How to Save Music for Offline Listening the Legal Way

Music is easy to stream and surprisingly hard to keep. Signal drops, subscriptions lapse and songs disappear from catalogs. The good news is that there are plenty of fully legitimate ways to have music on your device for offline listening. Here is how to build a library you can rely on.

Start with music that's meant to be kept

• Buy it. Stores like Bandcamp let you pay the artist directly and download high-quality files you own.
• Free downloads from the artist. Many artists on Bandcamp, Audiomack and SoundCloud offer tracks for free, sometimes in exchange for an email address.
• Creative Commons music. Libraries such as the Free Music Archive and Jamendo host music with licenses that allow reuse, usually with credit to the artist.
• Public domain recordings. Older recordings and archives, like those on the Internet Archive, can be free to use.
• Your own recordings. Rehearsals, voice notes, podcasts and sermons you made yourself.

Use the offline mode in your streaming app

Subscription music services include their own offline downloads for paying members. Those files stay inside the app and work as long as your subscription is active. For everyday listening, this is the simplest and most supported option.

Where Avidder fits

Avidder is useful when you already have the right to save something: your own uploads, podcasts you want to hear offline, lectures, or audio an artist shares freely. Choose MP3 for audio, and if you only need a section, set a start and end time. See MP4 vs MP3 for which format to pick.

Be careful with "music downloader" claims

Streaming services protect their catalogs with DRM, and tools that promise to rip them usually break the service's terms and copyright law. Avidder does not download from DRM-protected music services. If a site claims to do it, treat it with caution.

Keep a tidy library

• Name files "Artist - Title" so players sort them correctly.
• Keep a note of where each track came from and its license.
• Back up what you own to cloud storage or an external drive.

Support the artists you love

Buy their music, share their links, go to their shows and tell friends. For more on what you can and can't save, read Downloading Videos Responsibly.