget of Spotify? I need a Spotify widget badly. Please tell me an alternative if there is any. Thanks.
Hi, can we work this out? I made a pull request but I think is not going to work….
Let me know!
Skype: yatiac,
Hi Yatiak, what exactly is the problem that you’re having? Cheers
(I have a premium account)
When running the application I am getting a substring error, also the Play/Pause button is not working.
I’ve just had a quick look at the code. Doesn’t look like it will be a quick fix, so I won’t be able to put anything up right now. I wrote Mini over 5 years ago, and the quality of my code then shows…! It might be the case that I have to bring it down and do a full re-write. In the meantime, you mentioned a pull request? If you’re able to, you are more than welcome to pull from GitHub 🙂
Update – sorry, just seen your changes on GitHub! Thanks for the fixes. Buttons still don’t seem to work if Spotify is minimised, but it’s in a much better state than it was. Will publish here and credit. Thanks again!
I love this widget, but I’m having a couple problems.
It will only sit at the bottom of my screen blocking my taskbar. Once it managed to open UNDER my taskbar where I couldn’t reach it at all.
I also can’t drag it over to my secondary monitor where I really need it. It goes as far as the corner of my primary but just won’t cross over. Is there something I’m missing?
Hi, thanks for trying it out. I originally wrote it when my taskbar was placed on the left of the screen (as at the top of this page) on a single-monitor setup. It was very much a personal project. At some point I decided that it could be useful to some others, so I posted it here. It really needs some time spending on it to make it more flexible and solid, but it’s time I don’t have nowadays. I’ve published the source code if anyone wishes to take this task upon themselves, but I’ve had very few takers so far!
Thanks so much for the reply! It’s a very neat program. I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t overlooked something obvious! 🙂
Aw, it didn’t quite work for me with Windows 10. It displayed the current song, but the controls didn’t work. I just got a ‘ding’ and that was it. 🙁
Wow! this is working on Windows 10, I mean, I just tested!
Thanks for the solution :3
Here is a screenshot of it working
http://i.imgur.com/mBpBExa.png
HI there, how did you move it to the side of the taskbar? it is in the center on me and couldn’t get around how to move it. thanks 🙂
btw, its working for me on windows 10 😀 just stuck on the center 🙁
It should be draggable – try dragging the song title. If it doesn’t work, sometimes it ‘hides’ behind the taskbar. Move the taskbar to the side of the screen (right-click it, make sure ‘lock taskbar’ isn’t selected, then drag it) then try moving it.
Immediately after install, works. And for a small project, it’s functionality does exactly what it is described to do!
I’m obviously a little late on this post, but am curious over one aspect. It seems that Spotify’s application needs to be not only open, but (issue being ->) present over the other windows on the display. So if Spotify isn’t physically on screen (resized/maximized), your task bar buttons won’t work, or will force open Spotify.
Is there any workaround for it, in avoidance of bringing Spotify to the top window every time?
Thanks much!
Spotify mini doesnt work for me! (Windows 10) it registers i click on the widget but nothing happens.
Any Idea how to change what screen the mini player shows up in?
It can only be moved around your primary monitor right now.
Thank Man!!!!!!!