Using Streamripper to save Internet Radio tracks

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 7, 2008
Updated • Dec 4, 2012
Music, Music and Video
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14

Streamripper was released in a new version today and I would like to use the opportunity to explain how you can save Internet Radio tracks using Streamripper. You actually do not need another software to accomplish this because Streamripper can be used from the Windows command line. Lets say you almost need no other software for that because you need to find out a stream url of course. Begin by download the latest version of Streamripper for Windows from Sourceforge.

Once you got that install the software. You might notice the Winamp Plugin which is probably the better way of saving Internet Radio tracks because you can use it from within Winamp that way. Since I'm not using Winamp I favor the command line option. Another option would be to install Winamp and use it just for the purpose of downloading Internet Radio tracks.

Streamripper can save track information, like artist and album, if the Radio Station is sending those information. This is great because you will end up with correctly named and tagged tracks. If no information are send you will end up with one huge mp3 file in the end.

I assume you have installed Streamripper and are ready to go. The first thing that we need to do is locate a Internet Radio stream. You can use shoutcast for this for instance which is a directory that contains hundreds, if not thousands, of Internet Radio stations that can be listened to directly with the click of the mouse.

What you need to do to find out the stream url is the following. Right-click the tune in button on the Shoutcast website and select Save Link As from the menu. This will download a .pls file that contains the information that we need. Open the Playlist file in a text editor and locate the line beginning with File1=. The stream url is located in that line.

Now open the Windows command line (Windows R, cmd, enter) and navigate to the directory where Streamripper was installed to. It is located by default in the streamripper folder in program files.

cd c:\program files\streamripper

The command to start saving songs from Internet Radio stations is a basic one, it is.

streamripper url

Enter the stream url that you found earlier and Streamripper will automatically begin to download songs to your hard drive. One useful parameter is the -d parameter which defines the directory where the music is saved into.

streamripper url -d e:\music\new\

This would save all songs in e:\music\new\. The major benefit of running Streamripper in command line mode is that you do not need to listen to the music while ripping. It's a bit more complicated than using Winamp or XMPlay but it's probably worth a shot if you have none of these players installed.

If you want to save two streams at the same time you simply open another command line window and use the command with the second url again.

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Comments

  1. Justin said on November 30, 2011 at 10:18 am
    Reply

    The warning message about AAC streams when you load streams is because you don’t have the free Orban AAC/aacPlus Player Plugin installed.

    http://codecpack.co/download/Orban-aacPlus-Player-Plugin.html

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on November 30, 2011 at 10:56 am
      Reply

      Justin, thanks for the information.

  2. santosh said on December 1, 2011 at 12:43 am
    Reply

    does this support AAC ? or only mp3 streaming

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on December 1, 2011 at 1:43 am
      Reply

      I’d say it supports all pls streams but I have not tried that so cannot verify it 100%.

  3. Barnabas said on August 3, 2012 at 5:15 pm
    Reply

    Thank you Martin for a most informative and viable solution (it allowed me to play streams from a Netherland internet radio station in my WMP)! Continued success to you!

    Barnabas (USA)

  4. AppleRome said on October 7, 2012 at 7:31 am
    Reply

    Your steps’ recommendation is still valid until 7th October 2012.. Thank you very much !!

  5. Laura said on December 1, 2012 at 4:41 pm
    Reply

    Thank you!

  6. sak2005 said on December 9, 2014 at 8:03 pm
    Reply

    You must convert file.pls to file.m3u
    because file.pls open with winamp and file.m3u open with wmp.

  7. Lithium said on February 10, 2017 at 11:10 am
    Reply

    Hi
    2017 still kicking on Windows 7
    Thx a ton

  8. Dennis said on April 18, 2017 at 4:05 am
    Reply

    Hey, even i can do it, i stumbled through it and it works great! The only instruction advice i will add as i had to figure this out, when the wmp box opens that says save or open the bar on right says wmp click that drop down and select “open pls in wmp” once you do that it will work . Took me quite some time to discover that as i am no computer expert by any means. Having said that, previously i had downloaded codec packages and something about aac. None did any good. This rocks, i listen to a lot of internet radio and a number of them have dropped flash player and getting wmp to work had been a nightmare. So many thanks for this great solution to another problem that Micro-Hell will not even address. Peace- Out

  9. stephen marshall said on March 19, 2019 at 2:07 am
    Reply

    openplsinwmp came in a zip file. I unpacked it, and didn’t find anything that looks like an executable, and even the files in the “doc” folder were in a format windows didn’t recognize. I’m not stupid. you said it would open effortlessly. It didn’t. This a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down.

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