Spotify MP3 Downloader

This tool by Darryl Mathias was inspired by the many Python-based music downloaders out there and my personal pain for not being able to download (sigh) :( — so I built a full JavaScript version for all my fellow JS fans.

It automatically fetches public Spotify playlist tracks, finds the best YouTube match, and downloads them as MP3s with metadata and cover art using yt-dlp and ffmpeg.

🚀 Features

• Connects to Spotify Web API for playlist data
• Searches YouTube using accurate track + artist names
• Downloads high-quality .mp3 audio with:
  • Album art (via --embed-thumbnail)
  • Metadata (track name, artist)

Requirements

Tool	Description	Install
Node.js	Runtime for the script	Download
yt-dlp	Downloader from YouTube (and more)	Download executable
ffmpeg	For audio extraction & thumbnail embed	Download here (ffmpeg-release-essentials.zip)

Don't forget to add them to your environment variables.

Spotify API setup

To use this tool, you'll need to authenticate with Spotify via the Client Credentials Flow. This requires:

This step was not possible to skip (which was the original plan), so follow this guide to get two metrics,

• Client ID
• Client Secret

Setup

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/DarrylMathias/Spotify-mp3-downloader.git
   cd spotify-mp3-downloader
   

2. Install dependencies

   npm install

3. Create .env file

   Sample .env file :

   CLIENT_ID=your_spotify_client_id
   CLIENT_SECRET=your_spotify_client_secret
   PLAYLIST_LINK=your_spotify_playlist_link
   DOWNLOAD_PATH=C:\Users\yourname\Music\Downloads

   How to get the PLAYLIST_LINK:

   In Spotify, right-click the playlist → “Share” → “Copy Link to Playlist”.

4. Run script

   node script.js

How It Works

1. Retrieves Spotify playlist data (track names, artists, and IDs)
2. For each track in the playlist:
   • Searches YouTube using a combination of the track name and artist(s)
   • Downloads the best-matching video using yt-dlp in .mp3 format
   • Embeds metadata and thumbnail using ffmpeg via yt-dlp flags

Legal Disclaimer

This project is provided for educational and personal archival use only.

• YouTube’s Terms of Service prohibit downloading content without explicit permission.

• This script accesses YouTube using yt-dlp, which may bypass restrictions (like age-gates or region locks) — this is against YouTube's terms.

• You must own or have permission to download any content processed by this tool.

• Redistribution, resale, or public hosting of downloaded content is a violation of copyright law in many countries.

• The developer of this tool is not liable for misuse or violation.

Use responsibly, and always respect content creators.

Further enhancements

You can also further enhance this project by creating a CRON job that on a daily basis, checks for any changes in the API and downloads the songs accordingly. ✨