A native Spotify player for Linux and Windows, written in C with GTK4 and libadwaita. It signs in to Spotify, browses your music and plays streams directly—without running Spotify's desktop app.
Latest release: 1.1.3. Linux packages and a signed Windows MSIX are available.
Spotify streaming requires a Premium account. The client does not bypass Spotify's account or service checks. Unofficial clients may not comply with Spotify's terms; use at your own risk. SpotifyGTK is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Spotify AB. See the legal notes.
| Area | Available features |
|---|---|
| Play music | Stream tracks from search, playlists, albums and artist radio; gapless playback, seeking, shuffle, Smart Shuffle recommendations, repeat, lyrics and a 15-band equalizer. |
| Browse | Personalized Home, Search, Library, Liked Songs, album and artist pages, queue and Now Playing panel. |
| Manage your music | Like tracks, save albums, follow artists, filter your library and create playlists. Official Spotify clients can transfer playback to SpotifyGTK and control it remotely via Spotify Connect. |
| Play local files | Optional FFmpeg support for FLAC, Opus, WAV, M4A and AAC. Add folders in Settings; tags and embedded artwork are read by the background scanner. |
| Personalize | Four themes, 25–300% interface scaling, configurable shortcuts, saved volume, audio output settings, renderer selection and artwork caching. |
Local favorites and device-only playlists are stored separately from Spotify. Local tracks are not uploaded as Spotify tracks. Artwork and metadata caching is bounded; downloaded artwork is available offline.
- High-refresh rendering: frame-rate limits are available with the optional GTK4-Enhanced runtime: Default, 30, 60, 90, 120, 144, 240 and 360 FPS. The display, compositor and renderer can limit the actual presented rate.
- Home customization: a Settings entry is reserved for it; controls are not implemented yet.
- Podcasts, video and promotional feed sections: not displayed.
- Free-account streaming: Spotify's service requires Premium for playback.
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| Artist — top tracks, follow and discography | Album — artwork, track list and save controls |
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| Search — tracks and albums together | Liked Songs — filter and sort your tracks |
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| Now Playing — artwork, queue and lyrics | Light theme — artist page |
Get the .deb, .appimage, Windows .msix and public signing certificate
from the 1.1.3 release page.
For Windows, install the included .cer into Trusted People before the
MSIX; follow the Windows installation guide.
On first launch, sign in through the browser. The login credential is stored locally and reused on later starts.
Source builds target GTK 4.22.4 and libadwaita 1.9.0 or newer. Ubuntu 24.04's
defaults are older; older libraries can be allowed with -Dallow_old_gtk=true
and -Dallow_old_libadwaita=true, but the layout may differ. Release packages
include the pinned GTK runtime.
Building from source also needs GLib, libsoup, JSON-GLib, Ogg/Vorbis, OpenSSL and an audio output development package. FFmpeg development libraries enable local-file playback. This package list is for Ubuntu 26.04 or newer:
sudo apt install build-essential meson ninja-build pkg-config \
libglib2.0-dev libsoup-3.0-dev libjson-glib-dev libgtk-4-dev \
libadwaita-1-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libssl-dev \
libpulse-dev libasound2-dev libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev \
libavutil-dev libswresample-devThen, from the repository root:
meson setup apps/spotify-native/build apps/spotify-native \
--native-file apps/spotify-native/build-profiles/stable.ini
meson compile -C apps/spotify-native/build
meson test -C apps/spotify-native/build --print-errorlogs
apps/spotify-native/build/src/spotify-native-Dlocal_playback=enabled requires FFmpeg; -Dlocal_playback=disabled omits
local decoding. Release builds require FFmpeg so local playback is not silently
left out. For PipeWire, use build-profiles/nightly.ini. Interface shortcuts
include Ctrl++/Ctrl+- for scaling and Space for play/pause (Space is ignored
while typing in a text field).
For the optional Linux frame-rate experiment, see
packaging/build-enhanced-gtk.sh and the
performance notes.
Windows uses the same native source with its own toolchain and packaging steps; see the Windows build guide. The Linux release packages and Windows MSIX include the pinned GTK4-Enhanced runtime.
SpotifyGTK is licensed under GPL-3.0, with an attribution requirement described in the license. See third-party notices for upstream code and protocol references. Architecture and protocol research are in project internals.
Found a bug? Open an issue with reproduction steps, your operating system and build type. Check logs for account information before sharing them.