How do I download songs to my PC? Using Win 10.
TIA,
MP

Is it installed, is it licensed?

( Note: ⠇ below is supposed to appear as 3-vertically stacked dots, a Braile U, used in modern programs to indicate a control list is available, I don’t know how SOS will handle the code. )

Ignore the pop-up asking you to buy something ( unless you ALSO want to buy something ), and ignore the green box in the upper right saying [ Buy now! ] ( unless you ALSO want to buy something ), nope …

… to confirm that you have installed AND signed in,
– click the 3-dots [ ⠇ ] in the upper left, a drop-down menu should appear,
– then click [ Open options ] in a drop-down menu, an [ Audials Options ] windows should appear,
– then in [ General ], see [ Product activation ], and see [ Audials Music Tube ].

If that’s what you see, then you are good to go.

If not, then tell us about it, maybe we can help.

Yeah, you have to sign in at Audials, using an existing account, or make a new one.

– – – – – – – – – –

To download only music, not videos:
– Mouse-hover over any web resource,
– See the green box to the right, a box with an arrow and 3-dots [ > ⠇ ]
– Click the 3-dots [ ⠇ ]
– A drop-down list should appear with [ Record audio track ],
– Click that,
– Audials will ask you to take responsibility for downloading,
– Then it will download, convert, tag, and appear in the right when done,
– Mouse-hover over it on the right, another green box with an arrow will appear [ > (x) ⠇ ],
– Click the [ > ] to play, toggle to [ [] ] to stop,
– Click the 3-dots in that green box to drop-down a list that includes [ Open folder ] to find the file,
– It defaults to [ …\Music\Audials\Audials Music ]

– – – – – – – – – –

Audials is one of the weirdest, most awkward interfaces out there, but once I figured out 1, 2, maybe 3 things that I wanted, okay, maybe only 2, I love it, and I frequently use it to collect new music before a trip, and I almost always find something or someone new to me that I really appreciate and would not have found any other way … then I delete the 99 other things that somehow did not really connect with my sensibilities and preferences … like spinning the radio dial, who really adores everything they hear?

Not me.

Thanks, Audials, this is a keeper, just in time for a road trip.
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[@Marco Bazzucco] … there is no key, you sign-in at Audials using an existing account or create a new account, the opportunity to do that happens when we first open the program or click the 3-dots [ ⠇ ] in the upper left and select [ Sign in ] to use or create a free account with Audials.
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Thanks Peter. I had it activated, but couldn’t figure out how to save the files… thanks so much for your help!

[@Nancy]

Thank you Peter for all your helpful comments.
Keep up the good work.

Yes, [@AussiePete] though the Audials setup program is small, it downloads ~900+ MB to complete ( dot net, visual c, ffmpeg, audio and video players, 32- and 64-bit versions, net capture filters, CD wizard, and it has common modules with Audials One, Recorder, Radio, and TV for direct incorporation all together in one user interface if you want to upgrade ), but, considering the benefits of the features, that’s what it takes to make it work and work well – and it does for me.

Alternatives: free AbelsSoft YSD YouTube Song Downloader also downloads support materials ( dot net ), has way fewer features, and for me, almost never has recovered from a lock up, requiring me to manually figure out what was downloaded and what failed, and to manually look for and try the failures again, and it will download the same stuff over and over and over without giving a clue or a warning.

Alternatively, Audials as not only self-recovered from a lock up, but is able to catalog successful downloads, then warn or ignore attempted duplicate downloads, and it finds and downloads way more stuff from way more places out there.

I use each tool for what they are good at

– AbelsSoft for ONE download, usually from a YouTube link I am watching,

– Audials for whole collections of interesting stuff to explore later, occasionally searching for one particular artist in depth.
_____________________

Potential uninstall challenges? Why worry?

– why uninstall, it’s great software, it’s an unlimited key to an Internet full of music that I can make my own,

– 1 GB is nothing on a modern drive,

– it has it’s own uninstaller, and there are free uninstallers that cleanup leftovers, no worries.
____________________

So, [@AussiePete], explore, and tell us how it works for you – no speculation, please!

Thanks in advance for exploring this and sharing.
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Um … clicking on stuff is fine if I’m happy exploring and downloading the music suggested on the Audials screen.

But how do I tell Audials to search for something I want that it does not already show me?

Such as an artist of my own choosing, of my own typing, where is there a “search” bar?
I can see no search bar.
Does it even have one?
Can I only click on existing things in order to explore?

