Is Guitar Flash AutoPlay free?

Yes. It is free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license. If you like it, you can support the author at buymeacoffee.com/oguzhantasimaz.

Guitar Flash AutoPlay: the bot that plays Guitar Flash for you

A free app for Windows and macOS. It finds the fretboard on your screen at any resolution, follows every note and presses the keys right on time.

Download free How to use it

Tested on the real game, Expert difficulty: 98% on Through the Fire and Flames, 99% on Breakthrough. Open source (GPL-3.0). Watch it play on YouTube.

The Guitar Flash AutoPlay window: status, Start button, fretboard preview, the five fret keys and the timing setting

At a glance

Guitar Flash AutoPlay is an open-source autoplayer for the browser rhythm game Guitar Flash. It reads the screen like a player would, with no game files or accounts involved, and presses the fret keys at the moment each note reaches the frets.

Works on: Windows 10 & 11, macOS 11+
Price: Free, open source
Screen setup: None: any resolution
Best result: 98% on TTFAF Expert

Download

Pick the zip for your computer. Nothing to install: unzip it and open the app.

Windows

Windows 10 or 11, most PCs (Intel or AMD).

Download x64 · zip

macOS

macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel in one app.

Download universal · zip

Windows on ARM

For ARM laptops such as the Surface Pro X and Snapdragon PCs.

Download ARM64 · zip

All versions and release notes are on the GitHub releases page. The source code is on GitHub; you can build it yourself with Go.

How to use it

From download to your first song takes about two minutes.

Download and unzip
Get the zip for your computer from the Download section and unzip it.
Open the app
Windows: double-click Guitar Flash AutoPlay.exe. Mac: open Guitar Flash AutoPlay.app (see below the first time).
Open a song
Go to guitarflash.com, pick a song and choose the Tap game style. Put the app window next to the browser, not on top of the game.
Press Start, then click on the game
Click Start in the app, then click on the game within 3 seconds so the browser gets the keyboard. Start the song.
Watch it play
The status turns green, the fretboard appears in the app and the five lights flash as it presses each key. Press Stop, or move the mouse to the top-left corner of the screen, to stop.

First time on Windows

If you see “Windows protected your PC”, click More info → Run anyway. The app is not code-signed, which is why Windows warns.
That's it. No permissions needed.

First time on macOS

Move the app to Applications. If macOS refuses to open it, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.
Allow Screen & System Audio Recording (to see the game) and Accessibility (to press keys) for Guitar Flash AutoPlay. The app has buttons that open the right pages. Then reopen the app.

Tips

Changed Setting Keys in the game? Type the same five keys in the app.
Notes hit a little early or late? Move the Timing slider.
Want to see what it sees without playing? Turn on Watch only.
Fretboard never found? Use Point at the frets and hold the mouse over the green, then the orange fret.

Command line

Start it with any option to skip the window, for example:

guitarflash-autoplay -keys 1,2,3,4,5 -offset 10ms

Run it with -h for every option.

Why it works everywhere

Versions 1 and 2 of this bot, like most Guitar Flash bots, read fixed pixel positions and broke as soon as the screen or zoom changed. Version 3 looks for the game instead.

Any screen

Finds the fretboard itself: any resolution, browser zoom, Retina/HiDPI and Windows scaling from 100% to 200%, on any monitor.

Every difficulty

Measures how fast the notes scroll while it plays, so the timing is right from Easy to Expert without any setting.

The fastest songs

Tracks every gem one by one, so even the solos of Through the Fire and Flames, where notes almost touch, come out as separate presses.

Holds long notes

Keeps a key down while the tail of a sustained note passes, and lets go in time for the next one.

See what it sees

A live picture of the fretboard with its sensors, and a light for every key as it is pressed.

Open source

Small, commented Go code (GPL-3.0). A good example if you want to learn how screen-reading bots work.

How it works

For everyone who asked “how do you make a Guitar Flash bot?”, here is the whole idea.

