See lyrics for your currently playing Spotify song right inside VS Code. The panel lives in your Explorer sidebar and tracks the song in real time as it plays.
Features
- Live lyrics — automatically fetches and displays lyrics when you change tracks
- Synced highlighting — the current line highlights and scrolls into view as the song progresses
- Playback controls — play/pause, previous, next, rewind 10s, skip forward 10s
- Seek bar — click anywhere on the progress bar to jump to that position
- Spotify dark theme — black background, Spotify green accents
Setup
You need a free Spotify Developer app to get a Client ID and Secret. This takes about 2 minutes.
1. Create a Spotify app
- Go to developer.spotify.com/dashboard and log in
- Click "Create app"
- Fill in any name and description
- Under Redirect URIs, add:
http://127.0.0.1:8888/callback - Click Save, then open the app and copy your Client ID and Client Secret
2. Add your credentials to VS Code
- Open VS Code Settings (
Ctrl+,) - Search "Spotify Lyrics"
- Paste your Client ID and Client Secret into the fields
3. Log in
Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and run:
Spotify Lyrics: Login to Spotify
Your browser will open Spotify's authorization page. After you approve, the browser redirects automatically and you'll see a confirmation. Return to VS Code — you're ready.
Usage
The Now Playing panel appears in your Explorer sidebar (bottom of the file tree). Play any song on Spotify and lyrics will appear within a few seconds.
Controls
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| ⏮ | Previous track |
| ⏪ 10 | Rewind 10 seconds |
| ⏸ / ▶ | Pause / Resume |
| ⏩ 10 | Skip forward 10 seconds |
| ⏭ | Next track |
Click the progress bar to seek to any position in the song.
Commands
All commands are available via Ctrl+Shift+P:
Spotify Lyrics: Login to Spotify— authorize the extensionSpotify Lyrics: Logout— remove stored tokensSpotify Lyrics: Show Lyrics— focus the Now Playing panel
Notes
- Lyrics are sourced from lrclib.net — a free, community-maintained database. Not every song will have lyrics available.
- Your credentials are stored in VS Code's encrypted secret storage and never leave your machine.
- Playback controls require Spotify to be actively playing on a device.