Auto-KJ on a Mac is a desktop app. The macOS link on pricing is the Apple Silicon disk image. Every release also publishes an Intel disk image. Free version is $0 forever. Full version is ~$10/mo after a 60-day trial, no card. Lifetime is $500. Ghost-Trax credits are $2.
Karaoke software for Mac, in the ads, is often a living-room player: a catalog, a laptop speaker, a song for the kitchen. A working KJ needs the other thing. Your Sound Choice and Sunfly folders, a lyrics screen the bar can read, and a rotation you can show the singer who swears they have been waiting an hour. That product story lives on the karaoke software page and the karaoke host software page. This page is which Mac file to install, and which one to leave alone.
Apple Silicon and Intel are different disk images
Look at About This Mac before you download. The chip name decides the file. Every release ships both:
- Apple Silicon (M-series). AutoKJ-AppleSilicon.dmg. This is the file behind the macOS button on the pricing page. The button’s label is Apple Silicon. If the Mac says M1, M2, M3, M4, or later, this is the image.
- Intel. AutoKJ-Intel.dmg. Published with the same release as the Apple Silicon image, and listed on the pricing page as Mac — Intel. Intel Macs should use this image. Installing the Apple Silicon image on an Intel Mac is the wrong build.
Both are native Mac apps you open from a disk image. The host show does not run in Safari, Chrome, or the Mac App Store karaoke apps that show up for the same search. The Rotation Simulator on the website does run in the browser. That is a way to throw late arrivals and a duet at the Fairness Engine before you install. It is not the program that plays the gig.
What the Mac app is doing during the show
The desktop app indexes the library on the Mac: MP3+G, ZIP, and video karaoke (.mp4, .mkv, .avi). Put the lyrics window on the TV output and, when you have a third display or you are willing to use the TV for it, the rotation screen. Free version includes those screens, Break-Wave for the music between singers, and the Fairness Engine with you typing the names. Full version adds the library tools in the library management guide: filename correction, duplicates, and brand preference.
Singer phones are a Full version feature, and they are the browser-shaped part of the system. A singer joins with a QR code, a show code, or GPS, or over the LAN when the venue network is the problem. They do not install a Mac app. They do not need a Mac at all. Your Mac is the host. Their phone is a browser. When the bar Wi-Fi falls over, the bad-Wi-Fi guide is the rig: a travel router, the app’s LAN server, the same rotation rules.
Read the rotation cases before you promise them out loud. Duets, late arrivals, and no-shows are the ones that start arguments. Rotation rules are the house version of the same idea. The Mac build uses that engine. There is not a separate “Mac rotation.”
Free version and Full version
Free version is $0, no account required to download, desk-entered requests only. If the room still hands you paper, the karaoke sign-up sheet is the intake form, and you type from it. Full version is ~$10/mo, one live show at a time, with cloud singer phones. Extra simultaneous shows are +$5/mo. Lifetime is $500. The 60-day trial starts in the app under Settings, License Activation. No card, and the trial does not auto-bill.
Ghost-Trax credits are $2 on every tier, on ghost-trax.com. They are not a second Mac subscription. OpenKJ songbook hosting is $5/mo if you stay on OpenKJ, and it is included with the Full version and Lifetime. That songbook does not unlock the Auto-KJ desktop app. The OpenKJ alternative page keeps those two offers apart, and the migration guide is the switch if you want the Mac app itself.
When the Mac is not the only computer
Some KJs prep on a Mac at home and play on a Windows stick at the bar. The library formats are the same kinds of files. The installers are not interchangeable. The Windows setup is on karaoke software for Windows. Linux packages, including the version lag against this Mac release, are on karaoke software for Linux. Siglos is a Windows-only peer if that is the comparison you came here to make. KaraFun Pro is the catalog rental if you do not own files. The compare index lists both.
Match the disk image to the Mac
Apple Silicon from the pricing button. Intel from the Intel image. Free version needs no account. The Full version trial is inside the app.