how to download soundcloud music to itunes?

It is correct that the uploader of a song can choose to make direct download available for a song.

However, it is also possible to query the URL from which a given song on Soundcloud is being streamed. Once you have that URL, you can add it to iTunes using the menu item "File -> Open Stream..." (CMD+U) and then pasting the entire URL of that song into the text box of the dialog that pops up.

There are various ways in which you can inspect the page in order to construct that URL. The currently playing chunk might not do, because your browser receives small, typically 10 second chunks, of the file, as it is streaming. If you were to use your browser's debugger, for example, all you might get is the URL of short chunk of your song.

However, SoundCloud offers very convenient API calls that can query, search or list track information. You can currently find that documentation in great detail under https://developers.soundcloud.com. For example, calling "resolve" in the manner explained on https://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/reference#resolve can provide you with the track information for a song at a given URL.

The URL you will need is the one your browser takes you to once you click on the title of the song in the player at the bottom of the page, as opposed to the view you have when you are browsing playlists, for example. Take the URL for the main page of this five hour Carbon Based Lifeforms remix:

https://soundcloud.com/andenanden/carbon-based-lifeforms-5-hours

If this one should be gone by the time you are reading this, just pick any other song you like. What you need is the so called "stream URL" of the song and that can be queried in the following manner, illustrated with JavaScript:

var client_id = "83f67039ae0c3790030d256cb9029678";

var track_url = encodeURIComponent(document.URL);

var api_url = "https://api.soundcloud.com/resolve?url=" + track_url + "&client_id=" + client_id;

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

xhr.open('GET', api_url, true);

xhr.responseType = 'json';

xhr.onload = function() { window.open(xhr.response["stream_url"] + "?client_id=" + client_id); };

xhr.send();

For example, for the song above, it turns out that the streaming URL is as follows:

https://cf-media.sndcdn.com/MZMtuwCa7EqJ.128.mp3?Policy=eyJTdGF0ZW1lbnQiOlt7IlJl c291cmNlIjoiKjovL2NmLW1lZGlhLnNuZGNkbi5jb20vTVpNdHV3Q2E3RXFKLjEyOC5tcDMiLCJDb25k aXRpb24iOnsiRGF0ZUxlc3NUaGFuIjp7IkFXUzpFcG9jaFRpbWUiOjE1MTM0OTMyNDV9fX1dfQ__&Sig nature=TyNG9Wi3N7AxrOo3I9qFHhUzEUgjy-khP7qIcsoRuqLyQrola9-HbaB0QAN8Yzw1yCXZfifrZ aKcqnoAnC7KAWicEbggc1njbmQ48WcrITYPdEMjHQVe7379b~qEZE4bSI7hXhAVbA09Of2AIN~DvT~Ah vqE2PRT6rwTTmdCZ4WIgCPxsMcpu9iHC7gml7oP92sQiKTxFxy61Qzg85jKJWUrWyHvPj3~xwNA~U-hN qEPa8Egj6G5YRlSDS4z8l8oKejCsg~wMT-psYh-BSVbPbjyzyjjW7i~hEXbqv08cVgKUD7a3MLVBM33M VRiom0fz6LjTtJ3CfF7NleZZVBZMQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJAGZ7VMH2PFPW6UQ

It is up to you if you would like to stream or download that song then. The builtin player that usually opens in your browser often times has a download function or you can use the "Save as..." function on most browsers. The same stream can also be pasted in most other players, such as Winamp, Vox, Tomahawk, or whatever you prefer.

Just be aware that you will not retain the ID3 tags of the songs that way. That information can be queried using the above API in similar ways, but it is good enough to stream or let your music player tag the song itself, using MusicBrainz, Gracenote or similar audio fingerprinting services.

Some music players that have support for SoundCloud might also be giving those URLs away as they play the songs, but that I am less sure of. I remember the SoundCloud plugin for Tomahawk being a simple JavaScript code that could easily be changed to display the stream's URL.

You can then choose to actually download the song onto whatever device you are using and integrate it into your iTunes library or create a playlist that references just the URLs of those songs. If you download the song, you can transfer it to other devices and listen to it offline. But if you usually only listen to music on Internet connected devices, you might actually grow tired of actually downloading each song. It is up to you.

