Tahoe Music app control bar in poor location

Here's a workaround. Per tidbits.com (link below), you can disable Liquid Glass on a per-app basis. Stop the Music app, open the Terminal app and enter the command

defaults write com.apple.Music com.apple.SwiftUI.DisableSolarium -bool YES

then restart the Music app. This will revert the two most noxious changes to the app in my eyes: returns the controls to their rightful place at the top of the window, and restores the status bar at the bottom of the playlist in "View as Songs" mode.

You can revert to the godawful Liquid Glass nonsense by repeating the process and replacing YES with NO, if such a perverse urge should occur to you. More details about the process (and options to implement this system-wide) available at this link (many thanks to TidBits for publishing this):

TidBits article on disabling Liquid Glass

Yes! Why change the location of something that has been consistent for decades?

At best the Music product team might think they are doing us a favor by maximizing screen real estate. Or possibly they are trying to align it with the iPad version. If so, that's annoying. We've got more screen on a Mac, we can afford the screen real estate. At worst they are doing it "just because" or "to shake things up". It's not coming across as intuitive or informed.

Apple should:

• Offer allow us to move "playback controls" back to "Top/Classic" in Settings
• Gather usage stats and see what people really prefer, or...

My son just said: "Why isn't it draggable, so you can move it wherever you want? It already looks like something you should be able to drag with those rounded corners...." What a brilliant insight. It should be whatever you want it to be. Apple should take note. He was already informed by Apple's design language to assume it was draggable.

I'd also recommend anyone and everyone with an opinion to say something at Product Feedback - Apple under Services you'll find Music. The form is clunky but muscle through it. It's got two comment boxes one under "Feedback Type" and the other under "What is your feedback about". The "What software are you using" checkbox list is pages long - yeesh. I'll fill one out, you should too. 🫵 Then be patient and lower all expectations in the hope of being pleasantly surprised years after you've gotten used to to the new location. 🗓️😑

nursers wrote:

No getting well into 2026 and this ridiculous issue is still there - not only is the positioning nonsensical, on a laptop you can no longer see the length of a song time-wise. Add to that the double click to adjust volume and I'm struggling to think of a worse design in Apple-land......

Why are you telling us, your fellow users? We weren't responsible for the change and can't do anything about it. And Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Share you thoughts with Apple about the placement of the Control bar. No one likes it where it is

Feedback - macOS - Apple

I’ve noticed in the latest macOS update that Apple Music’s playback controls are now stuck at the bottom of the window.

This is really frustrating — on macOS, users naturally look and navigate to the top of the app for controls. It breaks years of muscle memory, adds unnecessary mouse travel, and is inconsistent with how other Apple apps work.

I’ve filed Feedback Assistant already, but I want to add my voice here because this is bad UX.

If you feel the same way, please reply or upvote this post so Apple can see this is affecting more than a few people.

I'm a UI designer, and it's not just MacOS users, it's all humans. We are trained by written language to traverse a screen in the same order that our language is written in. For most western languages that means our eyes start at the top left, and travel down to the bottom right. Most Asian languages start at top right, and travel to bottom left. Either way we all start at the top.

If you want to make a UI element less obvious, then you put it at the bottom. I can't imagine that Apple doesn't know this, and it baffles me that they would make this choice.

Even though I know they have moved the controls to the bottom I find myself first looking at the top every time, and then get frustrated finding the controls at the bottom.

I totally agree....it is in a bad spot... what would really work better is if the control bar was 'floating" like in Logic Pro.

That way it can be positioned any place on the screen that's convenient.

26.2 same issue, command doesnt fix issue

Agreed, ultra annoying and I'll add the elusive volume control to the pile.

Combined in this new way, especially with transparency introduced, the whole control area presents to my eye as unintelligible visual gobbledygook.

I cannot agree with this more !! I hate it. Why oh why they decided to put it at the bottom is anyones guess. I've had nothing but issues since the upgrade. My entire music collection is on here, massive, and now when clicking onto a different song to play there is a massive lag with the spinning wheel of doom in between, it's like dial up has came back. Also cannot import a cd onto my library anymore with my external drive, which was working perfectly before the upgrade, sigh.

Apple please go back, my sixty year old eyes can't even see it on a 27 inch screen,,they have completely screwed up iTunes/music.. I could go on all day about the ridiculous stuff that they do, no common sense not intuitive..

No getting well into 2026 and this ridiculous issue is still there - not only is the positioning nonsensical, on a laptop you can no longer see the length of a song time-wise. Add to that the double click to adjust volume and I'm struggling to think of a worse design in Apple-land......

Philippeimac2 wrote:

I wonder why Apple is so slow to react.

People rarely create to say they are happy so Apple can only see when customers are unhappy which is the case for this non-sense here :/

Because there are 1.5 billion Apple device users in the world and a few (in terms of the total number of users) complainers here don’t even move the needle. So you expected Apple to jump to your demands instantly?

What are the historical strengths of Apple systems vs Windows?

Why are Mac customers ok to pay more for a Mac than any cheap PC?

If Apple wants to disgust its customers so they give up and move on Win PC, this is the direct and wrong way...

I'll give you a Up Vote for that.

It also fixed another nag of mine that now I am able to drag songs up my playlist without having to switch between Playlists and Songs under the View.