AppleMusicNVDA

A free NVDA add-on for Apple Music on Windows, built for quicker keyboard navigation, clearer Home card announcements, and easy access to Favorite and Suggest Less.

• Move between Search, Sidebar, Player, Main content, and supported open Queue and Lyrics panels with F6 and Shift+F6.
• Return to the last control you left in a section when using section navigation.
• Move into newly opened album and playlist track lists and bring the focused track into view.
• Play the focused album, playlist, or radio-show track with Enter.
• Favorite a song or album, or suggest less of it, with a keyboard shortcut. The same commands work on the current song from player controls.
• Keep existing favorites and Suggest Less preferences when you repeat a shortcut.
• Read titles and metadata exposed inside Home cards, with fewer duplicate labels and grouping announcements. Improved names work with speech and braille.
• Reassign the add-on’s shortcuts in NVDA’s Input gestures dialog.

The add-on runs inside NVDA. No mouse, AutoHotkey, or extra Python packages are needed. It works with the Windows Apple Music app; its shortcuts only apply while that app is active.

The add-on user guide covers navigation, playback, Home cards, and preference commands. A copy is included in the installed add-on for offline use. The shortcuts and basic steps are also listed below.

Grab the latest build from the Releases page. For a version-by-version history, see the changelog.

You need NVDA and the Windows Apple Music app. The current compatibility metadata targets NVDA 2025.1 through 2026.3, so the add-on can ship on the Add-on Store’s stable channel. NVDA 2027.1 alpha asks once to install it anyway. English Apple Music menus are supported, including both Favorite and Favourite spellings.

1. Download the .nvda-addon file.
2. Open it and confirm NVDA’s installation prompt.
3. Restart NVDA when prompted, then open Apple Music.

Installing a newer version upgrades the existing add-on, including earlier versions named Apple Music Suggest Less.

These are the add-on’s default shortcuts.

To change a shortcut, open NVDA’s Preferences > Input gestures while Apple Music is active, then find the command under Apple Music.

Press F6 to move through Search, Sidebar, Player, Main content, Queue, and Lyrics. Shift+F6 moves in reverse. Navigation wraps around and skips hidden or unavailable sections. Closed Queue and Lyrics panels are detected from their toggle state so long playlists do not need a full control scan before Search.

Control+1 through Control+3 open Home, New, or Radio and leave you on the first item of the page, even when that page is already open. Control+4 and Control+5 open the Library or Playlists list so you can choose a page. Control+6 opens the account menu and then Settings. Control+S opens search and leaves you in the search field, ready to type. Any previous query is selected, so typing replaces it.

Some cards, such as Radio’s On Air Now stations and Home’s Made for You playlists, draw their titles only in artwork. Apple Music reports an internal name such as AMP.Services.CommonModels.LiveRadioGridLockup for them. The add-on reads the real title, such as Apple Music Hits or Get Up!, from the page data Apple Music has cached on your computer, matched by section and position. If that data is missing or does not match the page, it falls back to the card’s artists, or Live radio station.

The add-on remembers the last control you left in each section. Moving between sections does not activate buttons or start playback. Use Tab or the arrow keys within a section, and close any open menu or dialog before switching sections.

When you open a supported album or playlist track list, the add-on focuses a track and brings it into view. This may be the previously selected track. F6 also prefers tracks over header controls when moving to Main content.

Press Home or End on a track row to move to the first or last track. The add-on waits briefly for Apple Music’s virtualized list to expose the final track name before NVDA announces it.

Press Enter or Numpad Enter on a track row to play it. The add-on double-clicks the row’s title, as a mouse user would, which is much faster than the More menu, and puts the mouse pointer back. NVDA says nothing; the music starting is the confirmation. If the title is hidden or covered, it uses the track’s More menu instead. This also works with radio shows presented as album tracks. Enter on a track’s More button opens its menu normally, and other child controls keep their usual action.

Focus one song or album and press Control+Alt+Up Arrow to favorite it, Control+Alt+Shift+Up Arrow to remove it from favorites, or Control+Alt+Down Arrow to suggest less of it. NVDA does not read the menu the add-on opens, or your item again when focus returns; you hear only the result. From player controls, the add-on tries to apply the command to the current song and restore your original focus afterward. Keep focus in place until NVDA announces the result.

Repeating a shortcut keeps the preference set. NVDA tells you when the item is already a favorite, not a favorite, already set to Suggest Less, or the command is unavailable. Select only one song or album at a time.

Home cards include titles and metadata Apple Music exposes through accessibility. Repeated artwork labels and grouping names are removed from announcements, and the improved names work with both speech and braille.

When a personalized card exposes artists but no title, it reads “Made for You, featuring [artists].” The add-on cannot recover a title Apple Music does not expose.

• Some layouts, track lists, and Queue or Lyrics panels still need manual navigation. Section and track detection relies partly on English labels.
• If the current song cannot be found from the player, focus the song or its More button and try again.
• Moving focus during a pending command can cancel it. Switching to another app cancels pending work.
• Success feedback means Apple Music accepted the action through accessibility; it does not independently confirm that Apple’s server saved the preference.
• Compatibility metadata and mock tests do not establish live testing on every supported version. Some playback and Queue/Lyrics navigation changes still need full live verification. See the technical notes and testing record for details.

The build uses Python’s standard library. From the repository folder, run:

python build.py

The installable add-on and its SHA-256 checksum are written to dist/. The build checks the archive’s integrity and required files. Open the resulting .nvda-addon file to install it in NVDA.

When reporting a problem, include your Apple Music and NVDA versions, focus information from NVDA+F1, and relevant NVDA log entries. Leave out private account data.

Pull requests are welcome. Include what changed and how you checked it. For app-module changes, run:

python -m unittest discover -s tests -v

These tests use mocked NVDA and UI Automation objects. For navigation, playback, speech, or braille changes, describe any testing you completed in the live app. See the technical notes for implementation details and the live test checklist.

Apple Music for NVDA is licensed under GPL version 2 or later. Source is included in this repository and in the add-on package at appModules/applemusic.py. The add-on makes no network requests.

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