Iris — A Small Window on Screen

2026-04-21 · 2 min read

I made a new app. It's called Iris.

It's a floating overlay for macOS — always on top, draggable, showing Spotify's synced lyrics, album art, and system vitals like CPU, memory, and disk, all at the same time.

Why I built it

I usually listen to music while I code. When a line catches my ear, I want to glance at the lyrics — but the Spotify window is either buried under the IDE or sitting on another desktop. Switching over and back is a small motion, but it breaks the flow every time.

Same with system vitals. If I want to check what the CPU is doing or how much memory is left, opening Activity Monitor feels like too much ceremony.

What I actually wanted was a small window tucked into a corner of the screen, that tells me everything at a glance.

What it does today

• 🎵 Follows Spotify's current track and streams time-synced lyrics from lrclib.net, scrolling in real time
• 💿 Shows the album cover next to the lyric line
• 📊 A thin bar at the bottom tracks playback progress
• 🧠 CPU and memory as compact rings; disk shows free space as text
• 🪟 Float the overlay anywhere; position is saved across launches
• 📌 A ʟ icon in the menu bar toggles visibility or quits the app

What's next

It's still a work in progress. A few directions I want to push further:

• More media sources — Apple Music, system-wide Now Playing
• User-configurable layout and themes
• Per-display positioning

Download

• Latest release
• Source on GitHub

If you also code with music on, give it a try. If you have thoughts or feature ideas, open an issue — I'd love to hear them.