How to Download Animated Album Covers from Apple Music

03/15/2022

Apple Music's animated album covers are captivating, but there's no download button. Here's a quick guide to save them using your browser's developer tools.

1. Find the Video Source

  1. Navigate to an album with an animated cover on music.apple.com in your browser (e.g., Taylor Swift's Red (Taylor's Version)).
  2. Open your browser's developer tools (Cmd+Opt+I on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+I on Windows/Linux).
  3. In the "Console" tab, paste and run the following JavaScript snippet to get the video source URL: 
    document.querySelector('.editorial-video').src;

2. Download the Video

The command will return a URL ending in .m3u8. You can use one of the following methods to download it.

  • Downie 4: Paste the .m3u8 URL into Downie to download the video directly.
  • ffmpeg: Use the following terminal command, replacing the URL with the one you copied. 
    ffmpeg -i "https://.../playlist.m3u8" -c copy output.mkv

This saves the animated cover as output.mkv without re-encoding, preserving the original quality.

album cover