Spotify Downloader

Other source code

v1.5.2 Audio Normalisation Setting

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Spotify Downloader

Spotify Downloader is an application that allows you to easily download songs from spotify without the need of Spotify Premium through an easy to use GUI and many customisable settings to get the output that you desire.

Installation

Only currently supports windows. Other platforms may be coming soon

The latest release can be found Here. Installer Recommended

Follow the instructions below depending on your chosen install type.

Installer

Note: Installer requires administrator privileges otherwise install will fail

IF A WINDOW COMES UP SHOWING "Windows protected your PC" click:

More Info
Run Anyway

Reasoning Behind This

This popup generally comes up when windows defender does not know much about a program being installed without a publisher. Since my program is not verified by microsoft, this will show up on first launch for almost everyone. There is not really anything that I can do about this.

Choose your install location. Default is "C:/Program Files/Spotify Downloader" but you can change this to anywhere you like.

Note: If the program is already installed in the chosen location, it will overwrite and update the old install

Select the Spotify Downloader component (selected by default)

The program will add a shortcut to the start menu and the name can be changed here

Click install and wait for the installer to finish

Now click Finish and the program is ready to be ran

You can open the program through the start menu or from the installed location through "Spotify Downloader.exe"

ZIP

Unzip the file to any location through your chosen unzipping software.

The program can now be ran through "Spotify Downloader.exe"

Usage

Side Panel

Download Screen Button

Takes you to the setup or processing screen depending on if a download is started or not

Error Screen Button

Takes you to the previous download's song errors
Note: Button is non-interactable and faded if no previous download has errors

Settings Screen Button

Takes you to the settings screen

Donate Button

Click to donate and support the development of this program
Note: Opens in browser

Submit Bug Button

Click to submit an issue to the github repo
Note: Opens in browser

Help Button

Click to access the help documentation (What you are reading now)
Note: Opens in browser

Setup

Download Status

Shows the result of the last download

Enter Song/Playlist URL

The URL to your songs you would like to download
You can click the paste button directly to the right to input the copied text from your clipboard into the input
Accepts:
- Singlular Songs
- Playlists
- Albums

Note: Your playlist or album must be public or else it will not work

How To Find Your URL

In App

Right click Your chosen song or playlist
Share
Copy link to playlist

In Browser

Click on your playlist or song
Copy the URL

Select A Save Location

The path to your download location
You can click the browse button directly to the right to browse to a location
Note: Saved between sessions

Settings

Note: All settings are saved between sessions

Output

Overwrite Existing Files - Recommended: OFF

If enabled, downloading will overwrite previously downloaded files or not

Normalize Volume - Recommended: ON, -14dB

If enabled, changes the value of all songs to the same depending on its average volume.
- Quite: -17dB
- Normal: -14dB
- Loud: -11dB

Audio Bitrate - Recommended: 192kb/s

Sets the output quality of each song downloaded
- High Quality: 256kb/s
- Good Quality: 192kb/s
- Low Quality 128kb/s

Average File Size

Displays a estimated file size based on the chosen bitrate
File Size (MB) = (bitrate(kbs) * duration(seconds)) / 8) / 1024
Does not take into account metadata, an extra ~0.9MB is added

Naming Format

Enclosing tag input sets the characters to open and close a tag
- Left character sets the opening input
- Right character sets the closing input
Format Input sets the output name of each song.
- Each tag must be enclosed with the characters set in the left input field
Naming format can only include these currently implemented tags:
- Song Name - Name of the song
- Album Name - Name of the album
- Song Artist - Name of the first artist of a song
- Song Artists - Names of each artist of a song "Artist1, Artist2, Artist3, ..."
- Album Artist - Name of the first artist of the songs album
- Album Artists - Names of each artist of a songs album "Artist1, Artist2, Artist3, ..."
- Song Time Seconds - Time of the song in seconds
- Song Time Minutes - Time of the song in minutes "01.23"
- Song Time Hours - Time of the song in hours "00.01.23"

Folder Sorting

Creates folders within your chosen download path with the title set here

Downloading

Show Status Notifications - Recommended: ON

If enabled, notifications will show when notable events happen during downloading to notify you incase it is in the background

Downloader Threads - Recommended: 6

The amount of threads used while downloading songs. This will control how many songs download simultaneously but large values can negatively effect CPU usage. Cannot be changed during download.

