SpotifyTaskbarProgress

Shows the progress of Spotify music in the taskbar.

Uses Windows SMTC (System Media Transport Controls) to read the music position and show that in the taskbar.

Why did i do this?

I wanted to keep track of the length of the song i was listening to, while i was working on something, and it gave me this idea (also because aimp had it)

Requirements

• Windows 10 (1903+) and up
• .NET 8 Runtime
• Spotify desktop app (nothing more i think..)

Install

A already compiled build is in the releases tab.

The exe for the program is in \bin\Release\net8.0-windows10.0.19041.0\win-x64\publish

Screenshots

Windows 10	Windows 11

Build

1. Clone this repo
2. Open powershell and change the directory to the one you just cloned
3. Run the following command: dotnet build

The exe should be located at:

bin\Release\net8.0-windows10.0.19041.0\win-x64\publish\SpotifyTaskbarProgress.exe

Autostart with Windows

1. Go to shell:startup (paste in the win+r dialog box)
2. Create a shortcut to SpotifyTaskbarProgress.exe inside that folder

How it works

Spotify reports the playback position to the Windows SMTC. The program reads that position every 500ms, calculates the real time elapsed since the last SMTC update, and uses ITaskbarList3 to update the progress bar on the Spotify icon in the taskbar.