As mentioned in our blog post from last December, we are going to update Sownloader Web to get it partially working again. These changes have now been implemented, and you can download your recordings again.
On PC, you’ll need to right-click the download buttons and choose “Save link as…” from the context menu. On mobile, it’s a bit more complex. On iOS, you’ll need to tap the download button and then go to Share → More → Save to Files.
I have added dedicated sections for this in Sownloader’s FAQ.
In addition to these changes, the following features have been dropped because they rely on our servers to download the performance first:
MP3 downloads (use audio m4a instead)
Setting the performance title as default filename
Moreover, I have done some housekeeping on the website. The profile downloader has been fully removed because it has been disabled since the last major ban wave back in 2020. The FAQs for Sownloader Web have been updated to reflect the latest changes. The default page for Sownloader has also been adjusted: the recent downloads section has been removed, and I have rearranged the content and made the FAQ more prominent. Lastly, I have updated the blog section of the website with a new theme.
Hello everybody, and welcome to 2026! I hope you had fantastic holidays. As mentioned in my last post of 2025, I took a few days off to celebrate the holidays with my family.
Now I’m back at working on the native Sownloader iOS app. In todays blog post I want to give you a first glance at sharing video and audio from the app.
I also did some improvements to the performance fetcher which now automatically hides the keyboard and clears the input field on focus.
Sadly my vacation is ending today so I cannot spent as much time on the app now as I want. So don’t expect daily blog posts. I try to keep you updated once a week.
In today’s blog post, I want to give you a first look at video playback in the native Sownloader iOS app. Please take a look.
What’s left todo?
There is quite some stuff todo before we can release the first version of the app.
Implement audio playback screen
Implement share sheet for media files
Add support for audio/video playback in iOS control center
Apply cover art and meta tags to media files
Provide localized files for German & English
Apply app icon
Small tweaks for better user experience
This will be the last development update for now. I’m going to take a few days off to celebrate Christmas with my family. Once the Christmas holidays are over, I’ll get back to the app and start implementing the audio playback screen.
In our last blog post, I shared details about the current situation and the future of Sownloader. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend checking it out first for full context.
Today, I’d like to give you a small update on the current development progress. So far, I’ve finished the fetching and downloading part. It currently supports both audio and video. For each download, you can specify a custom name, which defaults to the song title. Please take a look on this short video.
Next, I’m going to work on the library view to replace the current demo player with a real implementation, which can also be triggered from the search feature.
Once this is done, I’ll try to automatically apply the corresponding metadata tags to the files after downloading them.
As you can see, we’re making great progress with the app so far. Keep an eye out for future updates.
in this post I would give you more details about the current situation regarding the availability of Sownloader and it’s future. You may have noticed that our service is no longer working anymore.
The reason for this comes down to the high popularity of our service. You guys have been downloading so many songs that our web server has generated so much traffic to Smule’s servers that it has been blocked by Smule’s Cloudflare protection.
This already happened in 2020 with our metadata fetching mechanism. At the time, we were able to resolve the issue by fetching the metadata via an external Raspberry Pi at my home. We tried the same approach this time for the actual content, and it worked at first. However, it again generated so much traffic that it literally killed my Raspberry Pi in just a few hours.
To give you some numbers, over 86 TB of media has been downloaded in the past 30 days alone. In September, Sownloader set its all-time record with over 690,000 unique visitors. In addition to this people have been using AI Agents to download their entire Smule catalog with Sownloader (which is actually crazy to think of).
Which options do we have?
The data clearly shows an upward trend that is far too much to be handled by a small Raspberry Pi hosted on my home network. Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix in sight.
A quick fix would be to switch to a different server provider, which would get the service running again in no time. However, this would only be a temporary solution, as it could easily be blocked again—most likely automatically. Additionally, we don’t want to generate terabytes of traffic from a single server, so we have to look for an alternative.
Sownloader Windows
Our native Windows application is completely unaffected by this, because you download the files directly from your own computer rather than from our servers. As a first step, we are going to release an update very soon to upgrade it to the latest .NET 10 release. Feel free to submit feature requests and bug reports directly on GitHub.
Sownloader Web
We are going to release an update shortly that will at least allow you to download your songs in some form. Unfortunately this changes come with some limitations.
We can no longer provide a default file name
MP3 downloads won’t be possible. Only m4a and mp4
m4a files cannot be saved on iOS
We can no longer provide these features, as they all rely on our servers downloading the content in the first place.
What are we going to do?
The only real solution to this problem is to provide native applications for all major platforms. But this will require some time.
According to our Google search data, the majority of our users are using Sownloader on mobile devices, which is why we are starting with those.
As a first step, we will start with a native iOS application. The reason for this is quite simple: I use iOS myself, and at the moment I don’t own any Android devices to test the app on.
I will use the current donations and income from Patreon to buy a cheap Android phone once the iOS app has been finished. The major challenge in providing native applications is the need to learn new programming languages. For iOS, I need to learn how to code in Swift, and for Android, I need to learn Java. In addition to this, I also need to learn how to use their integrated development environments (IDEs) before I can even start to code in them. Please also keep in mind that I’m doing all of this in my free time alongside my full-time job.
First look on the native iOS app
I already did some initial work to get familiar with iOS and Swift development. Right now I have a bare bone prototype which supports downloading files, searching them and playing them. Please take a look on this short video for a first impression.
Which features will the app support?
To get somewhere started I have defined some core features which will be part of the first version of the app.
Downloading via URL just like Sownloader Web
Searchable library of your downloaded songs
Play and share your media from the app
Renaming files
Deleting files
Tutorial on how to download your media
Which features will come in later versions?
These features will be implemented later on and won’t be available at launch.
Setting meta tags like artist, title, year, etc.
