Usage Guide
You may either search regular queries or paste a link to a specific playlist/song.
Select the source to search from using the Source dropdown menu. This allows you to target specific platforms like Deezer, Qobuz, Spotify, or YouTube.
If you cannot find a track with the built-in search, you can use URLs from online web players. All web players have options to copy song links. For example, in the Qobuz web player, press the three dots beside a track and then Share.
Links to albums, playlists, and single tracks can be entered directly in the search bar. The app will automatically parse the link even if the Source dropdown does not match the link's origin.
Search with filters on artists, album, and song title. Not all fields are required; you may choose which filter(s) to apply.
Note: Search filters are officially supported for Deezer and Spotify. Qobuz and YouTube are manually implemented and may have inconsistent results.
The buttons on the top are self-explanatory. Note that there is a knob on the edge of the sidebar which you can hold and drag to resize the preview pane.
- Direct Download: Download songs immediately from the Preview buttons.
- Add to Queue: Use this if you wish to convert the track to a different source or download multiple tracks later.
- Album Mode: This can be enabled via the search source dropdown. Currently, this mode only exists on the Search page.
- Functionality: Album mode causes searches to show full albums instead of single tracks. Selecting an album opens it in the preview sidebar.
- Batch Actions: Adding an album to the queue automatically adds every track from that album.
- Metadata & Tracklists: Clicking into an album displays its metadata and tracklist in the preview sidebar.
- Track Previews: Selecting a track within the sidebar tracklist will play a preview of that specific song.
-
Cover Art: To download cover art, ensure Album Subfolders is enabled in:
Downloads > Subfolder Options > Album Subfolder Options.
To get started, add audio files using Add folder or Add files. You may additionally use the Add X to queue button.
Click on a file in the list to open the Preview sidebar. The toolbar contains an Edit button:
This opens a menu to edit different fields and change the cover art.
- Cover Art: Press Add cover art to browse for an image file.
-
Separators: For field lists such as artists or genres, use a semicolon (
;) as a separator. - Saving: Remember to press Save to apply changes.
Tip: It is recommended to not have these tracks playing in another app while editing, as this could lock the files and prevent saving.
Press the Analyze button in the Preview toolbar. If the button is hidden, press the three dots or resize your window. This opens a popup showing a spectrogram generated through FFmpeg.
- Zooming: Hold Ctrl and scroll to zoom. Touchpad pinching and standard zoom gestures are supported.
- Quality Verification: Files can be upsampled, meaning bitrate may be inaccurate. Spectrograms help determine if a file is truly lossless. For more info, see this guide on interpreting spectrograms.
Press the Convert button, select the output location, and adjust settings. Some formats support VBR (Variable Bit Rate), which provides high audio quality with a smaller file size.
Note: This process creates a new file and does not remove the original.
Press the Lyrics button to open this popup. This downloads lyric files for everything currently loaded in the Local Explorer page.
You may press the eye icon to preview what text was downloaded and the folder icon to open it in File Explorer.
The settings used (unsynced, synced, file extension, etc.) can be configured in Settings page > Download Lyrics.
Enable lyric downloading if you want these to be automatically downloaded alongside tracks. Most popular players, such as Foobar or Musicbee have built-in support for .lrc files.
Tracks are added to this page from the Search or Local Explorer sections.
The conversion menu allows for matching tracks between different streaming services (e.g., matching a Spotify playlist to Qobuz equivalents for high-res downloading).
Example Workflow:
- Spotify -> Qobuz: Match high-quality versions.
- Spotify -> YouTube: Cleanup any failures from the first step.
- Qobuz/YouTube -> Local: Final download.
Matching Logic: FluentDL uses ISRC matching (unique identifiers) first. If an exact match is not found, it resorts to metadata matching (titles/artists), which may occasionally result in errors.
After conversion, results are categorized by tabs. Status colors also appear as circles on the corner of the album art.
- Success (Green): Exact match found using ISRC.
- Warning (Yellow): Attempted match made using metadata.
- Error (Red): Both methods failed; no match found.
There are two ways to download from the queue:
- Set Convert output as
local. - Use the Download button (converts all input sources to local files).
Once complete, the queue item is replaced by the local file, allowing for spectral analysis or previewing.
| Service | Download Quality & Authentication |
|---|---|
| YouTube | No Auth required (128 kbps OPUS) |
| Deezer | Free: 128 kbps MP3 / Premium: 320 kbps MP3 or 16-bit FLAC |
| Qobuz | Free: 30s preview / Premium: Up to 24-bit/192kHz FLAC |
| Spotify | Not directly available (Uses matching from other sources) |
You have the option to restore old queue states. This can also be used to import and export your queue state (new device, share with someone, etc.).
From the dropdown, you can select an automatically created backup. This setting must be enabled and automatic backups are created everytime you clear the queue. FluentDL will only retain up to the last 10 backups (you can reduce the amount in settings).
You may additionally press Browse, where you can upload a user-created backup/restore point. This will load it into the dropdown options and select it.
To create a manual backup/restore point, press the Export button to save the current queue state.
Before using the application, you should head over to settings to set authentication values and configure your preferences. You can open the page through the navigation menu (bottom-left).
If you need to uninstall and reinstall, or install on another machine, you can export your settings as a JSON file and reimport them:
The settings themselves contain explanations and are pretty self-explanatory, but here are some potentially helpful notes:
You can click on the Logged In to see more information. If not logged in, certain features may not work. For Deezer, you can still search/match, just not download. For Qobuz and Spotify, basically all features (searching, matching, downloading) won't work.
Upon clicking Save, the status of Logged In or not will update right away (no need to close and reopen app).
You may have to check this area once in a while if you notice something is wrong/broken.
- Deezer ARLs expire after a while (few weeks or months)
- Qobuz does not expire assuming you provide the app id/secret it is bound to
- Spotify app id/secrets do not expire
There are two settings related to subfolder creation. These place your downloads in additional folders inside the selected download directory.
- What it does: Places every individual song into a user-defined folder structure and creates the folders if they don't exist.
- Note: This applies to both single tracks and tracks within an album.
- What it does: Creates one folder for an entire album.
- The Priority Rule: This setting takes precedence over Track Subfolder rules when you download a full album. It ensures all songs from the same download stay grouped together.
Wildcards are variables that the app fills in using the song's metadata. In settings, you can hover over the wildcard buttons to understand what they mean.
If you leave them blank, FluentDL will use default wildcard settings.
Here are some example setups which might give you a clearer understanding of these settings.
Track Subfolder: Enabled
Album Subfolder: Disabled
Track Subfolder Rule: {artist}/{year} - {album}
-
Example Result:
Music Folder/Daft Punk/2001 - Discovery/1. One More Time.flac - In this setup, ALL downloads, regardless of album download or single download, will be organized the same way.
Track Subfolder: Disabled
Album Subfolder: Enabled
Album Subfolder Rule: {artist} - {album}
-
Single Download Result:
Downloads/1. One More Time.flac -
Album Download Result:
Downloads/Daft Punk - Discovery/1. One More Time.flac - This setup treats FluentDL more like a downloader tool that just directly hands you the downloads you asked for.