OpenDeezer

README

OpenDeezer

An open-source reimplementation of Deezer. Log in once. The GUIs sign you in with an embedded Deezer web view, so there's no ARL to go hunting for. Then browse your liked songs, playlists, charts, artists, and search. Every track plays locally: it's streamed in, Blowfish-decrypted, decoded, and played from memory (MP3, or FLAC on HiFi). Your ARL stays on your machine and only goes to Deezer in the requests OpenDeezer makes for you.

One Go engine handles the whole streaming path (login, decrypt, decode, playback). Seven native front-ends sit on top of it. By Cycl0o0.

Clients

Client	Stack	Builds
Terminal (TUI)	Go · Bubble Tea	linux · macOS · windows (amd64/arm64)
macOS	SwiftUI · Liquid Glass (macOS 26)	universal (Apple Silicon + Intel) gui/macos
Linux (unified)	auto-picks GTK4 or Qt6 by desktop	x86_64 · aarch64 gui/linux
GNOME	GTK4 · libadwaita	x86_64 · aarch64 gui/gnome
KDE	Qt6 Widgets · Breeze	x86_64 · aarch64 gui/kde
Windows	WinUI 3 · C# / .NET 8 · Fluent	x64 gui/windows
Android	Kotlin · Jetpack Compose	arm64/arm/x86_64 (gomobile AAR) gui/android

The unified Linux client is a single opendeezer command that picks the native toolkit for your desktop (Qt/Breeze on KDE-family, GTK4/libadwaita elsewhere), the way LibreOffice does. If you'd rather have one toolkit, the standalone gui/gnome and gui/kde binaries are there too.

Prebuilt binaries for everything are on the Releases page.

Features

Browse & discover

• Liked songs, your playlists, and full search — tracks, artists, albums, playlists.
• Charts — global top tracks, albums, artists and playlists.
• Artist pages — top tracks, discography and related artists.
• Synced lyrics — karaoke-style, line-by-line; plain-text fallback.
• Deezer Flow — your personalized, endless track stream.
• Podcasts — search shows, browse episodes, play.

Library editing

• Like / unlike tracks; add to playlist; create / rename / delete playlists.

Playback

• Quality tiers — Normal (MP3 128), High (MP3 320), HiFi (FLAC lossless); HiFi auto-falls-back to MP3 when your account or the track isn't entitled.
• Gapless transitions, crossfade, ReplayGain loudness normalization.
• Output-device selection (powered by the malgo/miniaudio backend).
• Shuffle, repeat (off/all/one), seek, volume; resume the last track on launch.
• Shows the actual output format that's playing (e.g. "FLAC · lossless").
• OS media controls + now-playing — MPRIS on Linux (GNOME/KDE/TUI media keys
  • overlays), Now Playing + media keys on macOS, SMTC on Windows.

Accounts & UX

• One-click login — sign in via the embedded Deezer web view; the ARL is captured automatically (manual ARL entry still available).
• Shows your account tier after login; a clear "ARL expired" re-login prompt.
• Background playback / close-to-tray in the GUIs.
• Album art (truecolor half-blocks in the TUI; native everywhere else).
• TUI extras: queue view, lyrics, help screen, themes, vim keys, resume.
• Settings persisted to ~/.config/opendeezer/; ARL stays local.

Install

Download a binary from Releases.

GUIs — launch one and click Log in with Deezer. An embedded web view opens the Deezer login; once you're in, your session (ARL) is saved locally for next time. No token to paste.

Terminal (TUI) — build it and provide your ARL:

make build          # -> ./opendeezer   (or: go build -o opendeezer ./cmd/opendeezer)
./opendeezer -save-arl <your-arl>   # writes ~/.config/opendeezer/arl.txt (0600)
./opendeezer

Or pass it inline: DEEZER_ARL=<your-arl> ./opendeezer. For the GUIs, see each gui/<platform>/README.md for build steps. A Homebrew formula is in packaging/homebrew/.

Your ARL is the arl cookie from an authenticated deezer.com browser session (the GUI web-login grabs it for you). Treat it like a password — it grants access to your account.

