A cassette recorder for Spotify.
Play music – every track lands in its own tagged file. Paste a podcast link – the episode is saved in one go.

Download · Install · How it works · FAQ

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Highlights

• Auto Record – switch it on and use Spotify as usual. Each complete track becomes its own file. Skipped tracks, ads and anything you jumped around in are left out automatically.
• Clean cuts – cuts land in the silence between tracks; pauses and buffering are removed.
• Podcasts in one go – paste an episode link and Reelcast plays it, records it and tidies up.
• Tagged and sorted – title, artist, album, track number, release date and cover art, filed under Music/<artist>/<album>/ and Podcasts/<show>/. MP3, M4A or FLAC.
• Only Spotify – Reelcast records Spotify's own audio stream, not your speakers. Other apps, notification sounds or your microphone never end up in a recording.
• Window or terminal – a Qt app with a living cassette, and a full terminal interface.
• No tricks – nothing is decrypted, no account data, no API keys. Reelcast records what Spotify plays anyway.

Screenshots

Auto Record – one file per track

Single episode – paste a link, press Record

_{The same in the terminal: reelcast --auto}

_{Artists, titles and covers in the screenshots are made up.}

Install

Download the file for your system from the latest release.

macOS 14.2 (Sonoma) or newer

1. Open Reelcast-1.0.0-macOS.dmg and drag Reelcast onto Applications.
2. The first time, right-click Reelcast → Open → Open. Reelcast isn't notarized by Apple, so macOS asks once. If it refuses: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.
3. On the first recording macOS asks twice – allow both: control Spotify and record system audio.

Everything is included (Python, Qt, FFmpeg). On Apple silicon Macs the app runs through Rosetta 2.

Arch Linux / Manjaro

sudo pacman -U reelcast-1.0.0-1-any.pkg.tar.zst

Other Linux distributions

tar xf reelcast-1.0.0-linux.tar.gz
cd reelcast-1.0.0 && ./install.sh        # ./install.sh --remove undoes it

Needs PipeWire (pactl, pw-record, pw-metadata), FFmpeg with libmp3lame, Python 3.11+ with PySide6, NumPy, Rich and PyGObject, and Spotify as a Flatpak or native package. reelcast --check tells you if anything is missing.

Usage

reelcast --gui	the app (also in your application menu)
reelcast --auto	Auto Record in the terminal – Ctrl+C stops
reelcast 'https://open.spotify.com/episode/…'	record one or more episodes
reelcast -l links.txt	record every episode link in a file
reelcast --check	check PipeWire/Core Audio, FFmpeg and Spotify's settings

Useful options: -f mp3|m4a|flac (and opus on Linux), -q 0-9 (MP3 quality, default 2 ≈ 190 kbit/s), -o DIR (output folder), --listen / --mute (hear the recording or not).

Recordings go to ~/Music/Reelcast:

~/Music/Reelcast/
├── Music/<artist>/<album>/01 - <title>.mp3
└── Podcasts/<show>/<episode title>.mp3

How it works

1. Capture only Spotify. On Linux, Spotify plays into a virtual PipeWire output of its own; on macOS a small Swift helper taps Spotify's processes directly (macOS 14.2+). You can listen along or record silently – and afterwards everything is back to how it was.
2. Follow the player. Ten times a second Reelcast reads what Spotify plays and where it is.
3. Cut precisely. Spotify's position is mapped onto the continuous recording, the output latency is measured at the track boundaries, and every cut is moved into the digital silence between two tracks. Standing positions (pauses, buffering) are cut out again.
4. Keep only what's complete. A track is saved only if it played from the start to the end without jumps; ads and local files are ignored.
5. Encode and tag with FFmpeg, add the cover, file it in the right folder.

Good to know

• Podcasts at 1×. Other speeds are detected and the episode isn't saved.
• Crossfade/Automix off in Spotify's settings – otherwise tracks can't be separated cleanly. reelcast --check shows the setting.
• Spotify stays at 100 % while recording; use your system volume instead.
• Spotify Connect: only what plays on this computer can be recorded.
• Real time: Reelcast records what Spotify plays, so a 3-minute song takes 3 minutes.
• Cut accuracy: Spotify reports its position to about ±0.2 s, which is why cuts go into the silence between tracks. On gapless albums (live albums, DJ mixes) a cut can be up to ~0.2 s off. On macOS, a pause in the middle of a track can leave a short gap (≤ 0.5 s) where you paused.

Tested

Version 1.0.0 passed the end-to-end self-test with the real Spotify app on both systems – 16 of 16 checks each:

System	Spotify	Result
Linux (Manjaro, KDE Plasma 6, PipeWire)	1.2.95 (Flatpak)	✓ 16/16
macOS 15.8 Sequoia (virtual machine)	1.3.6	✓ 16/16

On macOS the complete run was done with Reelcast.app installed from the DMG; the two timing fixes that went into the final build were verified with the same code run from source.

The self-test (reelcast --selftest DIR) drives the app like a person would: it plays a full album track with a pause in the middle, skips one after 20 s, plays another one in full, stops a fourth after 5 s and records a podcast episode through the link field. Then it checks what was saved – length, tags, cover art and sound – and writes screenshots, waveforms and result.json. The recorded audio is deleted afterwards.

FAQ

Is this legal?

Reelcast records the audio Spotify plays on your computer – like a cassette recorder connected to a radio. Whether such private copies are allowed depends on the law where you live and on Spotify's terms of use. Use Reelcast only for your own, private use and respect the rights of artists and podcasters. This is not legal advice.

Can it record faster than real time?

No. Reelcast doesn't download anything – it records what Spotify actually plays, so it takes as long as the music. In exchange, nothing is decrypted or bypassed.

Why does macOS ask for permissions?

Reelcast needs two: to control Spotify (to know what's playing and to start episodes) and to record system audio (to tap Spotify's sound). You can change both later in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

What about ads?

Ads are recognised and left out of the recording.

Windows?

Not supported – Reelcast relies on PipeWire (Linux) and Core Audio process taps (macOS).

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/DevEmperor/Reelcast && cd Reelcast
python3 -m reelcast --gui            # run straight from the source (Linux)
packaging/build-linux.sh             # Arch package + tarball → dist/

macOS app: on macOS 14.2+ with the Command Line Tools, build FFmpeg with macos/build-ffmpeg-mac.sh, create a Python 3.13 venv in ~/reelcast-dev/venv with PySide6-Essentials numpy rich pyinstaller, then run macos/build-app.sh → Reelcast.app and the DMG.

Tests: tests/run_auto_test.py checks Auto Record against a fake Spotify player with test tones (cut accuracy, pauses, ads, skipped tracks – silent). reelcast --selftest DIR is the end-to-end test with the real app. tests/mac_*_probe.py measure timing on macOS. The images in this README come from tools/make_readme_images.py.

License

Reelcast is MIT licensed. The macOS app bundles FFmpeg, LAME, Qt and Python under their own licenses – see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB. Reelcast is an independent project and is not affiliated with Spotify.