Automatically setting cover arts
Library shuffle play
Share directly from any Smule app to Sownloader
Mark as songs as favourite
Additional features and wishes
Do you have any features in mind that you’d like to see added to the app? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or contact us via email at support@sownloader.com
Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who has supported the project over the past 13 years through donations, contributions, feedback, or any other form of support. It’s crazy to think about the impact Sownloader has had on the Smule community over the past decade. I never thought that this project would become this big one day.
This is not the end of the world—it’s just the beginning of a new journey for Sownloader. I will keep you updated as soon as I can share more details with you! ♥️
We have some exciting news to share! Sownloader is now on Patreon, offering you a direct way to support the project and ensure its continued development.
Unlike traditional subscription models, supporting Sownloader on Patreon doesn’t come with exclusive benefits or perks. Instead, it’s a straightforward opportunity for you to contribute to a tool that has become an integral part of your music experience.
Here’s why your support on Patreon matters:
Sustain the Project: Your contribution goes directly towards supporting the development, maintenance, and improvement of Sownloader. It ensures that the tool remains accessible and functional for users like you.
Ad-Free Support: By supporting Sownloader on Patreon, you’re actively helping keep the tool free from ads. This means a cleaner, uninterrupted experience for everyone who relies on Sownloader for their music needs.
Community-Powered Growth: Sownloader has thrived because of the support of its community. Your contribution on Patreon helps cultivate a strong and engaged user base, fostering an environment where everyone benefits from the tool’s continuous evolution.
We understand that not every project needs exclusive perks, and Sownloader’s focus is on remaining a free and open tool for all users. Your decision to support Sownloader on Patreon is a vote of confidence in the project’s value and its role in the music community.
Visit the Sownloader Patreon page today and make a difference by supporting the project. Every contribution, no matter how small, plays a crucial role in sustaining Sownloader for the long term.
We upgraded from a Raspberry Pi 3 to a Raspberry Pi 4 today. The older Pi is now removed from the network after 8 years. The update should make Sownloader even more stable and faster. There may be some minor downtime under certain circumstances. We apologize for this!
The long wait is finally over! Sownloader 9 is out now! With this major update, almost every component of Sownloader has been reworked. You will feel noticeable differences in performance, downloads and stability.
The key point of this update is the move to .NET 6, which means we are officially ending support for Windows XP and Vista. Furthermore, we have also replaced the integrated Firefox with the new WebView2 from Microsoft.
In addition, this update fixes the URL search, which has not worked since an update of the Smule website. All versions below version 9 are therefore no longer functional, so every user should install this update.
This are all changes in this release:
+ Added WebView2 Webbrowser
+ Added Sownloader URL detection 3.0
+ FFmpeg is now included directly and does not need to be downloaded manually
+ Downloading a video as M4A does not longer require the file to be converted
+ Sownloader will now detect when the performance needs to rendered by Smule first and sends automatically a request to initiate the render progress
~ Converter has been minified. It now requests the output file on click on start converting.
~ Settings are now being stored in appdata within a XML file
~ Updated icons
~ The UpdateSearch has been updated to use HttpClient instead of obsolete HttpWebRequest
Fixed Clipboard functionality not working in certain cases
Fixed Sownloader was unable to find any performance URLs
Removed GeckoFx WebBrowser
Removed option “Video Size” from settings
Removed ID3Tag window. Sownloader sets the meta tags automatically from now on
Removed Mozilla Public License from GeckoFX
Since this is a new major release, you may encounter problems when updating, so we recommend downloading version 9 once manually.
If you encounter problems with the new version, you can either open an issue on Github or send us an email to support@sownloader.com.
As some of you might have noticed, the desktop app has not been working for the last few months because of changes to the Smule website. In addition, the source code for the desktop app was a few years old and needed some major improvements. That’s why it took us so long to update Sownloader to version 9. Only the update search and the automatic update have to be migrated to version 9 so that we can finally release the long-awaited update.
Sownloader 9 has some major improvements! First of: We’ve got rid of the .NET Framework. The app is now a native .NET 6 app. This results in much faster performance, less memory usage and many new possibilities. Due to these major changes, we are discontinuing support for Windows XP and Windows Vista immediately. If you want to check if your PC can run .NET 6, please checkout this official post from Microsoft.
Another major change is the removal of the GeckoFX webbrowser. Instead we are now using the Microsoft WebView2 based on Chromium.
There are also other quality of life improvements. For example, Sownloader now automatically sends a request to the server for rendering when the software detects that the performance has not yet been rendered. Moreover, videos do not need to be converted to m4a files anymore. Sownloader will now download the audio instead.
The form to insert meta tags has been removed as well. Sownloader can now fill in this information completely automatically based on the performance itself.
Sownloader is now on GitHub
Our desktop version of Sownloader is now available on GitHub. We did this to maintain this project more easily and to get your requests and issues in one place. Feel free to contribute to the repository.
Roadmap for the desktop app
Once version 9 has been released we will start working on new features for the desktop app. Right now we have 3 features in mind. Please let us know which of these features is most important for you.
Add an option to generate filenames based on values from the performance (e.g. {artist}_{titlte}.m4a)
Add the profile downloader from Sownloader Web to download your entire profile at once
Add Sownloader Undelete. This tool can download some recently removed/deleted public songs from your profile before they will be deleted completely from the Smule servers.
After three long years, MP3 downloads are no longer in beta.
With today’s update the last problems with MP3 downloads have been fixed. For many people it was very confusing that the page had previously only loaded forever. Therefore, many aborted the process at this point and started again.
From now on, when you click on Download MP3, a new popup will open, informing you that the recording is still being converted. The download process starts automatically.
New converting popup
If you still experience any problems when downloading MP3 files, please contact us via email at support@sownloader.com
