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Pear Desktop

Native look & feel extension

[!IMPORTANT] ⚠️ Disclaimer

No Affiliation

This project, and its contributors, are not affiliated with, authorized by, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with Google LLC, YouTube, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. This is an independent, non-profit, and unofficial extension developed by a team of volunteers with the goal of providing a desktop experience.

Trademarks

The names “Google” and “YouTube Music”, as well as related names, marks, emblems, and images, are registered trademarks of their respective owners. Any use of these trademarks is for identification and reference purposes only and does not imply any association with the trademark holder. We have no intention of infringing upon these trademarks or causing harm to the trademark holders.

Limitation of Liability

This application (extension) is provided “AS IS”, and you use it at your own risk. In no event shall the developers or contributors be liable for any claim, damages, or other liability, including any legal consequences, arising from, out of, or in connection with the software or the use or other dealings in the software. The responsibility for any and all outcomes of using this software rests entirely with the user.

Content

Features
Translation
Download
Themes
Dev
Build your own plugins
- Creating a plugin
- Common use cases
Build
Production Preview
Tests
License
FAQ

Translation

You can help with translation on Hosted Weblate.

Download

You can check out the latest release to quickly find the latest version.

Arch Linux

Install the pear-desktop package from the AUR. For AUR installation instructions, take a look at this wiki page.

Solus

sudo eopkg install pear-desktop

macOS

You can install the app using Homebrew (see the cask definition):

brew install pear-devs/pear/pear-desktop

If you install the app manually and get an error “is damaged and can’t be opened.” when launching the app, run the following in the Terminal:

/usr/bin/xattr -cr /Applications/Pear\ Desktop.app

Windows

You can use the Scoop package manager to install the pear-desktop package from the extras bucket.

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install extras/pear-desktop

Alternately you can use Winget, Windows 11s official CLI package manager to install the pear-devs.pear-desktop package.

Note: Microsoft Defender SmartScreen might block the installation since it is from an “unknown publisher”. This is also true for the manual installation when trying to run the executable(.exe) after a manual download here on github (same file).

winget install pear-devs.pear-desktop

How to install without a network connection? (in Windows)

Download the *.nsis.7z file for your device architecture in release page.
- x64 for 64-bit Windows
- ia32 for 32-bit Windows
- arm64 for ARM64 Windows
Download installer in release page. (*-Setup.exe)
Place them in the same directory.
Run the installer.

Themes

You can load CSS files to change the look of the application (Options > Visual Tweaks > Themes).

Some predefined themes are available in https://github.com/kerichdev/themes-for-ytmdesktop-player.

Dev

git clone https://github.com/pear-devs/pear-desktop
cd pear-desktop
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm dev

Instead of installing pnpm on your system, you can also use devcontainers. You can use devcontainers either as a development environment in VS Code, or as a way to easily build the project without installing dependencies on your host system.

Note that this has it’s own limitations (for example, GUI doesn’t work on, at least some, Linux hosts).

Build your own plugins

Using plugins, you can:

manipulate the app - the BrowserWindow from electron is passed to the plugin handler
change the front by manipulating the HTML/CSS

Creating a plugin

Create a folder in src/plugins/YOUR-PLUGIN-NAME:

index.ts: the main file of the plugin ```typescript import style from ‘./style.css?inline’; // import style as inline

import { createPlugin } from ‘@/utils’;

export default createPlugin({ name: ‘Plugin Label’, restartNeeded: true, // if value is true, ytmusic show restart dialog config: { enabled: false, }, // your custom config stylesheets: [style], // your custom style, menu: async ({ getConfig, setConfig }) => { // All *Config methods are wrapped Promise const config = await getConfig(); return [ { label: ‘menu’, submenu: [1, 2, 3].map((value) => ({ label: value ${value}, type: ‘radio’, checked: config.value === value, click() { setConfig({ value }); }, })), }, ]; }, backend: { start({ window, ipc }) { window.maximize();

  // you can communicate with renderer plugin
  ipc.handle('some-event', () => {
    return 'hello';
  });
},
// it fired when config changed
onConfigChange(newConfig) { /* ... */ },
// it fired when plugin disabled
stop(context) { /* ... */ },

}, renderer: { async start(context) { console.log(await context.ipc.invoke(‘some-event’)); }, // Only renderer available hook onPlayerApiReady(api, context) { // set plugin config easily context.setConfig({ myConfig: api.getVolume() }); }, onConfigChange(newConfig) { /* … / }, stop(_context) { / … */ }, }, preload: { async start({ getConfig }) { const config = await getConfig(); }, onConfigChange(newConfig) {}, stop(_context) {}, }, });


### Common use cases

- injecting custom CSS: create a `style.css` file in the same folder then:

```typescript
// index.ts
import style from './style.css?inline'; // import style as inline

import { createPlugin } from '@/utils';

export default createPlugin({
  name: 'Plugin Label',
  restartNeeded: true, // if value is true, pear-desktop will show a restart dialog
  config: {
    enabled: false,
  }, // your custom config
  stylesheets: [style], // your custom style
  renderer() {} // define renderer hook
});

If you want to change the HTML:

import { createPlugin } from '@/utils';

export default createPlugin({
  name: 'Plugin Label',
  restartNeeded: true, // if value is true, ytmusic will show the restart dialog
  config: {
    enabled: false,
  }, // your custom config
  renderer() {
    console.log('hello from renderer');
  } // define renderer hook
});

communicating between the front and back: can be done using the ipcMain module from electron. See index.ts file and example in sponsorblock plugin.

Build

Clone the repo
Follow this guide to install pnpm
Run pnpm install --frozen-lockfile to install dependencies
Run pnpm build:OS

pnpm dist:win - Windows
pnpm dist:linux - Linux (amd64)
pnpm dist:linux:deb-arm64 - Linux (arm64 for Debian)
pnpm dist:linux:rpm-arm64 - Linux (arm64 for Fedora)
pnpm dist:mac - macOS (amd64)
pnpm dist:mac:arm64 - macOS (arm64)

Builds the app for macOS, Linux, and Windows, using electron-builder.

Building in devcontainer

Clone the repo;
Open the folder in VS Code;
Reopen in container when prompted;
Run pnpm build as above (choosing the desired target);
Collect the built files from the dist folder.

Since devcontainer uses a mount for the workspace, the built files will be available on the host system as well.

Production Preview

pnpm start

Tests

pnpm test

Uses Playwright to test the app.

License

FAQ

If Hide Menu option is on - you can show the menu with the alt key (or ` [backtick] if using the in-app-menu plugin)