Download Speed Limit - Recommended: 0MB/s

The speed limit to downloading songs in MB/s. A value of 0 is uncapped

Downloading

Each track downloading will show its:

Cover image
Downloading index on that thread
Title
Artist(s)
Progress Percent
Downloading Status

You can see your total download progress on the counter at the bottom left.

Download Progress

Shows your total download progress
- Located in the bottom left corner

Pause Button

Pauses all current downloads

Cancel Button

Cancels the current download and returns to the setup screen

Settings Button

Opens the settings menu, download continues in the background while open

Failed Downloads

Shows all of the songs that failed to download due to various reasons that can include:

Song not available on youtube
Song on youtube not close enough to spotify version

Return To Setup Screen Button

Returns to the setup screen

Features

GUI
- Makes it easy to navigate the program
- Clear communication of current downloads
- Multiple screens seperating the setup, downloads, errors, and settings
Easy Downloading
- Downloading starts with only two inputs and a button click
Multithreading
- Can download multiple songs at once using multiple threads
- Splits playlist into multiple smaller lists that download seperately to speed up the download time significantly
- Automatically distributes songs after each thread is finished downloading
Automatic Metadata
- Downloads automatically include metadata into each file containing:
- Song Title
- Artists
- Album Name & Cover
- Spotify & Youtube ID used to download the song
Customisable
- Allows you to have control over the downloading with settings saving between sessions, including:
- Overwriting
- Volume Normalization
- Audio Bitrate
- Thread Count
- Download Speed
- Output Naming Format
- Output Folder Sorting
Automatic Cleanup
- When quitting the application it will automatically quit and cleanup any currently downloading and temp files that will not be needed later
- If cleanup fails due to any reason, unused files are kept in the temp directory and will be cleaned on later use of the program or by windows automatically

License

Spotify Downloader is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 from 17/04/2024 and Release v1.1.3

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

FAQ

Where are songs downloaded from?

Despite what the title implies, songs are actually downloaded from youtube. The program retrieves the data of each song from spotify and uses a combination of the duration, title, artists, album, and views in special cases, to determine which songs on youtube correspond to those on spotify. You can find the algorithm behind this in Song.cpp under SearchForSong.

How accurate are the downloads?

The downloads are almost always accurate and have only few times has downloaded the incorrect song being usually covers of a song. If the song is not on youtube at all, it will not download the song if there are no extremely similar songs in title, artists, duration, etc. After roughly 500 songs tested over many artists and genres I have only gotten around 5-10 incorrect which were all covers of songs that were not on youtube. You can find the algorithm behind this in Song.cpp under SearchForSong.

What can I download from spotify?

You can download a playlist, album, or individual songs. Episodes are also unsupported if in a playlist/album (cannot be inputted manully), but there may also be other types of media that I have not found yet. You also cannot download all songs from a given artist but if you need to get around this the only suggestion I have is to compile all of their songs into a playlist and input that into the program but I may have a look into supporting this in the future. If you need any help finding the link for your music, there is a guide Here under Setup > How To Find Your URL.

What is the quality of the downloaded songs?

The audio quality of each song can be configured in the settings ranging from 33-256kb/s in steps of 32 (excluding 33). The program downloads the highest quality stream from youtube usually being from 230-260kb/s and converts it to the desired quality.

Can I change the file extension of output files?

No. Not yet at least. For now they will always be outputed as an mp3 file, but this is planned to change in the future and more file extensions will come in later updates. Currently there are some things in the code that are created specially regarding mp3 files and would not work with other file extensions (taglib with the metadata assigning as an example) and would need more work put into it to accommodate for more. For now I have other updates planned before regarding this, but it will definitely be a feature soon.

Why have there been months between updates?

When I first created this project I has a lot of free time on my hands and was able to work on it for as long as I wanted, but now I have other responsibilities that are taking up a good chunk of my time and there are other projects that I work on outside of this one so I just do not have the time to work on this constantly. This project is being made out of passion and I do work on it often enough to now release updates hopefully monthly and if not bi-monthly, but do not let that put you off as I enjoy working on this project and no matter the breaks that I have taken, this will continue to be developed. If anything does happen where I am unable to work on the project anymore, I will update the readme to reflect that.