What a favourite in Apple Music actually does

The star in Music looks like a single feature. Under it are two things: a flag on the song, and a playlist built from that flag. Knowing which is which explains most of the odd behaviour people report

The flag

Every song in Music has a favourite flag, called favorited in Music's scripting dictionary. Choose Favourite from the More menu of a song in Music, or right-click Likeit's menu bar star, and that flag changes. Before macOS Sonoma 14.1, Music called the same thing Love, which is why you still see both words (see Love or Favourite)

The playlist

Music keeps a playlist called Favourite Songs (Favourite Songs with British spelling). Songs you favourite appear there. Music also uses the flag to shape the recommendations it shows you

Library songs, streaming songs and radio

• Songs in your library carry the flag directly
• Apple Music streaming songs you add to the library carry it too. A favourited streaming song shows up in Favourite Songs as its own entry
• Radio and catalogue songs you have not added to the library play as stream items. Favouriting one works: a few seconds later a separate copy of the song appears in Favourite Songs. That copy, not the stream item, is the real record of the favourite

The third case matters when you remove a favourite. Clearing the flag on the stream item changes nothing you can see, because the copy in Favourite Songs is what Music shows. To remove the favourite, the flag has to be cleared on the copy. Likeit does exactly that: when you right-click the star on a filled song, it finds the song with the same title and artist in Favourite Songs and clears it there

Why the star in Music updates late

After the flag changes from outside the Music window, the Music window can take several seconds to redraw its own star. The value is already set. We wrote about the delay in why the star in Music updates late

Ratings are a different thing

Music also has 1 to 5 star ratings. They are separate from favourites, and Music accepts a star rating from other apps only for songs that are in your library. Favourites are the part of Music that other apps can reliably control

Likeit is built around that one flag: right-click the star in the menu bar, the current song is a favourite, right-click again to undo