How do I stop Apple Music from launching whenever I connect a Bluetooth headset to my MacBook?

@Random_dude_with_a_mac: Unfortunately you solution didn't survive restarts on my M2 Air on Ventura. It did stop the autolaunch each time I executed the steps, but reverted to the annoying default behaviour after restart.

One thing may be different in my case is that I never authorized Music, so that probably impacts the persistence of the settings? They probably revert to default on restart.

Fix for me was to install noTunes from the gitub - trombonez - noTunes repository. It works great, just have to add it to System Settings>General>Login Items to get it to run on every login.

Pretty strange using a Microsoft product (github) to fix untoward behaviour in macOS! Of course, there are many other such fixes for macOS on github.

Thanks! This solved my problem. The play/pause button on my bluetooth headphones would sometimes trigger Apple Music to open on my MacBook when I was trying to control music on my iPhone. Adding the application 'noTunes' to my login list prevents Apple Music from opening when I hit play/pause on my headphones. Having 'noTunes' added to my 'open at login' items keeps me from having to open the application manually every time I restart my computer.

SOLVED...I think.

OK previously I said that clicking the "repeat" and/or "shuffle" icons off and then shutting down Apple Music would result in it not re-opening automatically the next time a bluetooth device was connected. It worked for me for a while but then all of a sudden the fix stopped working and the f-ing application started opening again automatically. Super frustrating. Dove back into it again and I think I found the actual solution.

1) Turn "repeat" off by clicking the icon to the right of the play button until it is greyed out

2) Click the icon with three lines and three dots in the upper right hand corner of the application to show the "Playing Next" queue. Apple likes to autofill this queue with whatever random stuff they want. Select the "Clear Queue" button to empty it.

3) Advance the song that is currently playing to ~3 seconds from the end and allow it to finish playing. Make sure that the app does not begin playing a new song and that it is just sitting there idle with no songs displayed in the song bar.

4) Shut down the Apple Music app. Now try connecting your wifi headphones and hopefully the application will stay closed!

Hoping this works for you all! It seems to work on my computer. Of course if you ever do use Apple Music (intentionally or inadvertantly) then it is likely you will have to repeat these steps.

I read this thread and thought the same as you. I tried everything else and nothing worked so I decided to give it a go and it works perfectly. Literally download the zip and open the programme. Now when I click play on my airpods the apple music icon bounces and then immediately quits. Absolute game changer. I would recommend trying the 3rd party link: https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes.

Hey there and welcome to Apple Support Communities chopper-DeloitteAU,

We can certainly understand your concern and can help provide some insight.

We recommend checking out these steps for additional information on what to do if Apple Music keeps popping up when you connect your headphones. You can see if the app is set to open automatically by following these steps.

" Add or remove automatic items

1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Settings, click General  in the sidebar, then click Login Items on the right. (You may need to scroll down.)
2. Do any of the following:

• Add a login item: Click the Add button  below the list of items, select a document, folder, app, server, or other item, then click Add.
• Remove a login item: Select the name of the item you want to prevent from opening automatically, then click the Remove button  below the list.
• Allow apps to run in the background: Allow apps to perform tasks when the app isn’t open, such as checking for software updates or syncing data. "

For additional information, check out this link: Open items automatically when you log in on Mac - Apple Support

These steps will help ensure your device is working with ease and can fix common issues like the ones you’re experiencing.

Kindest regards!

My Sennheiser Momementum headphones can connect to two devices at the same time - my phone and work computer in my case. They have a feature by which they auto-pause when you take them off, and resume when you put them back on. Every time I put them back on when listening to music from my phone, Apple Music would launch on the computer and attempt to "onboard" me. Apple music cannot be removed, and this behaviour cannot be turned off.

The Notunes application mentioned elsewhere in this thread solved this for me.

Graphicstation wrote:

Ugh... had such high hopes this would work, but did not. My Bluetooth soundbar, every time it goes into standby, then off, the music app launches, this happens at least 10 times a day to the point I'm ready to un-install Apple Music app.

