Lagu for Mac
Lagu for Mac plays the music library on your Plex Media Server with the full desktop player: lossless playback, the equalizer, downloads, and network speakers. It keeps macOS’s own window buttons, lives in the menu bar when you close it, and costs nothing, now or at launch.
01 · On the Mac
Open the disk image, drag Lagu to Applications, and sign in through Plex’s own page in your browser. The app is signed and notarized, so it opens without a trip to System Settings.
Close the window and the music keeps playing from the menu bar, whose icon tints with the system. Its menu has play, pause, skip, and Game Mode, which stills the color animation and visualizers while a game needs the GPU. Clicking the Dock icon brings the window back.
The keyboard’s media keys work with Lagu in the background, and the Now Playing module in Control Center shows the track and art.
A slim bar, or a square of artwork with the controls under it, kept above your other windows. It remembers its shape and where you left it.
Press ⌘K from anywhere in the app for one overlay over artists, albums, and songs.
Settings, Playback, Output lists every audio device on the Mac. Lagu remembers a DAC or headphones and switches back when they are plugged in again.
Keep albums and playlists on the Mac for a flight, in a folder you choose, on an external drive if you like.
02 · Sound and the rest
FLAC direct-plays from your server with the codec, bit depth, and sample rate on Now Playing, and albums play without gaps.
A preamp, twelve presets, and a custom curve, kept between launches.
Switch on Network speakers in Settings, Playback, then play to a WiiM or another DLNA speaker, set its volume, and seek while it plays, even when the Plex server is away from home.
Six of them, in the colors of the album that is playing, with a fullscreen mode.
Crossfade between tracks, loudness leveling on tracks your server has analyzed, synced lyrics, and radio with Sonic Adventure and a Guest DJ.
Last.fm and ListenBrainz, and Discord Rich Presence showing what is playing, with the cover when it can find one. All off until you turn them on.
Turn on Lagu Remote in Settings and the Mac is a Remote host whenever Lagu is open, even just in the menu bar. Pair an iPhone or an Android phone with a QR code and it can browse, search, queue, seek, and set Lagu’s volume on the Mac over your own network. The same sheet moves playback from the phone to the Mac and back again.
What it doesn’t do
What the Mac build does not have yet. The platform table has every feature, cell by cell.
The beta ships for M-series Macs. There is no Intel build yet; if you need one, say so on the forum.
Desktop runs the dark Bloom theme. A light mode comes with the desktop reskin in 0.15.0.
On phones the queue comes back after a restart. On desktop it does not yet.
Phones split quality between Wi-Fi and cellular. The Mac has one setting.
Getting it
Pick macOS on the signup form. Desktop invitations arrive by email with a download link.
Open the .dmg and drag Lagu to Applications. Later versions install from inside the app, after you say yes.
Lagu opens Plex’s sign-in page in your browser. Approve it, pick your server, and the library loads.
Questions
Yes. Lagu is a music player for Plex with a desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux. On the Mac it plays lossless and gapless, has a ten-band EQ, offline downloads, network speakers, a floating mini-player, and media-key support.
Not in the beta. The Mac build is for Apple silicon (M-series) Macs. If an Intel build would decide it for you, say so on the forum.
Yes. The desktop app is free forever on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Only the mobile apps carry a price, $1.99 once, and there is no subscription.
No. Playback, downloads, the EQ, network speakers, and Lagu Remote work without it. Sonic radio, moods, and Plex-fetched lyrics rely on Plex Pass on the server, as they do in any Plex client.
Yes. Lagu Remote pairs an iPhone or Android phone with the Mac over your own network, with no cloud service in between. The phone can browse, queue, seek, and set Lagu’s volume, and move playback between the two.
Lagu on other screens: iPhone · iPad · Apple Watch · Apple TV · Android · Android TV · Windows · Linux · every feature
The closed beta is open and free while it runs, on Android while places last. Invitations go out from the list in waves.
Join the beta list