How to burn a Spotify playlist to a CD

Why can't you burn a CD from Spotify?

You can’t burn a CD from Spotify because Spotify downloads play only inside the Spotify app, Spotify has no burn feature, and its user guidelines forbid ripping or recording. The songs only look like they’re on the computer already. With Premium you can download playlists, and they play with no internet. But those downloads are for offline listening inside Spotify only:

• They’re locked to the app. The downloaded songs aren’t ordinary audio files that Music, Windows Media Player or any burning program can open. Spotify’s terms say its content is licensed to you, not sold.
• They’re temporary. Spotify says you have to go online at least once every 30 days to keep your downloads, and you can keep them on up to five devices.
• Spotify has no burn button. There’s no export, no “save as audio file,” and no Spotify CD burner.
• The rules forbid it. Spotify’s user guidelines prohibit copying, “ripping,” recording or transferring its content, moving cached content to another device, and getting around any technology Spotify uses to protect it.

So the job is to get the same songs, in the same order, from somewhere that lets you burn them. Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music Unlimited have the same restriction; our guide to burning Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon Music to CD covers each.

How do you burn a CD from a Spotify playlist?

A Spotify playlist gets onto a CD three legitimate ways: buy the songs as downloads and burn them, burn songs you already own, or order a CD made from the playlist. The fourth row shows why we leave converters out.

How do you get a clean song list out of Spotify?

The quickest way to get a song list out of Spotify is the desktop app: select every track with Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac) and copy. Every route starts with that list.

• Desktop app shortcut. Open the playlist, click any track, press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac) to select every track, then copy. Paste it into a document and you get a Spotify link for each song, one per line, in playlist order. Links aren’t titles, so you’ll still need to read the names off the playlist.
• Our tools. Our playlist length calculator takes a pasted song list and gives back a clean numbered tracklist, the total running time, and how many 80-minute CDs it needs. Our playlist converter can move a playlist you built here, or a CSV export, to another service.
• Check the total time. Spotify shows the playlist’s length at the top. One hour 19 minutes or less fits on one CD. Our guide to how many songs fit on a CD has the numbers by song length.

How do you buy the songs and burn them yourself?

Buying the songs as downloads (iTunes Store, Amazon, Bandcamp or Qobuz) and burning them as an audio CD is the legitimate way to burn a Spotify playlist on your own. You end up owning the songs as files, so you can burn them again, put them on other devices, and keep them if you cancel Spotify.

1. 01
   Get the song list out of Spotify

   Open the playlist in the Spotify desktop app, click one track, press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac) to select them all, and copy. You get one Spotify link per track; turn them into a list of titles and artists, or rebuild the list by hand from the playlist.
2. 02
   Check that it fits

   Look at the total time at the top of the playlist. Keep each disc under 80 minutes, roughly 18 to 22 songs, and split a longer playlist across two discs.
3. 03
   Buy the tracks as downloads

   Buy each song from a download store such as the iTunes Store, Amazon's digital music store, Bandcamp or Qobuz. Match the version you hear on Spotify: studio or live, clean or explicit.
4. 04
   Add the files to your burning app

   Put the downloaded songs into a playlist in the Music app on a Mac, or in the library of Windows Media Player Legacy on Windows, in the same order as your Spotify playlist.
5. 05
   Burn an audio CD

   Insert a blank CD-R and burn the playlist as an Audio CD: File > Burn Playlist to Disc in Music, or the Burn tab in Windows Media Player Legacy.
6. 06
   Test-play and label it

   Play the disc in a real CD player, including the last track, then write the title on it with a felt-tip marker.

Where to buy the downloads:

• iTunes Store. Built into the Music app on a Mac. Purchases burn straight from Music. Apple Music subscription songs don’t, so make sure you’re buying the track.
• Amazon digital music. Amazon sells song and album downloads separately from its Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. The purchases are what you can burn.
• Bandcamp. Artists and labels sell downloads directly, often in lossless formats. Best for indie and smaller artists.
• Qobuz. Sells lossless and high-resolution downloads, if you care about the cleanest source.

Once you have the files, the burn takes about 10 minutes. Our step-by-step guides cover burning a CD on a Mac and burning a CD on Windows, and the main how to burn a CD guide covers burn speed, blanks and labelling.

Can you burn songs you already own?

Songs you already own, such as tracks ripped from your old CDs or past iTunes, Amazon or Bandcamp purchases, burn to CD from the Music app or Windows Media Player Legacy. If you added them to Spotify as local files, Spotify is only pointing at files that live elsewhere on your computer.

Burn those files from your burning app, not from Spotify. Find them in your Music folder, add them to a playlist in your burning app, fill the gaps by buying the missing songs, and burn as an Audio CD.

Can someone burn a Spotify playlist to CD for you?

A CD burning service can turn a Spotify playlist into a finished audio CD from just the playlist link; that’s what we do. It suits you if you don’t have a burner, don’t want to buy 20 songs one by one, or the CD is a gift.

• Paste a public Spotify playlist link, or type a numbered song list.
• We use studio versions by default. Tell us whether you want clean or explicit versions.
• Each disc is a real audio CD filled to under 79 minutes, about 18 to 22 songs, that plays in any car or stereo.
• We burn every disc, then test-play it. It ships in 1 to 3 business days by USPS.
• If the playlist runs long, we ask you which songs to trim or suggest the Two CD Gift Set. We never cut songs on our own.

Ready to skip the buying and burning? Send us your Spotify playlist and we’ll burn it to a custom CD mixtape.

You can pick a paper sleeve, a jewel case with a printed tracklist, or your own photo as the cover. Read how our custom CD mixtapes work for the packages, or see every option for getting a CD burned if you’d rather do it locally.

Are Spotify to CD converter sites safe?

Spotify to CD converter sites break Spotify’s user guidelines and carry a malware risk, so we don’t link to any of them. Search for how to burn a CD from Spotify and you’ll still find plenty promising a one-click fix.

Buying the songs takes longer than a one-click tool, but you own the files outright and can burn them as often as you like.