Spotify has cleared the 10000-song limit of the personal library since May 26, 2020. Now users are allowed to add as many songs as they want to their private library. Before this new feature released, the 10000-track library limit has been criticized by many Spotify lovers for many years. Now their wishes come true.
As one of the largest streaming music servers, Spotify provides every user with more than 50 million tracks for online listening. And only Spotify Premium subscribers are eligible to download a playlist from Spotify for offline playing.
So, is it possible to download Spotify playlists for offline playback as a Spotify Free user? The answer is positive. In the following parts, I would like to share the ultimate guide on how to download Spotify playlists to MP3 and other common-used formats. Read and start to prepare what you needed below.
Part 1. Spotify Download Playlist: Things You Should Know
How to download music from Spotify to MP3? Before answering this question, it is necessary to know about 3 basic points about Spotify Music.
Spotify serves audios in Ogg Vorbis formats. It is a compressed audio format for middle to high-quality audio with variable bitrates from 16 kbps to 128 kbps. In short, Ogg Vorbis offers a better sound quality with a lower bitrate, which is regarded as a more advanced audio format than MP3.
So why many people are searching for how to download Spotify playlist to MP3? Here is the second basic point. Compared to commonly used MP3, the compatibility of Ogg Vorbis is poorer that many players and devices can’t play Ogg Vorbis.
The last point about Spotify Music is the protection principle in Spotify songs. There is digital protection in each Spotify track, preventing users from downloading Spotify audios as real local files. This principle works on every Spotify user, no matter you are Spotify Premium or Spotify Free.
Part 2. Spotify Playlist Downloaders: Quick Review
When you searching for “How to download a Spotify playlist” in Google, you will get multiple results. To help you save time on comparing and testing them one by one, here is a quick review of the top 3 products for you to refer to.
Since most Spotify playlist downloader online sites and the Spotify playlist downloader for Android/iOS are not available to use, the following products are all offline software. All of them offer free trial versions and paid versions.
1. AudKit Spotify Playlist Downloader
Price: $34.95 for Windows and Mac (lifetime license)
Pros:
- Remove Spotify ads.
- 5X faster-converting speed
- 100% Lossless output quality
- Batch loading songs from Spotify
- Support to customize output settings
Cons:
- The upper limit of the loading song is 100 at once.
2. Noteburner Spotify Music Converter
Price: $79.95 for Windows and Mac (lifetime license)
Pros:
- Zero quality loss.
- Multiple output formats.
- Support to reset output configuration.
Cons:
- Very expensive.
- Lower than 5X converting speed.
3. Wondershare Streaming Audio Recorder
Price: $19 for Windows (lifetime license); $29 for Mac (lifetime license)
Pros:
- Remove Spotify ads.
- Identify and keep ID3 tags.
Cons:
- Manually play and stop recording.
- Only 2 Output formats (MP3 and M4A).
- Lossy output quality (256kbps).
Part 3. Best Spotify Playlist Downloader: AudKit Spotify Playlist Downloader
After the comparison of the top 3 Spotify music downloaders, you should have come to your own conclusion. Now let’s back to the initial question: how to download Spotify playlist? The answer is clear. You need a powerful tool, supporting to convert Spotify playlists to MP3 and remove the digital protection from Spotify songs.
Key Tool to Download Spotify Playlist to MP3
So here we meet AudKit Spotify Playlist Downloader. Specially designed for Spotify Music, this tiny but powerful tool is able to download Spotify albums, playlists, songs, audiobooks and even radio to MP3, AAC, M4A, M4B, WAV, FLAC, and other most-used formats. The downloaded Spotify music has no protective shells, stored as real audio files on the local computer.
In addition, with the latest built-in converting skills, this magic software can keep 100% sound quality and extract 100% complete ID3 tags from the original Spotify songs. In this way, it is easy for you to organize the local music library. With the help of AudKit Spotify Playlist Downloader, you can listen to the downloaded Spotify playlists on any player and device, even without the Spotify installation.
Main Features of AudKit Spotify Music Converter
- Download Spotify playlists for offline playing without Premium
- Batch convert Spotify playlists to most-used formats at 5X speed
- Preserve original quality and ID3 tags from Spotify tracks
- Available to transfer Spotify songs to any other application
Detailed Tutorial: How to Download Music from Spotify to MP3
In this tutorial, I will take the registered version of AudKit Spotify Playlist Downloader as a demo. To use the registered version of AudKit, please download the software first. Next, on its main interface, click the menu icon > ‘Buy’ to purchase a unique license code.
Step 1 Import Spotify songs to AudKit Spotify Playlist Downloader
Launch AudKit on the computer. Find ‘Register’ and input the license code to activate the full version. At the same time, the Spotify app will automatically open. Please pick the song or playlist that you want in the Spotify app. Then drag and drop the playlist to the empty place of AudKit.
Tip: There is no upper limit to the numbers of the imported playlist. Just make sure each playlist contains less than 100 tracks.
Step 2 Edit the output settings of Spotify playlists
On AudKit’s main page, open the menu icon. Then select ‘Preferences’ > ‘Convert’. Now you can change the audio parameters of Spotify songs. To keep the same quality, please set the output format to MP3, sample rate 48000 Hz, and bit rate to 320 kbps.
Step 3 Download playlists from Spotify to local folder
Tap the ‘Convert’ bar to begin the conversion. Wait until the process ends. Then follow the on-screen tips to locate the local folder named ‘Converted’. All downloaded Spotify playlists are in there.
Step 4 Download playlist from Spotify to mobile devices (optional)
If you would like to listen to Spotify playlists offline on Android phones, iPhones, tablets, or other portable speakers and players, just connect your device to the computer. Then copy and paste the downloaded Spotify playlists to it from the local folder on the computer.
Read More: How to Add Downloaded Music to Spotify
For easy management of local music files, you can also add downloaded songs to Spotify music player. Check these simple steps below if you need them.
Step 1. Open ‘Settings’ in the Spotify desktop app.
Step 2. Scroll to ‘Local Files’ and switch on the ‘Show Local Files’.
Step 3. In the ‘Show songs from’, hit ‘ADD A SOURCE’ to choose any local music folder.