Why it exists
The media keys (F7–F9 on a Mac keyboard) are meant for exactly this: pause what’s playing without switching to it. But macOS only hands those keys to native apps, so the Libby website never sees them. The choice was a browser tab you have to find and click, or a desktop app that can register the keys globally. This is the smallest possible version of the second one.
What it does
- Play/Pause toggles playback of the current book.
- Previous skips back 15 seconds; Next skips ahead 15 seconds.
- It drives the page’s own audio element directly, falling back to clicking the on-screen player buttons if it can’t reach one, so the controls stay in sync with what you see.
- Everything else is just Libby: first launch drops you into the normal onboarding (pick your library, sign in with your card), and your account lives in Libby’s cloud.
One-time: Accessibility access
macOS only routes the hardware media keys to an app with Accessibility permission, so on first launch libby prompts for it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, enable the entry for Libby, then quit and reopen. Until you do, the window still works; only the physical media keys are inert.
Opening it on macOS
libby is a free, open download, signed only ad‑hoc rather than notarized with a paid Apple Developer account. So the first time you open it, macOS shows its usual “unidentified developer” prompt: right‑click the app and choose Open (then Open in the dialog), and it remembers your choice from then on.