The short answer
Spectati. It is the only current IPTV player here that is a native Mac app, with M3U, Xtream, a full XMLTV guide, and your Plex and Jellyfin libraries in the same window. Live TV and the guide are free.
If your Mac cannot run macOS 26, Kodi is the free fallback, with more setup. VLC and IINA are fine for checking that a playlist works.
Native app or iPad app
A Mac with Apple silicon can run iPad apps, and that is how most IPTV players reach macOS. The Mac App Store says so on the listing: “Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.” They run, in a window laid out for a tablet, and menus and keyboard shortcuts are often limited. An Intel Mac cannot run them at all.
A native app has resizable windows, menus, keyboard shortcuts and full screen that behave the way the rest of the Mac does.
Spectati
Spectati is a native app on macOS as well as on Apple TV, iPhone and iPad. It takes M3U, Xtream and JSON playlists with a full-screen XMLTV guide, and connects Plex and Jellyfin servers and SMB shares in the same library. The menu bar and the keyboard work as you would expect: Space plays and pauses, the arrow keys seek, F goes full screen, and Command-Shift-P opens Picture in Picture.
Live TV and the guide are free, with up to 2 sources running at once. A subscription at $2.99 a month, $22.99 a year or $99.99 once covers the Mac and every other Apple device, and adds catch-up, the provider’s films and series, Multiview and downloads. It needs macOS 26.
UHF, IPTVX and Smarters on a Mac
UHF, IPTVX and Smarters Player Lite are all iPad apps on the Mac, with the limits that brings. IPTVX also has a native Mac companion, IPTVX Media Server, for scheduled recordings. The Apple TV round-up compares them as players.
GSE Smart IPTV
GSE Smart IPTV Pro has a native Mac app that takes M3U, JSON and Xtream playlists with an XMLTV guide, and can record. It is $5.99, with a free Lite version to try first. Its last update was in May 2022, so check that it runs on your macOS version before you pay.
Kodi
Kodi is a free, open-source media center with a native Mac download from kodi.tv. Its PVR IPTV Simple Client add-on loads an M3U playlist and an XMLTV guide into Kodi’s TV section, with a guide grid. Expect an evening of setup and an interface built for a TV remote rather than a trackpad. More in Kodi on Apple TV.
VLC and IINA
VLC and IINA are free video players, and both open a stream address or an M3U playlist and list its channels. IINA is built on mpv and uses standard macOS windows and controls. Neither shows a program guide or takes an Xtream login, so they are best for checking that a playlist works or watching one channel.
