spotatui 0.45: the terminal Spotify client now also has a desktop app (deb, rpm, AppImage), and it no longer needs a Spotify developer app

[u/LargeModGames]

I posted spotatui here about 10 months ago, when it was a revived spotify-tui. A lot has changed since then, so here's an update.

What's new

- Desktop app (preview).
Same player, own window, a Spotify-like layout: home, album and artist pages, your library, lyrics, a queue panel and a device picker. Packages for Linux are .deb, .rpm and AppImage (x86_64 and arm64). It needs WebKitGTK 4.1 and glibc 2.39, so Ubuntu 24.04+, Debian 13, Fedora 40+ or Arch.

- No Spotify developer app or client ID anymore.
Spotify cut the Web API down hard for developer apps this year, so spotatui now talks to the same internal endpoints the official client uses, over librespot. You log in by confirming a code in your browser. Spotify still needs Premium. This means that that there are no more rate limits or deprecated endpoints. (rate limits could technically be possible but that would also affect the official spotify client so i doubt they will ever do that)

- Native playback.
spotatui is its own Spotify Connect device, so no official client or spotifyd is needed.

The terminal app also plays local files, Navidrome/Subsonic, internet radio, YouTube and Qobuz from one queue. The desktop preview is Spotify only for now with other sources coming later.

Both share one Rust core, settings and listening history.

- GitHub: https://github.com/LargeModGames/spotatui

- Downloads: https://github.com/LargeModGames/spotatui/releases/latest

- AUR: spotatui-bin. Also Nix, or the install script on spotatui.com.

The installers aren't signed yet. Feedback and bug reports are very welcome.

[u/Genchou]

Librespot means no lossless right ? Also, if it acts as a connect, does it mean you can use it to play on a network speaker/player (like a wiim devices for example) ?

[u/LargeModGames → u/Genchou]

Right, Spotify through librespot is lossy (Ogg Vorbis 320). For lossless, spotatui plays Qobuz, local FLAC and Subsonic in the terminal.

For the WiiM: yes, if it's already on your account's device list (for example after you played to it once from the Spotify or WiiM app), you can pick it in spotatui's device menu and playback moves there. The WiiM then streams directly from Spotify, at whatever quality it supports itself. What doesn't work yet is finding an idle speaker on your network by itself, like the official app does. I'm working on that right now: Google Cast speakers already work on a dev branch, and Spotify Connect speakers like WiiM and Sonos are next.

[u/HalcyonRedo]

Claudeslop 

[u/LargeModGames → u/HalcyonRedo]

I use AI tools like most devs these days and dont try to hide it, but the project goes back to 2019 (spotify-tui) and I've been on it for almost a year. The look is close to Spotify's on purpose for now, so I can spot missing features.