Karaoke for Mac
HomeKaraoke is a free, open source karaoke app for macOS. It plays karaoke from YouTube and from video files you already own, keeps a queue of who sings what, and sends the video to a projector or a second display. Signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a double-click.
Version 0.9.0 · View changelog
System requirements
- macOS version
- macOS 10.15 Catalina or later
- Processor
- Apple Silicon or Intel, as separate downloads
- Signing
- Developer ID signature, notarized by Apple, hardened runtime
How to install on macOS
1. Download the right DMG
Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2, M3 and newer) need the aarch64 build. Intel Macs need the x64 build. There is no universal binary, so the wrong download will not run.
2. Install the app
Open the DMG and drag HomeKaraoke to your Applications folder.
3. Open it
Double-click. macOS shows its standard confirmation that the app came from the internet. Click Open. It appears once.
What you will see on first launch
HomeKaraoke is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, and the notarization ticket is stapled into the DMG. Gatekeeper lets it through. You will not see the "unidentified developer" warning, and you do not need the right-click trick to open it.
The one dialog you will get is the ordinary macOS confirmation that the app was downloaded from the internet, the same one every downloaded app shows. Click Open and it will not ask again.
What it does
YouTube and your own files
Search YouTube and queue the results, or point HomeKaraoke at folders of video files you already own. The local library, the queue and playback all work with no internet connection.
A queue built for a room full of people
Assign songs to singers, reorder by drag and drop, and use Fair Shuffle to spread turns evenly instead of letting one person hold the microphone. Singers and their favourites persist between sessions.
Projector and second display
Detach the video into its own window, drag it to the projector, and press F for full screen. It stays above other windows by default. On a Mac, HomeKaraoke also remembers the layout and restores it the next time you connect the same displays.
Guests join from their phones
Start a hosted session and share the code, something like HK-7X4M-9K2P, or its QR code. Guests request YouTube songs from a browser without installing anything. Requests reach you within about 30 seconds. You need an account to host a session.
What a Mac gets that the other systems do not
- Display layout memory is macOS-only. HomeKaraoke notices when you plug in a projector or a second monitor and restores the window arrangement you used with that setup. On Windows and Linux the detached window works fine, but you place it by hand every time.
- Now Playing and the media keys work. Two open issues still affect the widget: HomeKaraoke can show up in it more than once (#184), and it shows no artwork for local files (#183).
- On an M1, the optional yt-dlp search is slower than on newer chips. The maintainer measured roughly seven seconds against two on an M4, and closed it as a hardware limit. The default YouTube search is unaffected.
Questions
- Will macOS block it as coming from an unidentified developer?
- No. The app carries an Apple Developer ID signature and has been notarized by Apple, with the ticket stapled to the DMG. It opens with a double-click. The only prompt is the standard one-time confirmation that you downloaded it from the internet.
- Apple Silicon or Intel - which download do I need?
- Apple Silicon Macs, meaning M1 and newer, need the aarch64 build. Intel Macs need the x64 build. HomeKaraoke ships them as two separate builds, so the wrong one gives you an app that will not launch.
- Do I need anything else before I can search YouTube?
- Yes, and it catches people out. Search needs either your own YouTube Data API key, which you create for free in the Google Cloud console and paste into Settings, or yt-dlp - installed and then selected as the search method, because HomeKaraoke does not pick it up on its own. Without one of the two, search reports itself as not configured. Playing files you already own needs neither.
- Which video files can I play?
- The library scans .mp4, .mkv, .webm, .avi and .mov. Playback goes through the macOS system WebView, which decides what actually plays, so stick to MP4 with H.264 and AAC, or WebM. MKV and AVI files land in your library and then refuse to play.
- Does it play CDG or MP3+G discs?
- Not yet. HomeKaraoke recognises MP3+G material by the .cdg file sitting next to a video and lets you filter the library by it, but there is no CDG playback and MP3 files are not scanned at all.
- Does it show lyrics on screen?
- Not yet. Lyrics are fetched from Lrclib and saved next to your files, and the library marks which songs have them, but nothing is drawn over the video during playback.
Search returning nothing after you install? Set up YouTube search walks through both ways to fix it.