So I figured I search for a search bar.

– I clicked the 3-dots [ ⠇ ] in the upper left because I remember seeing “help” there,
– and then I clicked on [ ? Help F1 ], and it brought me to a web page in my default browser.
– help is on the web, not in the computer,
– and the very first thing at the web site was:
– “… You can directly enter artists, songs, albums or radio stations in the search bar. The search is similar to a web browser. While you are entering a search term, Audials shows several results …”
– but that “help” offered on the web is only text,
– there was no picture of where this mysterious “search” bar is hiding,
– so I asked Audials,
– ( sign in at the web page and open a support request ),
– I asked “… Where is the search bar? Can you show us? …”

Within an hour and a half, they responded ( kudos, Audials ):

“… Where ‘Top charts’ is written, you should be able to click there and enter your desired artist for which you wish to search …”

Note, I had included a screen-grab of my Audials window to make it easy for them to see what I see, and from that screen-grab, they could then see what I see, so that the could even refer to ‘Top charts’, something they did not themselves do with their own web help page where the used only text, I do not know how they would have described it if I had not included a screen-grab, a picture, shown them, especially if I had already learned to change “Top charts” to anything else via the [ v ] down arrow to the right of “Top charts” such that any reference to “Top charts” would be be meaningless because, hey, I no longer had “Top charts” in view – lesson: show us, don’t tell us.

Really? Seriously?

– Audials has a “search” bar that is not empty,
– a “search” bar that does not say “search”,
– a “search” bar that is not wide enough to type much into,
– a “search” bar that has no “search” symbol?

See what I mean by my prior comment “… Audials is one of the weirdest, most awkward interfaces out there …”

So I typed the artist name I was curious to hear more from,
– hit [ Enter ] and waited,
– and got nothing in any list of results,
– then I re-typed the name because I had misspelled it,
– hit [ Enter ] and waited,
– and it searched and offered me a list of songs by that artist,
– I downloaded them all and will listen later.

Note: we can also right-click on any song, and a pop-up mini menu will offer “Browse to artist” which is the same as searching for that artist – again, kudos, Audials.

– – – – – – – – – –

Next problem, selecting “help” no longer takes me to that same web page, instead, I get an error:

“… oops
The page you were looking for doesn’t exist
You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved
Take me back to the home page …”

My guess is that Audials evolves their versions so weirdly, keeping older versions as giveaways, that their web pages, being hardcoded without forward-thinking to collectively address version 2019, or version 2020, or now version 2021, that they have no idea how to build a collective or all-purpose web site, so if you also get lost trying to find help, at the moment, 2021 seems active, here’s a link to tips and tricks at least ( remove spaces when you paste ):

[ https :// support. audials. com/hc/en-us/sections/360004261079-Music ]

That’s not good – let us and Audials know if “help” works, or not, for you, I have no idea at the moment.

– – – – – – – – – –

Problem #3, when I click the [ < ] arrow to the left of the new-found “search bar”, it goes back to previous searches, but when I get all the way back to the original [ Top charts ] the full Audials screen presentation no longer looks like the original [ Top charts ] presentation, and I can’t see what I was previously looking at …
– so I clicked the [ v ] down arrow on the right of the “search bar”
– and it popped open a menu with yet another [ Top charts ] choice,
– so I clicked on that,
– and that opened what I was originally looking at when I first opened the program
… FYI, the little icon to the left of the word “Top charts” now has 3 stars, yet originally the little icon was an avatar of a gray person, so be aware that the same words, such as “Top charts”, may present differently depending on the icon / avatar next to it. What? As I say:

“… Audials is one of the weirdest, most awkward interfaces out there …”

BUT, I also said:

“… but once I figured out 1, 2, maybe 3 things that I wanted, okay, maybe only 2, I love it, and I frequently use it to collect new music before a trip, and I almost always find something or someone new to me that I really appreciate and would not have found any other way …”

So, finding the “search bar” was my 3rd discovery in Audials.

See? Sometimes it’s worth hanging in there.

Who knows, someday I may find a 4th thingy somewhere in Audials, and then it will feel like a whole new program, and I’ll be excited about it all over again!

Let us know what’s happening for you all when you try to play with Audials, I’m curious what 4th thingies and more that we are discovering, tell us more, folks, this thread should go on for 4 pages at least, this is about free music during CoVoD-times lockdown stay-at-home, and what else are we all doing?

Say something, don’t make me give up on you ( SWIDT? ).
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