You could also prefix the code above with "javascript:" and then simply paste it one-to-one into a bookmark in your browser. You can then click on that bookmark to run the contained code whenever you are on a song's page on SoundCloud. A new browser window will open, playing your stream. You can make changes so that it copies the URL directly, into your clipboard, but I am less sure of that. I might write an extension this weekend adding a "Add to iTunes" button or something to the SoundCloud site for you. If you are not set on iTunes, you can try "Tomahawk" or "Nightingale" has an extension for SoundCloud. At the time of this writing, Tomahawk is no longer being maintained by its original team and I only see a trickle of checkins on GitHub here and there, I am afraid, but it is still a very functional player.

Maybe this answer might also encourage a few developers to get involved in some of those projects or build on the above. The responses you get from the service above are all in JSON format and very extensive, which is maybe also why SoundCloud is one of the most supported music services among music players. It takes just a few minutes to build a beautiful, functional search page, complete with album art and detailed song information with the well designed API of the SoundCloud team (which I am not affiliated with).

--
This is an older question, but one other users might still come across, so I have decided to add to it. I do not advocate using SoundCloud or any of the other wonderful, open music services in an abusive manner or one that would violate the site operators' express or implicit intents. I am not writing this to compete in any manner as a developer with any of the players or music services out there. This answer was intended to cover the complete range of the novice to the developer, so the most number of people can get more out of their music services.

You also said:

"The transferred files seem to not include the mp3 file."

I overlooked that part in my answer above. Sorry, I suppose I was getting carried away. That's why I don't work in support.

So you did download some kind of file through some SoundCloud application or the site already?

In that case, you should have everything you need. The file you downloaded, if you really did download an audio file, should be in MP3 format and you can add that file as any other music file to your iTunes library, using the "File" menu, dragging it onto the iTunes window or whatever else you are used to.

You did not describe what steps you took to get whatever type of file you might have retrieved from SoundCloud, so it is a little harder to give you a good answer. If you used the "Save page..." or a similar function in your browser, that won't do. What you will be saving is not an audio file that you can play with iTunes.

As long as you can make sure that what you downloaded is really an audio file, then you should be all set to go. iTunes has a very wide range of supported audio and video formats. If you are simply unsure if whatever you retrieved is an audio file or if the file is intact, you can also try playing it back with another application beforehand, such as VLC, or on another device.

Once you know the file is good, use "File -> Add to Library..." in the top hand menu that you see when the iTunes application is focused.

Another issue you might be having is that the extension of the file was lost or something like that. As you can see in my other answer, the name of the file you get from streaming services is not always very readable. For an average song of a few minutes in length, your file should be about 5MB in size. If the file is particularly small, it might have been truncated or whatever you downloaded is not an audio file. Try adding ".MP3" to the end of the file name. Many applications rely on the extension of the file to identify its content. I am not sure if iTunes cares about the extension, but if you have trouble adding your song to the library, that is at least worth a shot.

You can also use the shortcut "CMD+I" on a Mac to get file more information about the file. I think that dialog that will open will give you better information about the content of the file, such as encoding, audio/video format, and so forth. If that dialog says there is nothing wrong with the files you downloaded, then it might be an issue with iTunes.

If your problem is that you cannot locate the flies to add to iTunes, try again saving them to a location that is empty, such as a clean subfolder on your desktop. I had the trouble myself that I downloaded something hours ago and then forgot where I put it or put it somewhere so cluttered that I overlooked it several times.

Hi...

SoundCloud is not compatible with iTunes.

How are you actually downloading the songs? I don't believe Soundcloud offers direct downloads.

Pond,

On Soundcloud, it is up to the Artist whether to make the track downloadable. If it is, you will see a little Download icon, as shown on Johnny Jewel's track below.

Also note that Soundcloud downloads are in whatever audio format the artist uploaded. If you get a WAV or MP3, you can add directly to your iTunes library. If you get an FLAC, it will need to be converted into an iTunes-compatible format.