I’m trying to build an app that can search for music and automatically play the preview clips from Spotify. The issue I’m running into is that most of the libraries and APIs I’ve found require users to sign in with their Spotify accounts first.
What I want to do is pretty simple - let someone type in an artist name, find their songs, and then play the 30-second preview of the top result. All of this should work without forcing users to connect their Spotify accounts.
Has anyone found a way to access these preview URLs directly? I’ve been looking at different Android libraries but they all seem to need authentication. Maybe there’s a different approach I’m missing?
Yeah, you can do this with Spotify’s Web API using Client Credentials flow - no user login needed. It lets you grab public catalog data and track previews without any authentication hassle. I built something like this last year and it worked great for basic search and previews. Just register your app with Spotify to get your client credentials, then hit their search endpoint. The response includes preview URLs - direct links to 30-second MP3 clips you can play in any standard audio player. Only catch is you’re stuck with public catalog data, so no user playlists or personal stuff. But for searching artists and playing previews? Perfect.
theres an even simpler approach - skip the spotify api entirely. just scrape preview urls directly from their web player using embed links. no auth needed and u get direct access to those 30-sec clips. ive been doing this for months without any probs.