Preface#
Allow me to ramble for a moment before we get to the main content, but feel free to skip ahead if you're in a hurry.
These past few days, I suddenly felt that the audio quality of Spotify isn't that great. It's said that the highest quality is only 320Kbps. Although I'm not an audiophile, I still value the sound quality of music. However, I don't want to pay for another platform, so I came up with an alternative solution: using Spotify's excellent recommendation algorithm to discover new songs and then playing them on my local music player.
But, this raises an important question: my playlist has hundreds of songs, and it's not easy to download all of them. Although I know there are ways to download high-quality audio for free, such as some Telegram groups or the famous MyFreeMP3 (liumingye.cn), they are a bit troublesome to use and not suitable for batch downloading. Does this three-color chart apply again?
Today, I happened to come across a post by a master on how to get high-resolution music libraries for free! Download resources from streaming platforms like qobuz, tidal, deezer, etc. - General Topics / Essence Posts - LINUX DO. Following his train of thought, I tried it out and found that all three options can actually work together, perfectly satisfying my freeloading needs. Now, I'll share my overall process.
Main Content#
If you have a large playlist on some music platforms and can't download all of them as lossless audio for free, you can try this method.
Note that this tutorial requires a Python environment, assuming you already have Python installed. If not, please search for a tutorial or ask GPT for help.
Get the Playlist#
Domestic Platforms (NetEase Cloud Music/QQ Music)#
Migrate NetEase Cloud Music / QQ Music to Apple Music, Youtube Music, Spotify | yyrcd
Follow the instructions on the website above, enter your playlist, and then extract the corresponding playlist as a TXT file.
Foreign Platforms (Spotify/Apple Music/Youtube Music, etc.)#
Transfer playlists between different music services | Tune My Music
We'll use the tool above for conversion. If your playlist has fewer than 500 songs (the free version of this tool has a limit), you can simply follow the website's instructions to log in to your account, get the playlist, and directly choose qobuz as the import destination.
If you don't have an account on that platform, you can create a free Qobuz account, preferably using your Google account. We don't need to top up this platform; it's just a convenient tool for batch downloading.
What if your playlist has more than 500 songs? No worries, you can choose to convert and download as a TXT file first, and then use Tune My Music to import multiple times. You can import up to 500 songs for free each time.
Import Songs to Qobuz#
Transfer playlists between different music services | Tune My Music
In the previous step, if you're using a domestic platform or have more than 500 songs, choose any text format when selecting the import option.
Then, enter the playlist text you obtained earlier. If you have more than 500 songs, import them in batches.
Choose qobuz as the destination.
After the import is complete, open the playlist and uncheck the "Private" option for the playlist, otherwise the tool won't be able to access your playlist.
Batch Downloading#
We'll use this tool for batch downloading.
You'll need to have Python installed. Execute the following command to install:
After installation, open the configuration file:
You can refer to my example for filling in the configuration. The token and ID provided by kind-hearted individuals can be found at Firehawk52 Official - Saving Digital Legacy (rentry.org).
After saving, go to the playlist link you transferred to qobuz earlier, and then execute:
The download will start. If it fails to connect, you may need to enable a global proxy or tun mode.
If the download is interrupted and an error occurs, simply execute the command again. The ones that have already been downloaded will be skipped automatically.
Drawbacks#
Although this method roughly solves the three-color chart problem, there are still some drawbacks.
- Playlist conversion may be inaccurate or missing. Since I mostly listen to English songs and haven't tested much with Chinese songs, there may be some missing songs. Some songs may have different versions after conversion (e.g., the original version becomes a remix or vice versa), so the accuracy rate is estimated to be around 90%.
- Some songs in qobuz may be grayed out and unable to obtain resources. I personally speculate that this may be related to the country where the token account is located. If some songs fail to download, you can try using a different token. The success rate of downloads is also around 90%.