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February 16

Stop Apple Music from launching

Is there a way to stop Apple Music from launching each time a Bluetooth connection is activated (in Sequioa 15.3)? It keeps interrupting my workflow in a truly irritating way. (Adding Music to the Bluetooth apps in the Privacy & Security setting and toggling it to off didn't do the job for me.) ‑‑Lambiam 18:29, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you use Apple Music at all? If not are you able to just disable or uninstall it? I have no Mac experience personally. --Slowking Man (talk) 04:50, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is a huge profit source for Apple, so they have made it impossible to uninstall it. It is apparently even impossible to disable it by some accessible control. There is an app called noTunes that promises to stop Apple Music from launching,^[1] but it is is not listed on the App store and I don't want to install apps from a random developer. I just bought a new MacBook, but there are so many things that insist on pestering me that I now regret not having switched to Linux. ‑‑Lambiam 10:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: I just looked at noTunes's source and I can say it's perfectly legit, as long as you trust me... It's a quite trivial program which easily fits on a single screen: AppDelegate.swift is the sole source code file. The rest is a pretty icon and all the assorted metadata for sticking it in the system tray and all. Here is the entire actual "meat" of the program:

func appIsLaunched() {
        let apps = NSWorkspace.shared.runningApplications
        for currentApp in apps.enumerated() {
            let runningApp = apps[currentApp.offset]

            if(runningApp.activationPolicy == .regular) {
                if(runningApp.bundleIdentifier == "com.apple.iTunes") {
                    runningApp.forceTerminate()
                }
                if(runningApp.bundleIdentifier == "com.apple.Music") {
                    runningApp.forceTerminate()
                }
            }
        }
    }

It just registers a "listener" with Mac OS to get notified whenever an "app" launches, and if that app is iTunes/Music takes it out back and shoots it. You could even just skip the foofraw and run that source file as a daemon from the terminal if you wanted to do things quick-and-dirty.

As for Linux you might be able to run that on the Macbook but it depends on model; apparently the M3/M4 Macs are a no-go currently, but M1/M2 Apple silicon are supported (for which you'll want Asahi Linux). Also take note of [2]. (Note OS X is just an ersatz BSD Unix with Apple's stuff "on top" to begin with; you already have all the standard Unix tools on there.) --Slowking Man (talk) 23:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I have caved in and installed it. ‑‑Lambiam 09:40, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stop Firefox from suggesting to translate a page

Each time I open a web page with Firefox (version 128.7.0) in macOS (Sequioa 15.3) that is in another language than English, something I do quite often, a pop-up appears asking whether the page should be translated. Roughly 99 out of 100 cases I want to see the original text, so this is a real nuisance. Is there some setting to stop this unsolicited behaviour? ‑‑Lambiam 18:36, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I use Firefox in Windows, so this may be slightly off, but it appears that this can be changed. From the menu, click on "Translate Page...". That opens up a new window with a gear icon indicating a place to set options. Clicking that brings up another context window with options including "Always Offer to Translate" which is likely checked off for you. Try unchecking that option. If that doesn't work, selecting "Manage Translations..." from that same area brings up further options. Matt Deres (talk) 19:22, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The menu structure under macOS is apparently completely different; I cannot find any of this. The Preferences (Settings) page has, in the section Language and Appearance, a subsection Translations, where clicking a button Settings brings up a list "Translation will not be offered for the following languages". The list has buttons for removing languages from the (empty) list, but not for adding any. ‑‑Lambiam 10:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]