Questions and answers
Everything people actually ask us, grouped so you can find yours quickly. If your question is not here, the contact page goes to a person.
Cost, limits and accounts
What does SpotiDown cost?
Nothing, and there is no upgrade path either. No premium tier, no credits, no daily quota, no ads. Everything on the site works the same for everyone who visits it.
How is it free? What is the catch?
The running costs are conversion CPU and bandwidth, both of which are cheap at this scale. There is no data being sold, because none is collected. If that changes, it will be stated on this page before it happens rather than buried in a policy update.
Is there a daily or monthly download limit?
No. Very large batch jobs are queued behind small ones during busy periods so a single 1,000 track request does not block everyone else, but nothing is rejected and no counter resets at midnight.
Do I need to create an account?
There is no account system at all. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to log into, nothing to delete later.
Do I need Spotify Premium?
No. Free, Premium or no Spotify account whatsoever all produce the same result, because the tool reads public catalogue data rather than your library.
Will you ever ask for my Spotify password?
Never. There is no legitimate reason for a downloader to want your Spotify credentials, and any site that asks is trying to take over the account. If you have entered your password into a downloader anywhere, change it and turn on two-factor authentication.
Audio quality and formats
What bitrate do I get?
MP3 at 320 kbps constant bitrate, M4A at around 256 kbps VBR, or FLAC at 16-bit 44.1 kHz lossless. These are real numbers, not marketing ones.
Can I get better than 320 kbps?
Not from a Spotify source. Spotify's highest streaming tier is 320 kbps, and no converter can produce more detail than exists in what it received. FLAC output is genuinely lossless relative to that source, which is a different thing from being higher quality than the original.
Is FLAC actually worth choosing?
It is if you will edit, re-encode, or play through equipment good enough to expose artefacts. For phone or earbud listening, 320 kbps MP3 is indistinguishable and about a third of the size. Choose based on what happens to the file next.
Why do you not offer WAV?
WAV carries no tags, takes roughly ten times the space of MP3, and offers nothing FLAC does not. Since the whole point of this tool is that files arrive properly tagged, a format that cannot hold tags would undo the main feature.
Can I choose a lower bitrate to save space?
Not currently. Deliberately degrading audio to save a few megabytes made sense in 2005 and does not now. If you need smaller files for a specific device, converting locally afterwards gives you full control.
Devices and how-to
How do I download on an iPhone?
Open this site in Safari or Chrome, paste the Spotify link, and press download. The file saves to the Files app under Downloads. Tap a ZIP once and iOS unpacks it in place. From there you can share files into any music app, or sync them into the Music library through Finder or the Apple Devices app.
How do I download on Android?
Any modern browser works. Files land in the Downloads folder. Poweramp, Musicolet and VLC index that folder directly. Moving the folder to Internal storage/Music makes most players pick it up on the next media scan.
How do I get the music into my car?
Format a USB stick as FAT32, since many head units reject exFAT and NTFS. Copy the unzipped folders across, keep the folder structure shallow, and use MP3 rather than FLAC or M4A. Older units also cap out around 999 files per folder.
Can I use this on a work or school network?
Usually, since it is an ordinary website over HTTPS. Some networks block file downloads by category rather than by site, and there is nothing this tool can do about that.
Does it work without JavaScript?
The pages read fine without it, but the converter itself needs JavaScript to talk to the conversion service. There is no non-JavaScript fallback.
When something goes wrong
My playlist link is not recognised
The most common cause is a private playlist. External tools cannot see them at all. Open the playlist, choose Make public from the three-dot menu, download, then switch it back. The second most common cause is copying the profile link rather than the playlist link.
Some tracks were skipped in my ZIP
The report file inside the archive names each one and why. The usual reasons are region locking, removal from Spotify's catalogue since the playlist was made, or local files that a user added from their own computer and were never on Spotify.
The download starts and then stops
Almost always a connection interruption on a large archive. Re-paste the same link. Recent conversions are cached briefly, so the retry is usually far quicker than the first attempt.
Nothing happens when I press download
Check that a browser extension is not blocking the request. Aggressive ad blockers and some privacy extensions block the conversion endpoint because it is a different hostname from the page. Allowing the site in the extension resolves it.
The file has no album art in my player
The art is embedded, so this is usually the player caching an earlier scan. Force a library rescan. Some minimal players such as the stock Files app preview do not render embedded art at all, which does not mean it is missing from the file.
A very long job never finished
Closing the tab abandons a running job, because the archive is assembled and delivered at the end. For catalogues over a few hundred tracks, leave the tab open, or split the work by album.
Privacy and safety
What do you store about me?
No account, no history, no library and no profile. Links are used to resolve metadata and are not retained in any log we keep. Converted files are served once and deleted within an hour. The full detail is on the privacy policy.
Do you use trackers or ad networks?
No. The site loads no third-party scripts of any kind, which you can verify in your browser's network tab. It is also why the pages load quickly.
Can I get a virus from this?
There is nothing to install. Downloads are audio files or ZIP archives of audio files, never executables. If any site calling itself a Spotify downloader offers you an .exe, an .apk from outside a store, or an "updater", close the tab.
Do you see what music I download?
The conversion service necessarily handles the link while it is working. It is not written to a retained log, not associated with you, and not kept after the job completes. There is no mechanism here for building a listening profile.
Legality and ethics
Is downloading from Spotify legal?
It depends on where you live and what you do with the file. Spotify's Terms of Use prohibit copying content from the service, which is a contract matter between you and Spotify. Separately, copyright law in many countries allows limited personal, non-commercial format-shifting of material you have lawful access to, and prohibits redistribution everywhere. Those exceptions are broad in places like Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, and narrow in the UK. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice.
What is definitely not allowed?
Uploading downloaded files anywhere, selling them, using them in commercial work without a licence, putting them on another streaming service, or sharing them publicly. Once a file leaves your own devices, no personal-use argument survives.
Does this hurt artists?
Honestly, a converted play does not register a stream, so it does not pay a royalty. That royalty is a fraction of a cent, but it is not zero. If a tool like this is how you discover music, buying an album on Bandcamp, a ticket, or merch returns more to an artist than years of streaming would. We would rather say that plainly than pretend the question does not exist.
I am a rights holder and want something removed
Use the contact page. We host no audio catalogue, so there is rarely anything to take down, but reports about misuse are read and acted on quickly.