Create, play back and print beautiful sheet music for Mac

MuseScore for Mac

MuseScore for Mac

  -  170 MB  -  Open Source
MuseScore for Mac lets you notate and compose music easily with your keyboard, your mouse or a MIDI keyboard. You can print the beautifully engraved sheet music or save it as PDF or PNG.

You can play your score, transpose it, and save it as audio or MIDI file. MuseScore also supports MusicXML to let you share your composition with other scorewriters. MuseScore for macOS is a free and open source.

Features and Highlights
  • WYSIWYG, notes are entered on a "virtual note sheet"
  • Unlimited number of staves
  • Up to four voices per staff
  • Easy and fast note entry with mouse, keyboard or MIDI
  • Audio playback of the score
  • Import and export of MusicXML and standard MIDI files
  • Available in more than 50 languages
How to Use
  • Install by dragging the app to Applications folder
  • Launch MuseScore and create a new score
  • Select instruments and set up time/key signatures
  • Use note input tools to add notes and rests
  • Add dynamics, articulations, and other markings
  • Use playback to listen and review your composition
  • Export your sheet music as PDF, MusicXML, or audio
  • Save and manage scores via MuseScore account
  • Share your compositions online if desired
System Requirements

macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later

Intel or Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3) processor

300 MB of available disk space

Minimum 4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended)

OpenGL-compatible graphics card

PROS
  • Free and open-source software
  • Professional-quality sheet music output
  • Supports MIDI and MusicXML import/export
  • Large online community and score library
  • Frequent updates and new features
CONS
  • Occasional playback glitches
  • Limited support for advanced engraving
  • Not optimized for large orchestral scores
  • Some features require internet connection
Note: Requires 64-bit processor.

Also Available: Download MuseScore for Windows

Why is this app published on FileHorse? (More info)
  • MuseScore 4.6.0 Screenshots

    The images below have been resized. Click on them to view the screenshots in full size.

    MuseScore 4.6.0 Screenshot 1
  • MuseScore 4.6.0 Screenshot 2
  • MuseScore 4.6.0 Screenshot 3

What's new in this version:

Playback:
- Realtime note preview now supports duration and velocity control, as well as the sustain pedal, allowing an intuitive playing experience with a connected MIDI keyboard
- Count-in is back! (Playback toolbar > Playback settings cog)
- MuseSounds playback no longer fades-in when pressing play
- Play count for repeated sections can be controlled in Properties, with options to add appropriate text to score (e.g. "Play N times")
- Fixed regression where instruments were muted after undoing their deletion with Ctrl+Z

Engraving:
- A comprehensive new system allows localised control over showing and hiding empty staves
- Any SMuFL-compliant music font can now be applied
- Measure numbers are now treated as system markings and can also be shown below the system, with many new options for customisability in Styles
- All system markings can now go below the bottom staff
- Better alignment options for repeat & jump markers, voltas, etc.
- Better alignment of rests in multiple voices
- Better rhythmic grouping of rests and beams in local time signatures
- New properties for frames to control padding to notation above & below
- Harp pedal diagrams can be anchored at arbitrary beat positions (not just on notes and rests)
- Enharmonic spelling: new options added in Tools menu
- Fixed regression where slurs from grace notes were placed incorrectly and not saved in the MSCX file
- Fixed issue saving and loading of scaling/spatium size in parts
- Fixed regression in placement of whole measure rests in secondary voices
- Adding breath marks no longer hides courtesy clefs in cutaway staves
- Barlines are no longer masked by invisible text lines
- Ties are no longer shortened by chord symbols that contain a slash
- Hairpin ending on final beat of final measure is no longer excluded from parts
- Collision avoided between dynamics and left barlines
- Collision avoided between arpeggios and clefs
- Added 19th century French tenor clef (G clef ottava bassa with C clef)
- Repeat-dot position in these fonts was tweaked for better SMuFL compliance: Gootville, MuseJazz, Emmentaler

