songcli

Terminal-based YouTube music downloader, streamer, and local music player built with Python.

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Description

songcli is a terminal-based YouTube music downloader, streamer, and local audio player built using Python, yt-dlp, mpv, Rich, and InquirerPy.

It allows you to:

• Search YouTube directly from the terminal
• Download songs in multiple qualities and formats
• Stream music instantly using mpv
• Play locally downloaded songs
• Download playlists
• Track download/search history
• Detect duplicate downloads
• Customize themes and settings
• Manage playback directly from the CLI

songcli is designed for Linux and Termux users who want a fast, keyboard-driven music experience directly inside the terminal.

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Proot Distro Compatibility (Important)

songcli works correctly in:

• Normal Linux distributions
• Standard Termux environment

However, audio playback and streaming may fail inside Termux proot distros such as:

• Arch Linux (proot)
• Fedora (proot)
• Ubuntu (proot)
• Debian (proot)

Why does this happen?

Proot environments are userspace container-like environments. They do not have direct access to Android's native multimedia and hardware layers.

Unlike standard Linux systems, Android uses a completely different audio architecture based on:

• AudioFlinger
• Binder IPC
• Android HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer)

Meanwhile, Linux applications such as mpv expect desktop Linux audio systems like:

• ALSA
• PulseAudio
• PipeWire

Inside a proot distro:

• /dev/snd audio devices are unavailable
• ALSA cannot access Android speakers directly
• PipeWire usually cannot initialize properly
• mpv cannot communicate directly with Android audio drivers

Because of this, mpv inside proot often produces errors such as:

Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound

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Screenshots

Main Menu

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Stream Songs

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Download Progress

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Usage

Run the tool:

python3 songcli-1.py

Features

• Download songs from YouTube
• Download playlists
• Stream music directly with mpv
• Play downloaded songs locally
• Configure output quality and format
• Search download history
• Detect duplicate downloads
• Theme customization
• yt-dlp update checker

Default download directory:

~/Music/songcli

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Playback Controls

Inside mpv:

SPACE   Play/Pause
q       Quit
← →    Seek
L       Toggle loop
M       Mute
9/0     Volume

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Installation

Linux

Install system dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip ffmpeg mpv

Install Python dependencies:

python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp rich InquirerPy requests

Run songcli:

python3 songcli-1.py

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Termux

Update packages:

pkg update && pkg upgrade

Install required packages:

pkg install python ffmpeg mpv pulseaudio

Install Python dependencies:

pip install -U yt-dlp rich InquirerPy requests

Run songcli:

python songcli-1.py

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Proot Distros (Arch/Fedora/Ubuntu)

Install dependencies normally inside your distro.

Example for Arch Linux:

pacman -S python python-pip ffmpeg mpv 

Example for Fedora:

dnf install python3 python3-pip ffmpeg mpv 

Install Python dependencies:

pip install -U yt-dlp rich InquirerPy requests

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Dependencies

songcli depends on:

• Python 3.8+
• yt-dlp
• mpv
• ffmpeg
• Rich
• InquirerPy
• requests

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Project Structure

songcli/
│
├── songcli-1.py
├── downloads/
├── history/
├── themes/
├── docs/
│   ├── logo.png
│   └── screenshots/
│       ├── main-menu.png
│       ├── stream-songs.png
│       └── download-progress.png

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Future Plans

Planned features for future versions:

• Live synced lyrics (karaoke-style)
• Better TUI interface
• Playlist management
• Queue system
• Background playback
• Search improvements
• Animated progress bars
• Metadata editor
• Multi-threaded downloads

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Support

If you like this project, consider supporting it:

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License

MIT License