Requirements

• A Deezer Premium account (HiFi tier for FLAC).
• Building from source: Go 1.25+, a C compiler, and a working audio device. The audio backend is malgo (miniaudio), so cgo is required on every platform (Linux/macOS/Windows).
• Linux: ALSA dev headers (libasound2-dev); plus the toolkit dev packages for the GUIs — GTK4/libadwaita/json-glib and libwebkitgtk-6.0-dev (GNOME web-login), and/or Qt6 and qt6-webengine-dev (KDE web-login).
• macOS GUI: macOS 26 (Tahoe) + Xcode 26 for the Liquid Glass APIs (the login web view uses the system WebKit framework — no extra dependency).
• Windows GUI: Windows 10 1809+/11, the .NET 8 SDK + Windows App SDK workload, MinGW-w64 (Go cgo builds the engine DLL), and the Edge WebView2 runtime (preinstalled on Windows 11) for the login web view.
• Android: Android 7.0+ (API 24). Building needs JDK 17, the Android SDK + NDK, and gomobile.
• TUI album art needs a 256-color or truecolor terminal.

TUI controls

Key	Action		Key	Action
↑/↓ or j/k	move		z	toggle shuffle
g / G	top / bottom		r	cycle repeat (off→all→one)
enter	open / play		+/-	volume
esc / ⌫	back		←/→	seek ±10s
space	play / pause		h	quality (Normal→High→HiFi)
n / p	next / prev		R	toggle ReplayGain
f	like current track		x	cycle crossfade
/	search		ctrl+g	toggle gapless
l	lyrics (synced)		d	output device
u	queue view		c	now-playing + art
s	stop		t	cycle theme
?	help		i	about · q quit

Home screen entries: Liked Songs · My Playlists · ⚡ Flow · 📈 Charts · 🎙 Podcasts · 🔍 Search (and ▶ Resume when a saved position exists).

Remote control & automation (Control API)

OpenDeezer can expose a small HTTP/JSON API so another OpenDeezer client (remote control) or an AI agent (MCP) can drive playback. It is off by default.

This is engine-hosted, so it works in every client — the TUI and all native GUIs (the same OPENDEEZER_CONTROL / Discord settings apply). From a GUI the engine exposes play/pause, stop, seek, volume, restart, play-track/playlist and status (next/prev/shuffle/repeat live in the GUI's own queue).

Enable it with an env var or a config file:

export OPENDEEZER_CONTROL=1                 # localhost only (127.0.0.1:7654)
export OPENDEEZER_CONTROL=:7654             # bind all interfaces (LAN remote)
# or: echo 1 > ~/.config/opendeezer/control.txt

Endpoints (reads are GET, mutations are POST):

Method	Path	Action
GET	/whoami	account name + auth mode (unauthenticated)
GET	/status	playback snapshot (state, track, position, volume, queue…)
GET	/playlists, /search?q=	browse
POST	/playpause /next /prev /stop /restart	transport
POST	/repeat /shuffle	cycle repeat / toggle shuffle
POST	/seek?ms= /volume?v=	position / volume (0..1)
POST	/play/track?id= /play/playlist?id=	play by id

Auth. Credentials are sent via request headers only:

• Account-based (default on LAN). When bound to a non-loopback address with no token, a controller must prove it is logged into the same Deezer account by sending its own user id in X-OpenDeezer-Account. Your own devices connect with no token to copy; other accounts are rejected. /whoami deliberately does not reveal the user id (it's the credential), only the account name. This is LAN-trust grade — a Deezer user id is only semi-private. Disable with OPENDEEZER_CONTROL_SAMEACCOUNT=0.
• Token (strongest). Set OPENDEEZER_CONTROL_TOKEN (or ~/.config/opendeezer/control-token.txt); send it in X-OpenDeezer-Token.
• None. Localhost binds with no token are open (loopback only).

Mutations require POST and reject requests carrying a browser Origin header, so a web page you happen to visit can't drive your playback. The server also caps request/response sizes + sets timeouts (slowloris/DoS), and refuses to start unauthenticated on a non-loopback address — a LAN bind always requires same-account or token auth, failing closed on a misconfiguration.

Security note. A Deezer user id is only semi-private (it appears in profile URLs), so same-account auth is LAN-trust grade — fine for a home network. On an untrusted network, set OPENDEEZER_CONTROL_TOKEN for a real secret. OpenDeezer Connect authenticates to discovered devices with the account id only (never the token), since a discovery reply is unauthenticated.

