How to download music for free: Best tools for downloading music to listen offline

Finding free music online and saving it on your Mac it is not as easy as it should be. While there are plenty of artists who’d love you to hear their music and who are happy for you to download it for free, the process of finding and then downloading it can be a bit of a pain.

Even if you know where to go looking (and we’ll help you with that in a minute), saving lots of individual tracks in a web browser one by one can be a slow and frustrating process. That’s where a smart music downloader can help.

Where to get free music to download

There are of course, lots of places on the internet where you can find free music to download. But many of those places link to tracks which included cracked files or music the copyright owner hasn’t given permission to share.

It’s important that when you go looking for free mp3, you only use sources that have permission to share that music.

Here are a few places where you can find free music to download legally:

• Jamendo. All the music on Jamendo has been made available by the artists on a Creative Commons licence. That means that, while they retain the rights to the music, they’ve agreed to allow it to be saved to your Mac for free.

• Soundcloud. It's a hugely popular site where amateur and professional musicians, and some well-known names, share music. Not all of it is available to download for free, and you’ll need to create an account. But there are some real gems to be found.

• Last.fm. It's another hugely popular site that, among its discovery and sharing features, also allows you to save music tracks for free.

How to download music online

Is it legal to download music for free? Yes, as long as the copyright owner consents. On all of the sites listed above, the rights owner has consented to allow their music to be downloaded. 

There is a number of both paid and free tools that help download free music. Based on your requirements, decide on the functionality of a downloader you’re searching: Should it cover video and torrent as well? Batch downloads? Scheduling?

Here are the key features of music downloader we recommend you pay attention to:

1. Schedule downloads so they only take place at times they won’t place too many demands on your computer.
2. Video and torrents covered. You can get a one-stop downloader for capturing different types of media on your Mac.
3. Tag downloads to easily find them later.

Get the best music downloader

Setapp offers a number of music and video downloaders in one package – so you can toggle between different features and interfaces or pick one tool that perfectly covers your needs. Once you install Setapp, click on its icon in the menu bar and search for downloaders there. You’ll be suggested Pulltube, and Downie. On the selected app, click Install and wait for it to travel to your Mac. Double-click to launch the app.

Here’s the quick overview of each of them:

• Downie: Video and audio downloader that’s based on superb drag and drop functionality.
• Pulltube: A universal media downloader that lets you instantly adjust the length of your video and music tracks.

Add the link to the track you want

Once you’ve found a track you want to save, copy the link. To do that, you’ll need to identify the download link on the site – it will usually be an icon with a downward arrow in it. Don’t click it, instead right-click or Control-click it. From the menu that appears, click Copy Link.

It’s pretty similar with Downie – with the exception that you have to drag the link onto the app icon. To extract music from video, navigate to Settings > Extract Audio Only. From there, you can also customize the quality of output files, convert videos, or send to Permute – a universal media converter.

Choose where your music are stored

Once you’ve added the link, choose where you want to save it to. If you’re happy to leave the destination at its default, great. If not, you can change it as you like in any app. In Downie, open Preferences > General > Put new downloads in/Save files to folder. 

In case you want to move your audio collections across devices, you can do so with AnyTrans for iOS. A handy file transferring app with an in-built media downloader, it helps you flexibly manage downloads – transfer from iPhone to Mac, integrate with iTunes, or copy to any iOS device.

Choose when to download tracks

Downie has scheduling features, so you can choose when the downloads should take place.

To activate delayed queue start in Downie, go to File > Delayed start and select a custom time slot.

Download a song and set it as a ringtone

If you can’t stand your default phone ringtone anymore, there’s a solution. You can grab any of your favorite songs from the web and transform it into a custom ringtone with Pulltube app.

You can download music to Pulltube by simply dragging the link into the app window, or saving via a browser extension. After you download your file, click on the scissors button below it and enter the Trimming Mode. In the pop-up window, you’ll be able to play the audio and adjust the length of your ringtone. Once you’re ready, hit Trim and save the ringtone. 

Continue customizing

Once you’ve scheduled, think whether there are any other settings you want to twick. If the file you’re downloading is particularly large, you might want to select a higher number.  

Authenticate if it’s required

If the website needs a username and password, click Authenticate. Click ‘Saved Passwords’ and then ‘Add.’ Choose ‘HTTP or FTP password’ and type in the URL of the login page, your username and your password in the next window that opens. Click Ok.

Most of the music you find will be MP3 files, which can be played on your Mac. If the files are in a format that won’t run on your Mac, you can use Permute to convert media.

You’re all set. You can capture and manage free music downloads using a Mac app that suits your flow.

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