Listen to music together, in a Room.

Yes, you can listen to music together for free. In ByTune, a Room lets up to 10 people hear the same song at the same moment, each on their own Windows PC or Mac, wherever they are. Anyone in the Room can pick what plays next, or the host can keep control. Rooms need a free ByTune account.

Start a Room in four steps

1. Install ByTune on Windows or a Mac (downloads) and sign in with a free account in Settings. Guests can use everything else, but not Rooms.
2. Click the people icon next to Queue in the player bar, then Start a room. The song you’re playing becomes the Room’s song, and your upcoming songs become its queue.
3. Share the Room’s six-character code, like K7M2QX, or use Copy invite link.
4. Friends type the code, or paste the invite link, under Or join one. Opening an invite link directly makes ByTune ask “Join room K7M2QX?” first. Pasting always works, even where a chat app won’t open the link.

What happens in a Room

• Everyone hears the same song at the same moment. Each computer checks its place every few seconds and corrects itself when it drifts more than about a second.
• By default, anyone can play, pause, skip, seek or change the shared queue, and it happens for everyone: pause pauses the whole Room.
• The host can turn on Only the host controls the music. Then only the host can play, skip or change the queue. The host can also hand the Room to someone else or remove someone.
• The member list shows who is the Host, who is Listening and who is Away.
• The shared queue holds up to 100 songs.
• Your volume and equalizer stay your own. Crossfade, automix, skip silence, AutoPlay and playback speed sit out while you’re in a Room, and shuffle and repeat turn off when you join, so everyone hears the same thing.
• Whatever you were playing is set aside, and comes back when you leave with Leave room.

The limits

• Up to 10 people, host included.
• Everyone needs ByTune 1.1.0 or later, on Windows 10 or 11 or macOS 13 or later, and a free ByTune account. The invite link opens the app, so friends need ByTune installed.
• Songs from the music folders on your computer can’t play in a Room.
• A Room ends when its last member leaves. One where nothing has been played, paused or queued for six hours expires.
• If the host leaves, the person who joined first becomes the host.
• There’s no chat: talk over a call or a messaging app while you listen.

Other ways to listen together

Checked against each service’s own help pages on November 8, 2026. Pear Desktop, an open-source YouTube Music client, also has a beta Music Together plugin, off by default (see the YouTube Music desktop options).

Rooms are one part of ByTune, a free, open-source Spotify alternative for Windows and Mac. It also streams the YouTube Music catalog next to your own files, with word-synced lyrics.

Fair questions