How to Play Spotify Music on VLC Media Player?

"Will VLC stream Spotify music? I've heard that only Spotify Premium allows people to listen to Spotify songs offline. So I upgraded to the Premium version and hoped to download Spotify songs to computer for streaming over VLC media player. But it failed me. Still I can't play Spotify music on VLC and stream Spotify music over VLC media player. Is there anything wrong? Why can't I find the offline files of Spotify Premium? Please help me with this, and show me how to play Spotify music on VLC media player." 
- A highly voted ticket from Spotify Community.

Many people would like to stream Spotify music over VLC media player. However, there exist some misunderstandings. Well, in this guide, we would like to explain why you can't play Spotify music on VLC media player directly and then stream Spotify music over VLC, and several solutions to help you play Spotify music on VLC media player. Just check the content below and have a good Spotify music listening.

Part 1: Brief Introduction to Spotify and VLC Media Player

We firstly need to know about Spotify and VLC media player. According to Spotify official, Spotify is a digital music, podcast, and video streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs and other content from artists all over the world. It has both Free and Premium plans for people to choose from, both of which enable people to search and browse desired music on Spotify, get music recommendations from various personalized features like Discover Weekly, built personal radio station and playlist, see what others are listening to, etc. The free plan will have ads between songs, while the Premium plan, which costs at $9.99 per month, is ads-free and enables people to set Spotify songs for offline listening on up to 3 different devices. You can listen to over 30 million songs on Spotify in both Free and Premium plans.

You could not only listen to music on Spotify, but also upload your own music to Spotify. But you have to make sure that these songs belong to you. Currently, Spotify is available across a range of devices, including computers (Mac and Windows), phones, tablets, speakers, TVs, and cars, and you can easily transit from one to another with Spotify Connect.

On the other hand, VLC media player has been a worldwide popular media player. As a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project, VLC is now available for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, etc. With VLC media player, you could play media files of different types, including: video, audio, DVD-Video, video CD and streaming protocols. It is also able to stream media over computer networks and to transcode multimedia files. It has been one of the most popular media players in the world.

As mentioned above, Spotify Premium plan allows you to set Spotify songs for offline listening. However, this doesn't mean you have downloaded Spotify songs to local drive since all Spotify songs are DRM protected. Spotify itself doesn't provide any download option to let you download Spotify songs. You need to make use of some 3rd-party Spotify songs to remove DRM protection upon Spotify songs and then convert Spotify songs to DRM-free audio files before you could play Spotify songs on VLC media player and other media players. The below content would show you how to download Spotify songs to VLC media player compatible files in different ways.

Part 2: How to Play Spotify Music on VLC Media Player via Leawo Prof. DRM

To download Spotify songs for playing back on VLC media player, you need 3rd-party Spotify song downloader. Leawo’s Prof. DRMis a professional Spotify song downloader program to help you remove the DRM protection upon Spotify songs and playlist, and then download and convert Spotify music to MP3, AAC, M4A, etc. It even allows you to adjust audio channel, bit rate, and sample rate of Spotify songs before downloading and converting within this Spotify music downloader. With Leawo Prof. DRM, you could easily download Spotify songs for playing on and streaming over VLC media player as you like.

Download and install Leawo Prof. DRM on your computer. Follow the below guide to learn how to download Spotify songs for VLC.

You could download and install Leawo Prof. DRM on your computer first, and then convert Spotify music to MP3 files as the below steps show.

Note: If you want to download Spotify songs from Spotify desktop software, make sure you have installed Spotify desktop on your computer and you have already had a Spotify account (it doesn’t need to be Premium account). If you want to download Spotify song playlist from Spotify web player, make sure the Internet connection performs stable.

Step 1: Add Spotify music to Prof. DRM

Launch Leawo Prof. DRM and then it will ask you to launch Spotify. Then directly drag and drop songs or albums from Spotify desktop software to Leawo Prof. DRM for adding Spotify songs you want to download.

To download Spotify music playlist, you need to firstly click the Spotify icon on the Converted tab of Leawo Prof. DRM, copy the URL of Spotify playlist you want to download from Spotify web player, and then paste it into the browser bar of Leawo Prof. DRM. Click “OK” button to finish adding Spotify playlist.

