Show a "Now Playing" notification in iTunes

Using a defaults write command, the iTunes Dock icon can be set to display a “Now Playing” song and artist pop-up that transitions in and out and music starts. It’s a nice addition, particularly if you’re playing songs from a shared network playlist and have iTunes hidden in the background. Enable the iTunes song and artist Dock icon popup

Open the Terminal in /Applications/Utilities/ and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool TRUE


Now kill the Dock to relaunch it:
killall Dock


Start playing a song in iTunes to see the notification appear, it’ll disappear automatically and then reappear briefly anytime a new song starts.

If you decide you don’t like the notification, disabling the iTunes song popup is just as easy:

defaults delete com.apple.dock itunes-notifications


You won’t need to relaunch iTunes, but you will need to kill the Dock again.

This only works in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, if you try it in prior versions nothing happens. Nice find by TheNextWeb.