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How to download free music from the internet to itunes on the iphone/ipad without using a mac/pc?

I have a new (4gen) iPod Touch. There's an MP3 on the web that I want to download so I can listen to it when there's no wifi available.

I can figure out how to play it, but I can't figure out how to download it (i.e., save it for future listening). It seems like iTunes is the only way to download audio or video, and it only has a preset list of things that can be downloaded (and a poor search feature!).

Do I need to download it on my Mac, and then sync, just to download an MP3?

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  • You might want to edit your question to clarify that you want to download the MP3 (or at least cache it) using just the iPod itself, if this is, in fact, what you want to know.
    – David Kolar
    Commented Oct 8, 2010 at 18:08

4 Answers 4

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You answered your self. You must download the file on your Mac and then you must sync it to your iPod Touch!

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  • He seems to know that he needs to download it; he's asking how to do it.
    – Ben Wyatt
    Commented Oct 8, 2010 at 15:12
  • I didn't (don't) know that this requires my Mac, at all. The iPod documentation is almost nonexistent. Lots of things I thought were impossible, and weeks later discovered a way. Other things I assumed were possible, and after much trying, have come to believe are simply disallowed (or I'm not smart enough to figure it out). How does anyone decide that something is not possible on iOS? You've tapped and shook and turned and shouted at it every possible way?
    – Ken
    Commented Oct 11, 2010 at 13:49
  • Ken, there is no built-in application in iOS that allows you to download MP3s. The only thing Safari can save is an image (which goes into your photo library). The procedure I outlined in my answer will work, and it only takes a couple of minutes. It probably takes less time than it took you to respond to Tim's post.
    – Ben Wyatt
    Commented Oct 13, 2010 at 15:38
  • Ben: I download PDFs in iOS (using Safari and iBooks) all the time. Also, I think you're underestimating the complete mess that iTunes syncing is. I plugged in my iPod today, and I got a ton of alerts and questions about syncing apps and documents/photos/playlists between my iPod and the App Store and my 'library' and some weird authorization issues and I don't know what-all. I eventually downloaded one MP3 onto my iPod but it took far longer than writing a simple comment!
    – Ken
    Commented Oct 16, 2010 at 23:01
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If you can get yourself a direct link to the MP3 file through Safari, your best bet is GoodReader or something like it.

You can put a URL into this app and it will actually download the file to the app's allocated document storage space on your iOS device. It won't add the song to your iTunes library or the Music section of your iPod, but you'll at least be able to play the file offline by opening the GoodReader app and browsing to it.

The nice thing about this is that when you get back to your Mac, you can plug in your iPod, copy the MP3 from GoodReader's document storage (through iTunes) to your hard drive, and then add it to your iTunes music library "the right way", so it'll sync into your iPod's Music section from now on.

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If the MP3 isn't trapped in a Flash or Silverlight player, this will work:

In Safari, go to Window -> Activity in the menu bar. In the Activity window, you'll see a list of each page you currently have open. Find the one your MP3 is on and look through the listed files. The list shows every file on the currently open pages.

Select the address for the MP3 and press Command (Apple key) and C at the same time to copy the address. (This part is the tricky part. If the page it's on has a lot of other files, it can sometimes be difficult to identify the right one.)

Now go to Window -> Downloads and press Command and V to paste the address into the download window. This should cause the file you selected to download to your default location for Downloads (usually the Downloads folder within your home folder).

Once it's in your Downloads folder, you can just drag it into iTunes. And of course, once it's in iTunes, you can sync to your iPod.

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Download a download app, I used Air Download Lite. Navigate to the webpage, click and hold the link to the mp3 file until a menu pops up. Choose copy from the menu. open the download program and paste the url into the download app, and it should download the file for you.

I found this question of yours because I wanted to do the exact same thing. I JUST did it so I know it works. Good Luck!!

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    It might help if you know some Japanese to use this app.
    – nohillside ♦
    Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 12:06

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