As noted earlier in the thread, noTunes really seems to be a viable solution. I've seen multiple users report success.

tt2

I was able to get it to stop by changing the play setting on Apple Music. Click the little autoplay arrow next to the fast forward button until autoplay is disabled. Then close the program and test the connection problem. I think that when autoplay is on, the program thinks you want play to resume as soon as possible so it opens the app. Hope that works for you

Hi chopper-DeloitteAU,

It's possible that your headphones are sending a "play" command when connected similar to the function mapped to the F8 key. If no other media sources are present, Apple Music will launch with this function by default.

While there are no default settings to prevent this action, you may test with other Bluetooth headsets to see if a different set does not solicit the same reaction when paired.

Regards.

I am having the same issue running on OSX 13.6. I've never had this issue before with other Bluetooth headphones/buds. If an area on the Bluetooth device is touched that may act as a play button, it does activate Apple Music like Bill_T1 said.

The only workaround which is a bit of an extra step is to just disconnect the Bluetooth device in settings, end your call or activity through the software/app or if there is a manual power off feature on your Bluetooth device do that. Sounds like common sense, but just listing it.

Not ideal by any means.

I was able to stop the Mac Music app from automatically launching when I connect my bluetooth headphones. Open apple Music and change the autoplay setting by clicking the icon next to the play controls until you get to the option that does not automatically advance you to the next song (pasted image below). In this configuration, the program does not think you want to pick up where you left off apparently...who knows. But it worked for me!

Good luck

Thanks but this app is an always running process that monitors for launching apps and then force kills it if it is itunes or apple music. I could do the same thing with a simple bash script.

So basically it is a hack/automation of me manually closing apple music every time. It isn't a real fix to the underlying user experience bug. I shouldn't have to resort to hacks to work around a bug that has been present since at least Big Sur if not earlier.

There are two issues UX here, the autolaunching of some music player and the selection of music player of choice if autolaunching is the preferred behaviour. There is also a potential bug which is whether or not it is intended/expected behaviour that a music player should launch when a bluetooth headset connects. In this case the bluetooth headset was already connected to macOS the difference is the device becoming available again for other apps at the end of a conference call. So this to me feels closer to a bug than just a bad UX choice (or lack of choice).

macOS/osx used to have to have a setting that was something along the lines of "should I auto-launch movie/quicktime when DVD is inserted". You could easily say...no thanks...just because I insert a DVD doesn't mean I want to play it.

Maybe this only affects a small number of mac users or nobody at apple uses the very uncommon Bose QC__ bluetooth headsets for conference calls.

Another thought... it may be related to "resuming" (music) after a call interrupted music that was playing.

Imagine the behaviour where you are listening to music and have an incoming call (e.g. facetime/whatsapp/etc). As the call rings the music is paused (or at least when you answer). When you hangup the call the music generally automatically resumes. So there is some type of play/resume or call over signal that is triggering a play/resume as soon as a web call ends.

The bug in this case is that apple music is trying to play/resume when it was not running/playing in the first place and has no music in the library and has never been used (ever) on any of my devices.

So the question is... are the bluetooth headphones sending some bogus signal or is this related to some "call" API that is being used at an OS level for web calls and how the call ended event is happening.

AFAIK people with airpods don't have this problem, and maybe that is what everyone at apple uses...which is why they haven't noticed/fixed this bug. So is it an OS level thing with (web)call apis or is it something on the bluetooth protocol. If it is on the bluetooth side... then are all the third party manufacturers doing something wrong or do the airpods do something special to avoid this behaviour.

This might be totally off base, but just another idea about what logical area the bug may be in.

Would be logical that most web calls on macOS (zoom, meet, teams, whatsapp, signal, facetime, etc) are using Apple's CallKit APIs (or something similar) to coordinate audio with other apps on the OS (ie pause music when a call comes in).

> coordinate your calling services with other apps and the system.

CXEndCallAction | Apple Developer Documentation

Just guessing as I don't have access to the CallKit or macos source. But I poked around Signal and their webrtc video/audio calling definitely integrates with CallKit. CallKit just lets the os coordinate when a call is happening/ending. Music apps likely use different API that may hook into same events behind scenes...for instance here is an example of how music player resumes after a call or siri interruption:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/63184647/

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfaudio/avaudiosession

As Music/iTunes was/is deeply integrated into macos, they may not be using public APIs or event hooks. For instance you can't turn off Music or prevent it from launching (you can only kill it as it launches using helper scripts).... so there has to be some OS-level code (or service you can't disable) that is listening for certain events/states and launching the app.