Find the fretboard. The app takes a screenshot and looks for five rings, green, red, yellow, blue and orange, evenly spaced on one line, with the white edges of the highway beside them.
Measure in fret spacings. Every distance is a multiple of the gap between two frets, never a pixel count. That is what makes it work at every resolution. The highway is drawn in perspective, and its lanes meet 4.44 spacings above the frets.
Follow every gem. Around two sensor lines above the frets it reads a thin strip of each lane over a hundred times a second, finds each gem and tracks it from frame to frame.
Measure the speed. The time a gem takes from the upper line to the lower one says how fast the song scrolls.
Press on time. From the lower line a note needs 1.45 times that travel time to reach its fret. The game counts a hit a little early, so the key goes down 120 ms before that.

Two sensor lines above the frets time every gem on its way down.

Tested on the real game

Played start to finish on guitarflash.com on Expert, in a browser that only drew about 30 frames per second, so harder than a normal PC.

Song	Difficulty	Result	Notes hit
Through the Fire and Flames – DragonForce	Expert	98%	2314 (40 missed)
Breakthrough – MindFlow	Expert	99%	507 of 508

The story

I first wrote this bot at university in March 2020, back before AI could write code for you. It meant a lot to me then, and I always wanted to come back and build it properly.

2020 · v1
Python, one file

About 50 lines, committed just after midnight on 29 March 2020. It grabbed a strip of a 1920×1080 screen, checked one pixel above each fret and pressed the key when it turned bright. It only worked at that resolution, with the browser at 100% zoom. See the code
2023 · v2
Go, and smoother

The same idea rewritten in Go: one goroutine per lane, a fixed 100 ms wait before each key and a check that skips the white flashes. It played smoother, but the coordinates still had to be edited by hand for every screen. See the code · Video
2026 · v3
Rebuilt from scratch

The app I always wanted it to be: a window for Windows and macOS that finds the fretboard on any screen, measures how fast the notes move and follows every gem. This time I built it together with an AI pair programmer. The core idea is still v1's: watch the frets, and press when a note arrives.

#OĞUZHAN TAŞIMAZ 29.03.2020

y = 65  # 952
greenx = 58  # 782
redx = 147  # 864
yellowx = 237  # 950
bluex = 325  # 1030
orangex = 417  # 1118
basecolor = 75
…
while True:
    image = ImageGrab.grab(bbox=(710, 866, 1210, 1000)).convert('L')

From guitarflash.py, 2020: five pixel positions and a brightness threshold, for exactly one screen size.

Questions

What is Guitar Flash AutoPlay?

A free, open-source app for Windows and macOS that plays Guitar Flash (guitarflash.com) automatically. It watches the screen, sees the notes coming down the fretboard and presses the fret keys at the right moment.

Is it free?

Yes. It is free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license. If you like it, you can buy me a coffee.

Does it work on Mac and Windows?

Yes: Windows 10 and 11 (x64 and ARM) and macOS 11 or later (Apple Silicon and Intel). Linux works experimentally on X11.

Do I have to set my screen resolution or coordinates?

No. The app finds the five fret rings on the screen by itself and measures everything relative to them, so it works at any resolution, browser zoom, Retina or HiDPI screen and Windows display scaling from 100% to 200%.

How accurate is it?

Tested against the real game on Expert: Breakthrough at 99% (507 of 508 notes) and Through the Fire and Flames at 98% (2314 notes hit), in a browser that only drew about 30 frames per second.

Which keys and game style does it use?

It presses A, S, J, K and L by default, the Guitar Flash defaults; change them in the app if you changed Setting Keys in the game. Use the Tap game style.

Why does Windows or macOS warn me when I open it?

The app is not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen and macOS Gatekeeper warn about it. On Windows click More info → Run anyway. On macOS open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. The source code is public on GitHub.

How do I stop it?

Press Stop in the app, or move the mouse to the top-left corner of the screen. On the command line, press Ctrl+C.

Who made it?

Oğuzhan Taşımaz. The first version was a small Python script written at university in March 2020. It was rewritten in Go in 2023 and rebuilt from scratch as a Windows and macOS app in 2026. The whole story is above.

Is it affiliated with Guitar Flash?

No. It is an independent fan project and is not affiliated with Guitar Flash or gamesX. Please don't use it to submit scores to the rankings or in multiplayer duels.

Enjoying it?

Guitar Flash AutoPlay is free and made in my spare time. If it saved you some frustration, or you learned something from the code, a coffee keeps it going.