Remote control (one client drives another)

Enable the Control API on the target (OPENDEEZER_CONTROL=:7654), then on another OpenDeezer client open 📡 Remote control from the menu, enter the target's host:port, and connect. Transport keys (space/n/p/s, ←/→ seek, +/- volume, r/z) drive the remote; the screen shows its live now-playing. Same Deezer account auto-authenticates (or share a token).

OpenDeezer Connect (GUIs + TUI) auto-discovers devices on the same LAN via UDP multicast/broadcast. That needs a network that carries multicast/broadcast — Tailscale/VPN meshes don't (they're unicast-only), and some routers filter it between Wi-Fi and Ethernet. For those, list peers explicitly so they always show in the picker:

# one host[:port] per line (port defaults to 7654)
#   ~/.config/opendeezer/connect-peers.txt   (also read on macOS)
echo "100.78.213.67:7654" >> ~/.config/opendeezer/connect-peers.txt
# or: export OPENDEEZER_CONNECT_PEERS=100.78.213.67:7654,192.168.1.20

(You can always just type the address into "Enter address…" too.)

MCP server (AI agent control)

opendeezer-mcp is a Model Context Protocol server that lets an AI assistant control playback through the Control API. Build it with go build ./cmd/opendeezer-mcp (or make builds it alongside the TUI), enable the Control API (above), then register it with your MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "opendeezer": {
      "command": "/path/to/opendeezer-mcp",
      "env": {
        "OPENDEEZER_CONTROL_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:7654",
        "OPENDEEZER_CONTROL_TOKEN": "your-token-if-set"
      }
    }
  }
}

Tools: get_status, play_pause, next, prev, stop, restart, cycle_repeat, toggle_shuffle, set_volume, seek, search, list_playlists, play_track, play_playlist.

Discord Rich Presence

Show what you're listening to on your Discord profile. Off by default — it needs a Discord application id (create one at the Discord Developer Portal; optionally upload an art asset named opendeezer):

# Linux:  ~/.config/opendeezer/discord-app-id.txt
# macOS:  ~/Library/Application Support/opendeezer/discord-app-id.txt
echo your-application-id > ~/.config/opendeezer/discord-app-id.txt
# (env var also works for the TUI: export OPENDEEZER_DISCORD_APP_ID=...)

With Discord running, your now-playing track appears as "Listening to …" with a live progress bar. macOS/Linux only (Windows pending). If Discord isn't running it's silently skipped.

GUI users (esp. macOS): apps launched from Finder/Activities do not inherit your shell environment, so set the id via the file above, not the env var. The config file is read from the platform config dir and ~/.config/opendeezer/ (so either path works). Check ~/Library/Application Support/opendeezer/opendeezer.log (macOS) — it logs rich presence enabled (app …) / connected once it's working.

How it works

ARL ─login (gw-light)→ browse (gw + public REST): search, charts, artists,
                       lyrics, Flow, podcasts, library writes
                     → resolve track → encrypted CDN URL (MP3 128/320 or FLAC)
                     → streaming download → Blowfish BF_CBC_STRIPE decrypt
                       (plain stream for podcast episodes)
                     → MP3 (go-mp3) / FLAC (mewkiz) decode → PCM ring
                     → malgo (miniaudio) output device → speakers

• internal/deezer — login, browse (search/charts/artists/lyrics/Flow/podcasts), library writes, track→URL resolve, the stripe decryptor.
• internal/audio — malgo backend: streaming buffer → decode → PCM ring with seek, ReplayGain, gapless, crossfade and output-device selection.
• internal/queue — the shared playback queue (shuffle/repeat/history).
• internal/mpris — Linux MPRIS media controls.
• internal/log — leveled file logging ($OPENDEEZER_LOG).
• internal/ui — the Bubble Tea TUI.
• corelib — the engine exposed as a C ABI (-buildmode=c-archive for macOS/Linux, -buildmode=c-shared DLL for Windows) so the native GUIs link it.
• mobile — the engine exposed for gomobile (Odmobile AAR) so the Android app drives it from Kotlin.

Build from source

Clone the repo and build whichever client you want. They all use the same Go engine (corelib) underneath; each build.sh / build.ps1 compiles the engine first, then the native app.

