Spotify TUI: Spotify from the Terminal on Windows, Linux, or macOS

Sometimes a service only needs to look back to offer its audience a different experience. For example, the idea of using Netflix in 1995 might have been a mix of joke and parody, but its execution on a Nintendo NES was quite real. Now, what about Spotify? It has millions of users and its catalog is impressive, but not everyone is happy with the official client. That's when Spotify TUI comes in, an independent client that works directly from a terminal. More retro than that, impossible.

The Numbers Behind Spotify

With more than 270 million monthly active users and about 125 million subscribers, Spotify is the number one when it comes to music streaming. And as expected, such activity attracts many developers out there. The folks at Spotify offer an API so anyone can access its resources and create new apps, but the question is: What does Spotify need exactly?

Well... some users feel uncomfortable with the official client, whether because of the overall interface or unexpected performance issues. That gave rise to creations like spotifyd, which only works on Linux, macOS, and ARM, but there's another option called Spotify TUI. It's a client written in Rust that not only adds Windows support, but also works directly on the terminal, giving Spotify a very interesting retro touch. Now, Spotify TUI requires us to meet some conditions before we can log in:

Setting Up Spotify TUI

• Visit the Spotify dashboard, and log in with your account.
• There you need to create a Client ID, followed by an app.
• Click on Client Secret, and copy it to Notepad.
• Click Edit Settings.
• In the Redirect URIs section enter http://localhost:8888/callback.

That's it! With the main configuration done, you just need to open Spotify TUI, enter your Client ID and the accompanying Client Secret. Spotify will ask for permission confirmation, and the new tab might throw a "Connection Refused" error (the official Spotify TUI page on GitHub warns about this), but everything will work fine in the terminal.

Two Major Requirements

However, there are two major requirements we can't escape. The first is that Spotify TUI has no streaming capability by itself. In other words, this software depends on the official client installed on one of our registered devices, or the aforementioned spotifyd. And the second is that playback controls are not available without a Premium account.

Official site and download: Click here.