Introduction

This application takes advantage of the Spotify developer API to download the tracks in a playlist into a .mp3 format using YouTube. The downloader script first pulls the playlist from Spotify and saves them to a .csv file to store the values for later including Artist Album and year to be added to the file after by ffmpeg. Then it query’s YouTube via yt-dlp for the top result. The top result is then downloaded as a video in 1080p:271 and 320kbs (by default). This happens 5 times before ffmpeg is used to convert to audio and append the metadata along side the file. Then saved to the specified directory.

Application view

Features

One of the main features is the python based PyQt5 GUI that allows the user to configure the audio quality view a log as well as being able to select the output directory beforehand.

Libraries used

yt-dlp: Query YouTube and download tracks

ffmpeg: Manipulate media files and convert codecs as well as being used to append metadata to media files

PyQt5: GUI and custom styling

Usage

Clone repository

To start you have to clone the repository to get the latest version of the application

git clone https://git.rubenphagura.com/Spotify-Playlist-Downloader

Getting Spotify keys

  • Sign into the Spotify developer site and create a new app.
  • Once the app is created, copy your client ID and paste it into the .env file.
  • Click the button to show your client secret, then paste this string into the .env file.
  • Save the .env file and navigate to the project directory in file explorer or finder.
  • Double-click the main.py script to run the app.
  • A window will appear; paste the playlist URL and press the download button.

Challenges

A key challenge in the development of this application was rate limits on yt-dlp/YouTube.

  • One way I attempted to remedy this issue was to split the download into chunks this was it would download 50 items at a time. This did not work as it used lots of memory and CPU while indexing and chunking sections of playlists over 100 tracks.

  • The final iteration of this fix was to pull the tracks and metadata and save then to a .csv file. Then the downloader.py would go 50 items at a time saving resources and also adding metadata as a bonus. Waiting 5 minutes between chunks.

Future Improvements

  • Support for other audio formats such as ACC FLAC and WAV may be added in a future version

  • Enhanced ability to download tracks with the same name so that they will not be overwritten with the newest file

Links and Resources

  • GitHub Repository: Spotify Playlist Downloader
    Clone the repository to get started with the project.

  • Spotify Developer API: Spotify for Developers
    Learn more about the Spotify API used in this project.

  • yt-dlp Documentation: yt-dlp GitHub
    Explore the tool used for downloading YouTube videos.

  • ffmpeg Documentation: ffmpeg.org
    Understand the media manipulation library used for conversion and metadata.

  • PyQt5 Documentation: PyQt5
    Learn about the GUI framework used in the application.