MediaKeyTap provides an API for accessing the Mac's media keys (play/pause, next and previous) in your Swift application. MediaKeyTap will only capture key events when it is the most recently activated media application, matching the behaviour of existing applications, such as those using SPMediaKeyTap.

MediaKeyTap builds its whitelist by combining the static whitelist from SPMediaKeyTap with a dynamic whitelist built at runtime using NSDistributedNotificationCenter. If you create a new application using this library, you should not need to add your bundle identifier to the whitelist.

Create a MediaKeyTap:

@NSApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate {
    ⋮
    var mediaKeyTap: MediaKeyTap?
    func applicationDidFinishLaunching(aNotification: Notification) {
        mediaKeyTap = MediaKeyTap(delegate: self)
        mediaKeyTap?.start()
    }
    ⋮
}

and implement MediaKeyTapDelegate's 1 method:

func handle(mediaKey: MediaKey, event: KeyEvent) {
    switch mediaKey {
    case .playPause:
        print("Play/pause pressed")
    case .previous, .rewind:
        print("Previous pressed")
    case .next, .fastForward:
        print("Next pressed")
    }
}

You can also access the KeyEvent to access the event's underlying keycode, keyFlags and keyRepeat values.

The MediaKeyTap initialiser allows the keypress behaviour to be specified:

    MediaKeyTap(delegate: self, on: .keyDown) // Default
    MediaKeyTap(delegate: self, on: .keyUp)
    MediaKeyTap(delegate: self, on: .keyDownAndUp)

In order to capture key events globally, you need to ensure:

• Your application is not sandboxed
• Your info.plist provides NSAppleEventsUsageDescription
• Your application has accessibility privileges (will be asked automatically)

Add pod 'MediaKeyTap' to your Podfile and run pod install.

Then import MediaKeyTap.

Add github "nhurden/MediaKeyTap" to your Cartfile and run carthage update.