Save Pandora.com MP3s with 3tunes

Martin Brinkmann
May 15, 2006
Updated • May 5, 2013
Music and Video
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15

A visitor of my site recommended a Pandora music downloader+ application in a comment and I decided to give it a try and see how well it works. 3tunes is relatively stable considering the fact that it is still in alpha development stage. All you need is to download the file which is only about 20k in size and head to the Pandora website. Once the first song starts playing you double click the 3tunes executable and it automatically shows the song which is currently being played on the website.

It saves the songs to c:/, I suggest you visit this from time to time to move and copy the songs that you have been listening to and like. I found no way to change the download location and there is actually no configuration file at all. This will be added in a future release probably. Make sure you register with Pandora so that you can listen to an unlimited amount of songs as the guest account is only good for a few songs after which you are asked to register to keep using the service. Registration is free on the other hand and should not keep anyone from using the Internet Radio service.

Update: 3Tunes is no longer available. A viable alternative to rip the Pandora stream is Stationripper which I have reviewed here on Ghacks as well. Stationripper is a free software for Windows to download and save Internet radio streams. It supports a wide variety of streaming services, including Pandora. Only the commercial version of the software can download Pandora streams though. An alternative is Audials One, also commercial but well suited for the task.

You can alternatively look at my new guide on how to download Pandora Radio to your computer. It uses a free Windows software to achieve that so take a look if you prefer to use free programs to save music that is played by Pandora to your computer.

Keep in mind that you can only download Pandora songs if you can access the site. Since it is now restricted to users from the US, you may need to use a proxy or VPN to do so.

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Comments

  1. Kev said on September 26, 2006 at 8:09 am
    Reply

    Link (http://3tunes.codingproject.com/) is broken – where else can I get this?

  2. Martin said on September 12, 2006 at 9:52 am
    Reply

    Angela it seems that they abandoned the project, try pandoras jar, it is basically doing the same –> https://www.ghacks.net/2006/05/25/save-pandora-mp3-streams-with-pandoras-jar/

  3. Angela said on September 12, 2006 at 8:49 am
    Reply

    From where do I get it? The link given is not working…

  4. The Major said on September 11, 2006 at 12:55 pm
    Reply

    Okay so here’s the thing..
    They may be a little thin on instructions, but you really don’t need them. What you get when it says you have completed the process is a pair of files on your desktop. These two files are an MP3 with your songs and a PLS with your playlist. Ope one or the other as you choose and listen.

  5. Kevin K said on August 29, 2006 at 3:20 am
    Reply

    Pyrrha sounds interesting and its website looks professional, but there’s almost zero documentation about it that I can find. I don’t think it necessarily “makes sense” that you would use your Pandora login details in an undocumented third-party application (which is what Pyrrha is). I have Pyrrha running now and the UI appears to contain only two pulldown menus and a single button, all of which are grayed out while Pyrrha does its thing. Is it that hard to provide documentation?

  6. Elisa said on August 23, 2006 at 6:44 pm
    Reply

    Paul, the username is the email address with which you registered with Pandora, and the password is your Pandora password. (makes sense, right?)

  7. Paul Kinnaird said on June 10, 2006 at 2:48 am
    Reply

    I downloaded Pyrrha but I get only a login screen after the download and I have no password. It seems dead in the water. Any answers.

  8. Pyrcast said on May 29, 2006 at 2:59 pm
    Reply

    You may also want to try Pyrrha Podcaster. It allows users of the Pandora.com music service to record pyrcasts (Pyrrha Podcasts) from their favorite personalized stations. The interface is sleek, unqiue and easy to use. Pyrrha Podcaster also creates a playlist file listing the songs that were recorded in your pyrcast for later preview.

    Pyrcast Online
    http://pyrcast.com

  9. pandoraRocks said on May 23, 2006 at 8:17 pm
    Reply

    This one (Pandoras Jar) works for me.

    No luck with any of the other ones.

    It appears as pandora stripped their pages title of the artist and song effectivly disabling the other apps.

    Downloads mp3 files from pandora.com and tags the ID3 information.
    Also includes last.fm features.

    I found it one this thread:
    http://www.hak5.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=828&start=0&sid=075422dc19f878ab472d8865bbc5c531

    hope this helps

  10. Godfrey Daniel said on May 17, 2006 at 6:43 pm
    Reply

    Thanks much for your response, however neither option work for me.

  11. Martin said on May 17, 2006 at 9:13 am
    Reply

    It depends what you want to achieve with the blog :) But I can understand it. If you ever want to write something let me know, I could assist you setting up your blog or publish your articles here at ghacks..

    have a nice day

  12. Mastaabaita said on May 17, 2006 at 12:49 am
    Reply

    Hi Martin,

    I visit several, but I have yet to call one my own.

    There seems to be plenty of them that offer good content at regular intervals, I’m afraid any blog of mine would simply regurgitate what’s already available.. and have far less frequent updates to maintain much of an audience.

    -Mastaa-

  13. Martin said on May 16, 2006 at 9:05 pm
    Reply

    Mastaa do you blog somewhere ?

  14. Mastaabaita said on May 16, 2006 at 8:33 pm
    Reply

    I’ve had no problems getting 3tunes to work. It’s quite basic, and lacks some of the more advanced features other simular projects are capable of.

    I like this particular one because it doesn’t require me to install Python or any other software to make it work.

    *simple*

    Open Pandora
    Select Station
    Open 3tunes
    Enjoy!

    =====

    Open http://www.pandora.com/ in Firefox

    *NOT supported in Internet Explorer because ‘they’ are not able to locate the cached mp3 files while using this browser.

    Pandora must be the only active tab in the browser session.

    Choose a station and allow the songs to play, support for pausing/skip still seems to cause problems.

    Open 3tunes once the song has started to play.

    Keep in mind that the list will not update emidiatly, and that files will be copied to the root of the system drive, usually C:\

    =====

    If your still having problems here is an alternative project that works well.

    http://www.mikexstudios.com/archives/2006/05/09/open-source-alternative-to-3tunes

  15. Godfrey Daniel said on May 16, 2006 at 6:18 pm
    Reply

    When I saw your post on this I thought maybe it was now working, no, still not woking for me.

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