down2listen

A premium, easy-to-use application featuring both a modern Web Interface and a Command Line Interface (CLI) to search, download, convert, and tag audio tracks and albums from Apple Music.

It extracts metadata from Apple Music, searches for the best matching audio stream on YouTube Music, converts it to high-quality audio, embeds metadata (including official high-resolution album art), and stores them cleanly.

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🌟 Key Features

• One-Click Run: Batch startup scripts manage environment setup, dependencies, and automatically open the application in your browser.
• High-Res Artwork: Automatically scales and embeds official iTunes artwork up to 1000x1000 pixels into the downloaded audio files.
• Full Tagging: Writes comprehensive metadata tags (Title, Artist, Album, Year, Genre, Track Number, Disc Number) in ID3v2.3 (for MP3) and Vorbis Comments (for FLAC).
• Flexible Formats: Download as high-bitrate MP3 (320kbps), FLAC (Lossless container), or both at the same time.
• Album Batch Downloading: Paste any Apple Music album link to download and tag every track automatically in sequence.
• Glassmorphism Web UI: A beautiful, fluid interface featuring a live progress console so you can see the downloader's activities in real-time.
• Command Line Tool: Includes a fully-featured CLI for scripting or headless environment usage.

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⚡ One-Click Startup (Recommended)

🪟 Windows

1. Double-click run.bat in the project directory.
2. The script will automatically:
   • Verify Python is installed.
   • Create a Python virtual environment (.venv) if it doesn't exist.
   • Install/update all required dependencies from requirements.txt.
   • Start the local Flask web server.
   • Open the web interface in your default browser at http://127.0.0.1:5000.
3. To stop the server, simply close the command window or press Ctrl+C in it.

🍎 macOS & 🐧 Linux

1. Open a terminal in the project directory.
2. Run the script using:

   chmod +x run.sh
   ./run.sh

3. The script will perform the same automated environment setup and launch the web interface in your browser.

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🍪 Bypassing YouTube "Please sign in" blocks

YouTube frequently restricts anonymous downloads, resulting in a Please sign in error. To bypass this easily:

1. In the Web UI:
   • In the settings section under Use Browser Cookies, select your active browser (e.g., Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave Browser, etc.).
   • Make sure you are logged into YouTube in that browser.
   • Click Start Downloader. The app will extract your YouTube session cookies securely and use them to complete the download.
2. Close Browser (if needed):
   • If you encounter a database lock error, close your browser window temporarily while downloading.

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🖥️ CLI Usage

If you prefer using a terminal interface instead of the web browser, you can run the command-line utility directly using the virtual environment:

Windows CLI Setup

.venv\Scripts\activate
python cli.py --url "<Apple-Music-URL>" --format both --output-dir "downloads"

macOS/Linux CLI Setup

source .venv/bin/activate
python cli.py --url "<Apple-Music-URL>" --format both --output-dir "downloads"

Options

• --url: (Required) The Apple Music track or album link.
• --format: (Optional) Choose from mp3, flac, or both (default is both).
• --output-dir: (Optional) Base directory for saving downloads (default is downloads).
• --cookies-from: (Optional) Browser name to extract YouTube cookies from (e.g., chrome, edge, brave, firefox, safari, opera, vivaldi).

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🛠️ Tech Stack & Dependencies

The project is built on standard, lightweight Python and frontend libraries:

• Flask: Serves the local web application.
• yt-dlp: Extracts matching streams from YouTube Music.
• static-ffmpeg: Dynamically manages and binds standalone FFmpeg binaries so you don't have to manually install or configure FFmpeg on your computer.
• mutagen: Tagging library utilized to write audio metadata and artwork.
• requests: Interfaces with iTunes Search/Lookup API to get high-fidelity metadata.
• Modern Web UI: Built using Vanilla HTML/CSS with premium Google Fonts (Outfit) and FontAwesome icon resources.

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📂 Downloads Directory

Downloads are placed in the downloads/ directory inside the project root:

• Tracks: Saved as <Title> - <Artist>.<format> inside the root downloads directory.
• Albums: Automatically grouped into a subfolder named <Artist> - <Album> and files are indexed as <TrackNumber> - <Title>.<format>.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This utility is for educational, personal backup, and archival purposes only. Please support artists by streaming their music on official platforms.