Step 2: Set output format and audio parameters

Then click the pencil icon in each loaded Spotify music title to set output format and audio parameters. Since VLC media player supports MP3, AAC, and other audio files, you could choose either MP3 or AAC from “Format” drop-down panel. Adjust audio channel, sample rate, and bit rate according to your needs. Click either “Apply to All” or “Apply to current” button to save these settings.

Step 3: Set output directory

Then, set output directory in the “Output” box at the bottom.

Step 4: Download and convert Spotify music for VLC

Press the blue button “Convert” at the bottom right corner. Leawo Prof. DRM would start to download Spotify songs immediately. The DRM removal happens in the background.

You could view the downloading process on the “Downloading” panel. All downloaded Spotify songs would be viewable under the “Converted” tab. You could then import downloaded Spotify songs to VLC player for unlimited listening and streaming, or transfer downloaded Spotify music to iOS device or Android as you like.

Part 3: How to Play Spotify Music on VLC Media Player via Leawo Music Recorder

Alternatively, Leawo provides you another tool to help you record and download Spotify songs for VLC media player. That’s Leawo Music Recorder, an easy-to-use audio recorder that could record any computer and built-in audio and then save into MP3 or WAV files. Performing as Spotify song downloader, it could record and download Spotify songs to local drive in MP3 or WAV format as well. Different from Leawo Prof. DRM, Leawo Music Recorder could help you automatically download and add music tags like artist, album, cover, etc. to downloaded Spotify songs. This would be extremely helpful if you want to transfer Spotify songs to mobile devices or you want a music library with complete music info.

Download and install Leawo Music Recorder on your. Do as the following steps to learn how to record and download Spotify songs for VLC media player.

Step 1: Set recording audio source

After launching Leawo Music Recorder, click on the tiny microphone icon on the bottom left corner. Under the "Audio Source" tab, choose "Record Computer Audio" option since you need to record and download Spotify songs.

Step 2: Set output directory

Go to the "General" tab to set output directory in the “Output” box. You could even determine the program interface language here.

Step 3: Set output format

Thirdly, open the "Format" tab to choose output format from MP3 audio and WAV audio. Since VLC media player accepts both audio file formats, you could choose either one. You could adjust the audio bit rate and sample rate of output recording file as well.

Step 4: Start to record and download Spotify songs

With all settings done, return to the main interface and then click the red "Start" button before you play Spotify songs on your computer. This music recorder software would start to record automatically. You could view the recording process.

Note: It’s important to press the red recording button before you play back Spotify songs. This will help you record a complete Spotify song.

Leawo Music Recorder would automatically help you add and complete the music tags like artist, album, genre, cover, etc. However, you could also manually edit these music tags by right clicking target recording and then choosing “Edit Music Tags” option.

See, Leawo Music Recorder could perform as an excellent online audio recorder to help you record and download online songs with ease, as well as built-in audio recorder to record any sound out of your computer.

After downloading, now you could play Spotify songs on VLC media player or stream Spotify music over VLC media player as you usually do.

Part 4: Leawo Prof. DRM vs. Leawo Music Recorder

Both Leawo Prof. DRM and Leawo Music Recorder could help you download Spotify songs for VLC media player, but they differ in details, which are listed in the below table:

	Leawo Prof. DRM	Leawo Music Recorder
Download Spotify songs	Yes	Yes
Download Spotify playlist	Yes	No
Download Spotify songs in batch	Yes	No
Convert Spotify songs to audio	Yes. Support MP3, M4B, M4A, AAC, WAV, and FLAC output audio formats.	Yes. Support MP3 and WAV audio formats.
Get rid of Spotify song DRM protection	Yes	Yes
Sound quality of downloaded Spotify songs	Higher	High
Download music tags like artist, album, cover, genre, etc. for Spotify songs	No	Yes
Edit music tags of downloaded Spotify songs	No	Yes
Preset audio parameters like bit rate, sample rate and channel	Yes	Yes
Platform	Windows and Mac	Windows and Mac
Price	$19.95/year, $29.95/lifetime	$19.99/year, $29.99/lifetime