Terminal (any OS) — Go 1.25+ and a C compiler (the malgo audio backend needs cgo on every platform; Linux also needs libasound2-dev, Windows needs MinGW-w64):

CGO_ENABLED=1 go build -o opendeezer ./cmd/opendeezer      # or: make build

macOS app — macOS 26 (Tahoe) + Xcode 26, Go:

cd gui/macos && make app        # -> OpenDeezer.app (universal: Apple Silicon + Intel)

Linux — unified (auto-picks GTK/Qt) — libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev libjson-glib-dev libwebkitgtk-6.0-dev libsoup-3.0-dev qt6-base-dev qt6-webengine-dev libasound2-dev meson ninja-build cmake + gcc, Go:

cd gui/linux && ./build.sh && ./dist/opendeezer

Linux — single toolkit:

cd gui/gnome && ./build.sh && ./opendeezer-gnome     # GTK4 / libadwaita
cd gui/kde   && ./build.sh && ./opendeezer-kde       # Qt6 / Breeze

Windows app — Windows 10/11, .NET 8 SDK + Windows App SDK, MinGW-w64 (Go cgo), Go:

cd gui\windows; .\build.ps1     # MinGW builds the engine DLL, then `dotnet publish`

Android app — Go, JDK 17, Android SDK + NDK, and gomobile. build.sh binds the engine to an Odmobile AAR, then Gradle assembles the APK:

cd gui/android && ./build.sh    # -> app/build/outputs/apk/debug/*.apk

FAQ

How do I log in? In the GUIs, click Log in with Deezer — an embedded web view opens the real Deezer login, and once you sign in, OpenDeezer reads the arl session cookie automatically and saves it locally. Manual ARL entry is still there as a fallback. The TUI uses DEEZER_ARL / opendeezer -save-arl <arl>.

Does it have Flow / podcasts / charts / lyrics? Yes — Deezer Flow (personalized stream), podcast search + episode playback, global charts, artist pages, and synced lyrics are all built in.

Can I edit my library? Yes — like/unlike tracks, add tracks to playlists, and create/rename/delete playlists.

Can I choose the output device or use gapless/crossfade? Yes. The audio engine (malgo/miniaudio) supports output-device selection, gapless transitions, crossfade and ReplayGain — all in settings (or TUI keys d / ctrl+g / x / R).

What's an ARL? Your Deezer session token — the arl cookie from a logged-in deezer.com browser session. It authenticates you the same way the official app does. Treat it like a password; it only ever lives on your own machine.

Why does it need my Deezer login (ARL) instead of an API key? Deezer's public API doesn't allow full-track streaming. The only way to play your music is the same authenticated path the official client uses, which needs your session (the ARL).

Why Deezer Premium only? Streaming full, high-quality tracks (and FLAC) is a Premium entitlement. A free account can't stream full tracks the way OpenDeezer plays them. OpenDeezer only plays content your own account is already entitled to.

Why can't I download / save tracks? OpenDeezer plays music, it doesn't rip it. Each track is decrypted and decoded in memory to play, and never written to disk. Saving decrypted files would be piracy, so it doesn't. Play your own entitled music, the same as the official app.

Does my ARL get uploaded anywhere? No. Login, decrypt and decode all run on your machine; the only requests that leave are to Deezer itself. The in-browser config generator never uploads your token either.

Is this legal? Will my account get banned? Grey zone. It reaches Deezer the unofficial way and decrypts your own entitled content locally, which almost certainly breaks Deezer's terms for third-party apps. Personal/educational use, your own Premium account, your own risk. Not affiliated with Deezer.

Does it support HiFi / FLAC? Yes — if your account is HiFi-entitled. Pick HiFi in settings (or press h in the TUI); it streams lossless FLAC and falls back to MP3 when a track or account isn't entitled.

Why not just use the official app? Mostly because it's a reverse-engineering project and a learning exercise. You also get lightweight native clients (including a terminal one) with no telemetry, on platforms the official app doesn't always cover.

Is it open source? Yes, AGPL-3.0. Read it, build it, audit exactly what it does.

The fine print

Personal/educational use, your own Premium account, your own risk. It reaches Deezer the unofficial way and decrypts your own entitled content locally, which almost certainly breaks Deezer's terms for third-party apps. Not affiliated with Deezer. AGPL-3.0.