FeatherRPC

Shows what you're currently listening to on your Discord profile, the same "Listening to..." status Spotify shows, but for iTunes, Apple Music, VLC, your browser, and more.

Built with the help of Claude Code (Anthropic's AI coding agent).

Check docs/KnownIssues.md for what's verified on each platform before relying on this.

Usage

1. Create a Discord application at discord.com/developers/applications and copy its Application ID.
2. Install FeatherRPC (see Install below).
3. Right-click the tray icon, paste the Application ID, and set any other preferences from the same menu (see Tray menu below).

The Discord desktop app has to be running, and Rich Presence must be enabled.

Install

Downloads: latest release.

Windows

Run FeatherRPC-<version>-windows-installer.exe. Installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\FeatherRPC.

Windows will show a "Windows protected your PC" screen - click "More info", then "Run anyway".

Prefer a zip? Extract FeatherRPC-<version>-windows-x64.zip (-arm64 on ARM64) and run install.bat.

Linux

AppImage:

chmod +x FeatherRPC-*.AppImage
./FeatherRPC-*.AppImage

Or extract FeatherRPC-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz and run ./install.sh - installs to ~/.local/share/FeatherRPC, sets up autostart, adds featherrpc to $PATH.

Fedora (COPR):

sudo dnf copr enable hvtim/featherrpc
sudo dnf install featherrpc

macOS

Open FeatherRPC-<version>-macos-universal.dmg and drag FeatherRPC to Applications.

macOS blocks the first launch because the app is unsigned. To bypass Gatekeeper, go to System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom and click Allow Anyway.

Tray menu

Right-click the tray icon:

• Media source
• Broadcast on/off
• Settings - Discord Application ID, track number, album art (see docs/AlbumArt.md), poll interval, start at login, tray icon, verbose logging
• Copy Diagnostic Info (see CONTRIBUTING.md)

CLI control

Control a running instance (tray or headless) from the command line. Windows/macOS: featherrpc-cli. Linux: featherrpc.

featherrpc appid set <your-discord-app-id>
featherrpc status
featherrpc autostart on

Run with no arguments for the full command list, or see docs/CLI.md.

Run the app itself with --no-tray for headless mode.

How it works

• Native C++, no runtime. Idle memory use is a few megabytes.
• Shows a "Listening to" status with a live progress bar.
• Looks up cover art automatically. See docs/AlbumArt.md.
• Spotify is excluded.

Known limitations

Full detail in docs/KnownIssues.md. Headlines:

• The "Listening to" wording isn't officially supported for third-party apps and could change in a future Discord update.
• Album art falls back to a static image if no automatic match is found.
• Linux tray rendering is only confirmed on KDE Plasma 6 and Gnome.
• AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Extension is required on Gnome for the tray icon to render. You can install it via Gnome Shell Extensions.
• Windows ARM64 compiles but has never run on real ARM64 hardware.
• No Windows service.
• No code signing on any platform.

License

GPL-3.0. See LICENSE.

native/third_party/nlohmann/json.hpp is a bundled third-party dependency and stays under its own MIT license.