Guitar:
- Engraving support for hammer-on, pull-off, and tapping techniques (playback supported in MuseSounds Guitars Vol. 2 and upwards)
- Fretboard diagrams now auto-fill based on their associated chord symbol
- Fretboard diagram legend can be automatically generated based on chord symbols in score
- Any text font can now be used for tab numbers
- Improved engraving and playback support for bends to grace notes after main notes
- Fret number in fretboard diagram is not repositioned unnecessarily when text is edited
- Circular markers are no longer added to fretboard diagrams when masked by barrés
- Fixed spacing of minimum length ties, glissandos, and frets
- Fixed adding and masking of parentheses around fret number in TAB staves
- Import TablEdit v3.00+ files — thanks to Leon Vinken (PR author) and Matthieu Leschemelle (TablEdit creator)

Chord symbols:
- Chords galore! New individual scaling, offset, and alignment options for extensions and modifiers, plus the ability stack and parenthesise modifiers
- Ability to create polychords with the pipe "|" character (N.b. playback support is planned for a future release)

New style options:
- Volta alignment relative to key signatures and barlines
- Partial slur shape across repeats and breaks
- Minimum header distance (used when clefs are only shown on first system)
- Show barline before key & time signatures at start repeats
- Tuplet bracket position

Text:
- New text formatting popup appears when characters are selected in a text element
- New editing shortcut Ctrl+Delete (Mac: Cmd+Fn+Backspace) to delete entire word after caret
- Square brackets and multiplication signs are allowed in time signatures
- New lyrics styles for hyphens/dashes
- Lyric extender lines no longer extend over rests
- Fixes to header, footer, page number & copyright styles
- Fixed overlapping '6' and '9' characters in chord symbols

Workflow improvements:
- New welcome screen enables quick access to tutorials, free MuseSounds, and other relevant information
- Selection filter now enables selection of individual notes in chords
- New mouse shortcut Alt+click to paste the current selection elsewhere
- Improvements to 'Repeat selection' command when used with 2 or more voices
- Fixed issue preventing diatonic shifting of enharmonically equivalent notes
- Slurs entered from the palettes can now be resized
- Joining/splitting measures no longer corrupts ties at the measure boundary
- Durations are better accounted for when merging rests
- Pasting notes near a page break no longer spoils engraving of slurs that span the break
- Fixed crash on closing score after undo of dragging a measure with partial tie
- Fixed crash on range selection over multi-measure rest

Percussion:
- The number of drumpad columns in the Percussion Panel can now be modified
- Added Handbells palette and playback with MuseSounds
- Added Handchimes instrument

UI:
- Removed delay in showing three-dots (...) context menu icon when switching panel tabs (Palettes, Layout, Properties, etc.)
- Element colors are now inverted in the palettes when score color inversion is enabled via Preferences > Appearance
- Improved appearance of rounded corners on popups and dropdown lists

Import/export:
- Support for importing TablEdit files (v3.00+ only, see Guitar section above)
- MIDI: Exported lyrics now have a space appended after each word
- MEI: exported title page receives func="first" attribute to show it's the first page
- MusicXML
- Import for string mute element, harp pedal diagrams, colors for more element, various other fixes
- Export fixes for TAB & percussion clefs
- Import & export support added for guitar tapping, hammer-on, pull-off, hairpin styles

Accessibility:
- Screen reader announcements for more in-score actions (e.g. adding articulations, changing voices)
- Fixed input and viewing announcements in the Braille panel

Linux:
- VST3 support (please raise an issue on GitHub if a specific Linux VST is not working for you)
- Enabled fractional scaling (previously disabled to avoid an element offset bug—possibly in Qt—that appears to be fixed now)
- Fixed Linux-only crash on Alt+Left/Alt+Right navigation in continuous mode
- Distributions released prior to Ubuntu 22.04 can no longer run the AppImage due to an outdated GLIBC version

Performance:
- Significant performance gains when saving and loading large scores
- Changes in Page settings dialog are more efficient and properly undoable (press Ctrl+Z after closing dialog)
- Plugins
- Retrograde: Fixed handling of consecutive ties
- Plugin API: Now includes all new elements and properties added between MuseScore 4.0 and 4.6

Qt fixes:
Updating to Qt 6.9.1 has resolved these issues:
- Right-aligned text is not properly aligned
- Some toolbar buttons don't work with pen / touch input on Windows
- Menus appear on wrong monitor on Windows
- Transparent UI on second monitor on Windows
- Score draggable behind Staff/part properties dialog
- Changing UI accent colour breaks Qt Widget dialogs
- Crash at launch on macOS Sonoma