The Terminal solution proposed by "Ric Vieira [Author]
User level: Level 1. 43 points
In iTunes / Music how to enable half-stars rating ?"
‹‹ defaults write com.apple.music allow-half-stars -bool TRUE ››
This no longer works in Mac OS Sequoia.
Has anybody found out how to re-enable this EXTREMELY useful feature?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
I really want this to be possible again as well (I also hate the new look of the faded stars for anything that isn't rated, although I suppose I'll get used to it).
That said, one sort-of work around that is working in the meantime is to use another app to read/write the star ratings. I've been using an app called Song Rating for a long time that sits in the menu bar and displays the rating of the currently playing song. It has an option to enable half-star ratings, and it will read the proper half-star ratings from the songs when they start playing, while also allowing you to write half-star ratings to the songs by rating it through the app.
Sucks that you still can't see all of the proper song ratings in the list in Apple Music, but at least I know they're still there and am still able to rate that way if they ever come back in a future update.
As mentioned earlier in the thread (and I think you also mentioned it), the half-stars appear in "Songs" view only.
So maybe use that for the actual rating and then switch back to the "Playlist" to have the album artwork displaying.
I think we just have to accept it as yet another Apple glitch - an OS released without thorough double-checking.
thanks for validating my upset over lost halves. sigh.
and my upset over general 'stupidification' of well, life?
I try to summon some gratitude that 'music' kinda sorta works at all for a dinosaur like me who still purchases CDs, who still wants all MY mp3s on MY hard drive ...etc, and tries to steer clear of any/all clouds /subscriptions, which can whimsically go poof. my goals are not aligned w current business models.
This is my first regret after updating to Sequoia just a couple hours ago. "Apple Intelligence" was the bait. But what kind of intelligence thinks it's better to have to rate music -- in effect -- either 80 out of 100 or 100/100, than to have the nuance afforded by 90 out of 100, among other gradations made possible with half stars?
I agree with you completely. If only there was a way to make Apple listen to what their clients are looking for. But they truly seem to make arbitrary decisions about what features they'll no longer bother to support.
Does anyone have any other app ideas, or insight into the future of this feature? Apple has been de-emphasizing star ratings vs the binary “like” or “love” marking for a while so I am worried that this is only going to get worse, but I’m just extrapolating. The limited interest in this thread worries me.
While I understand the value of the suggest more/less tag for the Apple Music service, this is distinct from the value of a personal rating system. Both are good! Please do both!! We can handle it ;)
Thanks for the suggestion.
I tried the app, but couldn't get it to work, probably because there is no room in the abbreviated menu bar on newer MacBooks.
They do partly work in 15.1, but only in Songs view. Not within smart playlists for sure.
Still disappointing.
Yes, I've noticed this since updating to 15.1. Half-star ratings are available in Songs view. Hopefully in 15.2 we'll get retrograded back up to half-stars app-wide.
I just tried the terminal script at the top of this thread and it worked fine for me— no hardware restart required! I’m running Sequoia 15.1.1 on an M1 Max Studio. Good luck!
How can I enable half-star ratings in.Sequoia Apple Music
