Run YouTube Music as a native desktop app instead of opening a browser tab.
Apply custom themes and CSS to personalize the YouTube Music interface.
Use global keyboard shortcuts to control playback without switching windows.
Install plugins to add features like last.fm scrobbling or other modifications.
Requires Node.js/pnpm and building Electron app from source; no external services but compilation step needed.
Pear Desktop is an unofficial desktop application for YouTube Music that wraps the web player in a native desktop window and adds functionality that the official YouTube Music website does not provide. It solves the problem that YouTube Music has no official desktop app, leaving users to either open a browser tab or use third-party solutions. The application is built as an extension around the YouTube Music web interface and adds features such as themes, custom CSS support for visual tweaks, keyboard shortcuts, system media controls integration, and a plugin system where users can install additional modifications. Users can switch between different visual themes or load their own CSS to customize the appearance. The plugin system exposes both a renderer API for modifying the page's HTML and CSS and a backend API for interacting with the Electron window itself. The README is clear that this is an independent, unofficial project with no affiliation with Google or YouTube. It provides a native-feeling desktop experience by wrapping the web service in Electron, a framework that bundles a web browser engine and Node.js into a standalone desktop application. You would use Pear Desktop when you want YouTube Music as a proper desktop application with custom themes, global keyboard shortcuts, last.fm scrobbling, or other modifications that are not available in the browser. It is available on macOS, Windows, and Linux. The tech stack is TypeScript with Electron as the desktop runtime, built and packaged using pnpm. It is available through Homebrew on macOS, Scoop or Winget on Windows, AUR on Arch Linux, and direct downloads for other platforms. The project is open source.
Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.