User guide › Playback

Move the bars with the sound

Make the bars beside the notch follow the music, and what macOS asks the first time.

While a song plays, the bars beside the notch move. Usually they loop, whatever the music does. Turn this on and they follow the sound instead: the first bar moves with the bass, the last with the treble. It’s off at first.

Turn it on

1. Right-click the notch, or click the Warble icon in the menu bar, and choose Settings….
2. Choose Notch.
3. Turn on Move the bars with the sound.

The first time the bars show, macOS asks to let Warble hear your Mac’s audio. Choose Allow. Warble uses it only to move the bars. It doesn’t record or keep anything, and nothing leaves your Mac.

When it listens

Warble listens only while the bars are on screen with something playing. When you pause, open the notch, go to a full-screen app or turn the setting off, it stops, and macOS stops showing Warble as listening. With nothing playing it never listens.

It follows whatever your Mac is playing, not only the player Warble shows, and it follows the output you’ve chosen, such as AirPods.

With Reduce motion on in System Settings › Accessibility › Display, the bars stand still, so Warble doesn’t listen at all.

If you said no

If you chose Don’t Allow, the setting turns itself off and says so under it.

1. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen & System Audio Recording.
2. Allow Warble, under System Audio Recording Only.
3. Turn Move the bars with the sound on again in Warble’s Settings › Notch.

Troubleshooting

• The bars loop as before. Check that the setting is on, and that Reduce motion is off.
• They stay low. Something has to be playing out loud: a muted Mac, or a player that sends its sound somewhere else, gives them nothing to follow.