spotify-lyrics-pop-out

Spotify Lyrics Pop-Out

An interactive Chrome extension that puts the lyrics for the song playing in Spotify Web into a movable, always-on-top Picture-in-Picture window.

Install Spotify Lyrics Pop-Out from the Chrome Web Store

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What works

• Detects the current song, artist, album art, playback time, and play state in any open Spotify Web tab.
• Fetches time-coded lyrics from LRCLIB.
• Highlights and automatically centers the current line as the song plays.
• Opens a native Document Picture-in-Picture window that stays above other windows and can be moved or resized.
• Includes a compact Edge mode that asks Chrome to reopen the smaller window at its default screen corner; choose Pull Out to restore the full view at that corner and at the size it had before collapsing.
• Lets you scroll freely, turn auto-follow back on, click any lyric to seek, scrub the timeline, and use previous/play-pause/next controls.
• Falls back to evenly estimated line timing when only plain lyrics are available.

Install locally

For normal use, install the published extension from the Chrome Web Store link above. To test the source checkout instead:

1. Download or clone this repository.
2. Open chrome://extensions in Chrome.
3. Turn on Developer mode.
4. Click Load unpacked and select this folder.
5. Open Spotify Web and play a song.
6. Click the green Lyrics Pop-Out pill inside Spotify to launch the lyric window. You can also click the extension icon to reveal the launcher.

The second click is intentional: Chrome requires the page itself to receive a user gesture before it can create a Document Picture-in-Picture window.

How it works

Spotify Lyrics Pop-Out reads playback metadata and the active audio element from Spotify Web. It uses the song metadata to request synced LRC lyrics from LRCLIB, then matches each timestamp against Spotify’s current playback time. The PiP is owned by the Spotify tab, so keep that tab open while using it.

Permissions

• open.spotify.com: read current playback metadata and control the Spotify player.
• lrclib.net: retrieve synced or plain lyrics.
• tabs: find an open Spotify tab when the extension icon is clicked elsewhere.

No Spotify password, cookies, browsing history, or listening data is collected or sent anywhere by this extension. Song metadata is sent to LRCLIB only to find the requested lyrics.

Current limitations

• Chrome 130 or newer is required; Document Picture-in-Picture is not available in every browser.
• Chrome keeps Document PiP always on top, but Chrome and macOS—not the extension—control whether it follows browser or app windows across true full-screen Spaces. A Chrome extension cannot force that cross-Space behavior.
• For security, Chrome disables programmatic PiP window positioning. Edge mode therefore requests Chrome’s fresh default placement (normally the lower-right corner in desktop Chrome) rather than claiming an exact screen coordinate.
• Availability and timing quality depend on LRCLIB’s community-maintained data.
• Spotify can change its Web Player structure. The extension uses Media Session data first and DOM selectors as a fallback.
• Spotify podcasts, local files, ads, and some restricted tracks may not have synced lyrics.
• Lyrics remain the property of their respective rights holders. This project does not bundle or redistribute a lyrics catalogue.

Development

There is no build step and no runtime package dependency.

npm test
npm run check

After editing, reload the extension from chrome://extensions.

License

MIT