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 3.10 - 3.14 (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".

Installing spotDL

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

First, open a terminal. On Windows: Command Prompt, macOS: "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

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

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 the desired folder.

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

We have a public Discord server at discord.gg/xCa23pwJWY!