Macdio on the Mac: Menu Bar, Compact Player and Shortcuts

On a Mac, Macdio plays radio and podcasts from a main window with a player panel on the right. There is also a small compact player window, a player in the menu bar, a menu on the Dock icon and keyboard shortcuts for the common actions. The Mac app needs macOS 26 and is part of the same one-time purchase as Macdio on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Apple Watch.

1. Open Macdio and choose “Library” or “Discover” in the top bar.
2. Press ⌘F to find a station, then start it.
3. Press ⇧⌘M to swap the main window for the compact player.
4. Click the radio icon in the menu bar for play, pause, favorites and the sleep timer.

The top bar holds a gear for Settings (⌘,), a segmented control with “Library”, “Tracks”, “Discover”, “Recordings”, “Podcasts” and “Stats”, a button for the compact player and a button that shows or hides the player panel (“Toggle Player Panel”). New to radio on a Mac? Start with how to listen to radio on Mac.

For a station, the panel has previous station, play and pause, next station, record and “Identify song with Shazam”, with mute, the “Sleep Timer” and a “Recent Tracks” list of the songs that played. Space plays and pauses. The sleep timer section adds “Add 15 minutes”, “Cancel Timer” and “Repeat Timer”.

For a podcast episode the same row becomes previous episode, skip back, play, skip forward and next episode, with a speed menu from 0.8x to 3.0x. When the episode has a transcript, a bookmark marks the sentence you are hearing (“Mark this moment (⌘M)”). “Recent Tracks” turns into “Chapters” and “Songs”. More in podcasts in Macdio, podcast transcripts and highlights, Song ID and recording.

Press ⇧⌘M, choose “Toggle Compact Mode” in the View menu, or click the compact player button. The main window steps aside and a small window without a title bar takes its place. Hold the pointer over it to see its window buttons. ⇧⌘M brings the main window back.

Its ••• menu has “Copy Station Name”, “Copy Song Name”, “Copy Stream URL”, “Always on Top” and “Open Main Window”. A list button (“Show station list”) opens your stations inside the small window. During an episode it also has the skip buttons, speed and the bookmark (⌘M). Macdio remembers which window you used last and opens in that one next time.

Click the radio icon in the menu bar. You get what is playing, a button to save the song, “Find in Apple Music”, then “Previous favorite”, record, play and pause, stop and “Next favorite”. Below are your “Favorites” (listed by name), volume, the “Sleep Timer” menu with its presets and “Repeat Timer” (“+15m” while a timer runs), and “Compact Mode” or “Open Macdio”, “Settings” and “Quit Macdio”.

Yes. Settings > “General” > “App Visibility” > “Show Macdio in” has “Dock & Menu Bar” (the default), “Menu Bar Only” and “Dock Only”. “Dock Only” removes the menu bar icon, and the menu bar player goes with it.

Right-click the Dock icon. While something plays, the menu lists the song, artist and station, then “Pause” or “Play”, “Stop”, “Mute” or “Unmute”, a “Volume” submenu with 100, 75, 50, 25 and 0 percent, and “Favorite” or “Unfavorite” for the station. The media keys on a Mac keyboard work too; they send the same commands as AirPods and headphones.

“Dynamic Dock Artwork” puts the album art of the current song on the Dock icon. It sits in Settings > “General” > “Notifications & Dock” and is on by default, next to “Track Change Notifications” (also on), which posts a macOS notification when the song changes.

Keys	What it does	Where
⌘,	Opens Settings	Anywhere in the app
⌘F	“Find Station…”	Edit menu
⇧⌘P	“Toggle Player Panel”	View menu
⇧⌘M	“Toggle Compact Mode”	View menu
Space	Play or pause	Player panel
⌘← and ⌘→	Previous or next station	Player panel
⌘M	Mark this moment in an episode with a transcript	Player panel, compact player
⌘R	Sync the library with iCloud now	Library

Turn on “Open at Login” in Settings > “General” > “App Visibility”. To have the radio start as well, turn on “Auto-Play on Launch” in “General” > “Playback”; it resumes the last station.

The Settings window has the tabs “General”, “Appearance”, “Recording”, “Podcasts”, “Siri”, “Legal” and “About”.

Tab	Worth knowing
“General”	“Playback” holds “Safety Buffer”, “Adaptive Buffering”, “Auto Shazam”, “Live Pause”, “Auto-Play on Launch” and “Game Controller”. “Station Library” sets the “Auto-Refresh Schedule” (weekly by default). “iCloud & Data” has “Test iCloud Sync”.
“Appearance”	“Appearance” (System, Light or Dark) and how many saved and recently heard tracks to show.
“Recording”	“Recording Format” (“Original (Stream Native)”, “MP3”, “AAC”, “M4A”), “Mode” (“Continuous (One File)” or “Split by Track”) and “Max recording duration”.
“Podcasts”	“Default speed”, “Skip back”, “Skip forward”, “Headphone presses skip”, “Skip repeated segments”, “New episode notifications”, “Keep downloads under” and the transcription languages.

Customize Macdio goes through the rest.

The Mac understands the same station phrases as the iPhone, such as “Play Radio Paradise on Macdio” or “Stop Macdio”. “Open Macdio” only opens the app on a Mac; it does not start the radio. The “Siri” tab in Settings lists every phrase. More in Siri radio and shortcuts and automations.

• The Mac has no browser station editor. Add your own stations in the app (add a custom station); the browser editor runs on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.
• The menu bar player’s buttons work on stations. Play and pause podcast episodes from the main window or the compact player.
• The menu bar lists favorites by name, not in the order you set in the Library.

Press ⇧⌘M, choose “Toggle Compact Mode” in the View menu, or click the compact player button in the top bar. Press it again to go back to the main window.

Yes. In Settings > “General” > “App Visibility”, set “Show Macdio in” to “Menu Bar Only”. “Dock Only” does the opposite and removes the menu bar player.

Turn on “Open at Login” in Settings > “General” > “App Visibility”. Turn on “Auto-Play on Launch” in “General” > “Playback” as well if you want the last station to start by itself.

⌘F finds a station, ⇧⌘P shows or hides the player panel, ⇧⌘M switches to the compact player, Space plays and pauses, ⌘← and ⌘→ change station, ⌘M marks a podcast moment and ⌘R syncs the library.

Yes. Right-click the Dock icon for “Pause” or “Play”, “Stop”, “Mute”, a “Volume” menu and “Favorite” for the station that is playing.

Get Macdio on the App Store, or read more about Macdio for Mac. One purchase covers every Apple device, with no subscription.