spotDL Installation Guide¤

spotDL is a free and open source tool that downloads your Spotify playlists & music

The fastest, easiest, and most accurate command-line music downloader

Install via Python¤

This is our recommended installation method.

If you are on Windows, Install Visual C++ Redistributable (link below) and then proceed to install Python & FFmpeg

Prerequisites to spotDL¤

Visual C++ 2019 redistributable (on Windows)
Python 3.7 or above (added to PATH)
FFmpeg 4.2 or above (added to PATH)

Install Python to PATH¤

We recommend installing the latest version of Python

When installing Python, ensure to select "Add to PATH".

Add to PATH Image

Installing spotDL¤

If you are not on Windows (e.g. OSX/UNIX), replace pip with pip3 and python with python3 in all commands.

Firstly, open a terminal. On Windows: Command Prompt, OSX: "Terminal", *UNIX: Bash or Zsh.

Verify you have installed Python correctly via python -V. Ensure you have v3.7 or greater.

Next, install spotDL by typing the following

pip install spotdl

Installing FFmpeg¤

If using FFmpeg only for spotDL, you can install FFmpeg to your local directory. spotdl --download-ffmpeg will download FFmpeg to your spotDL installation directory.

We recommend the above option, but if you want to install FFmpeg system-wide,

Windows Tutorial
OSX - brew install ffmpeg
Linux - sudo apt install ffmpeg or use your distro's package manager

If you require further help, ask in our Discord Server

Using Prebuilt Executable¤

Download the executable¤

You can download the latest version from the Releases Tab

Running Web UI¤

Web UI will start by default if no arguments are passed to the command line (after double-clicking for example)

Web UI

Running the CLI¤

To use the command line interface just open your terminal and run ./spotdl-vX.X.X operation [urls]

Docker Setup¤

spotDL provides a Docker image.

Install Docker: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/

Install Docker Compose: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

Docker documentation: https://docs.docker.com/

Built-in Docker Image¤

Build docker image docker build -t spotdl .
List spotdl options: docker run --rm spotdl --help
Download a song: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/music spotdl download https://open.spotify.com/track/0VjIjW4GlUZAMYd2vXMi3b

Docker Hub Image¤

Pull docker image from Docker hub: docker pull spotdl/spotify-downloader
Download a song using Docker image: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/music spotdl/spotify-downloader download https://open.spotify.com/track/0VjIjW4GlUZAMYd2vXMi3b
Create a Docker container

docker create \
  --name=spotdl \
  -v <path to data>:/music \
  spotdl/spotify-downloader

Docker Compose¤

Create a container using Docker Compose: docker-compose up --no-start
Download a song using Docker compose: docker-compose run --rm spotdl download https://open.spotify.com/track/0VjIjW4GlUZAMYd2vXMi3b

Other Installation Methods¤

Termux¤

We have a dedicated Termux installation script curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spotDL/spotify-downloader/master/scripts/termux.sh | sh

Arch User Repository (AUR) package¤

You can find the AUR Package here

Where does spotDL download songs?¤

spotDL downloads files to the folder where you ran spotDL from.

Open pwsh/powershell/cmd/terminal/similar in the folder you want files to download to, or cd to desired folder.

Windows Shortcut: Navigate to the folder you want the files to download to. SHIFT + RIGHT CLICK, then select "Open PowerShell window here"

Windows PWSH