After trying various unconventional methods for music downloading, I found a relatively convenient way to download high-bitrate music (mainly without requiring VPN access), so I’d like to share it. However, this method is for Windows systems and requires Python3 to be installed.

This method heavily relies on NetEase Cloud Music (WYY) paid subscription. If you don’t have one, you can purchase an 88vip account for less than 50 yuan per year. With paid subscription, you can download high-quality or even lossless music from the platform, but the downloaded files are in .ncm format and are encrypted. Fortunately, there’s a Python tool called ncmdump circulating online that can decrypt songs and convert them to MP3 format. The method introduced in this article is based on this tool, integrated into the Windows Explorer’s right-click menu to simplify operations.

Download ncmdump

Although this tool was open-sourced on GitHub, it’s currently inaccessible due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. However, the author has uploaded the tool to PyPI, so we can install it directly through Python.

Press Win + X to open “Terminal Administrator”, then enter the following commands line by line to download (you can install it anywhere, I installed it in the C:\Program Files (x86) directory):

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C:\Users\skylar>cd C:\Program Files (x86)
C:\Program Files (x86)>python -m venv ncmdump
C:\Program Files (x86)>cd ncmdump
C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump>Scripts\activate
(ncmdump) C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump>pip install ncmdump
(ncmdump) C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump>Scripts\deactivate

After completion, the ncmdump.exe tool will be in the C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump\Scripts folder. The next step is to configure the Windows Explorer’s right-click menu for convenient use. Enter the following commands in sequence (note: don’t use RegEdit here as it can’t modify the default Key type, using PowerShell commands is most convenient). If your ncmdump installation location is different from mine, make sure to replace C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump with your path:

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C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump>PowerShell
PS C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump>New-Item -Path "Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\ncmdump" -Value "Convert to MP3 via ncmdump" -ItemType "ExpandString"
PS C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump>New-ItemProperty -Path "Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\ncmdump" -Name "Icon" -Value "C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump\Scripts\python.exe" -PropertyType "ExpandString"
PS C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump>New-Item -Path "Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\ncmdump\command" -Value '"C:\Program Files (x86)\ncmdump\Scripts\ncmdump.exe" "%V" "-d"' -ItemType "ExpandString"

That’s it! Close the terminal window, open the download directory in WYY’s download management interface, right-click in the empty space and select “Convert to MP3 via ncmdump”. This will call the tool to convert all encrypted song files in that directory to MP3 format and delete the original files. You can convert multiple times, and the ncmdump tool will automatically skip already converted songs. Of course, you can also configure ncmdump’s parameters yourself, such as changing the new file location, etc.

Summary

The above is the method for downloading music based on ncmdump, mostly with quality above 320kbps. However, the music library is always limited, and some songs still need to be downloaded using xxxdl tools, which is slightly more troublesome and has lower bitrates. I also recommend an online website FreeMp3Cloud where you can directly search and download MP3 music, with some songs available in high quality. With these methods, it should be sufficient for personal entertainment. For official use, please purchase individual songs or albums.