User guide

1. Download the installer

   The file Nutka-Setup.exe from the app page (the “Download” button) or from GitHub. You can also copy it from someone, e.g. on a USB stick.

2. Run it

   Click Next. Tick “Desktop shortcut” if you want an icon on the desktop. The installer speaks English when your Windows does.

3. Finish

   Leave “Launch Nutka” ticked and click Finish. Later you open Nutka from the Start menu or the shortcut.

Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), about 400 MB of disk space, internet for searching and downloading music.

Box on top

Type a title or artist, or paste a YouTube or Spotify link, and press Enter; the Paste button pastes a link from the clipboard and checks it right away. A playlist or album link opens a list, a link to a single video shows it as a row in the table.

Songs / Albums

Whether you are looking for single songs or whole records.

Results list

A click selects a track, a double-click downloads it right away.

Right-click on a row

Copies the link, opens the track in YouTube or Spotify, and shows a downloaded file in its folder.

Music / Video

Next to “Save to”: what you get from the download, an mp3 or an mp4 video. With “Video” a quality list appears next to it – details below.

Save to

The folder for downloaded files – one for music and a separate one for videos. Change it with the Browse… button.

Download mp3 / Download video

Downloads the selected result or the link pasted into the box on top – as an mp3 or a video, depending on the switch. While it runs, a progress bar with a percentage appears next to it.

▶ Listen

Plays the selected track without downloading. While playing it turns into ■ Stop, and Next › appears next to it.

Open folder

Opens the folder with the downloaded files in Explorer.

Box at the bottom

Short messages: what is happening right now and whether it worked.

Bottom-left corner

The version number, the Check for updates link and Report a problem – Nutka checks what works, copies the report to the clipboard and opens a GitHub issue page with the report inside.

Top-right corner

Guide opens this page, also without internet. Buy the author a coffee opens a page where you can support the author if you like. PL switches the app to Polish.

• A click on a result selects it – that's the one “Download mp3” downloads and “Listen” plays.
• A double-click on a result downloads it as an mp3 right away.
• ▶ Listen plays the selected track without downloading. With an album it plays the whole album in order.
• While playing, the button turns into ■ Stop, and Next › appears next to it, which skips to the next track of the album.
• Clicking another result while something is playing switches to the new track straight away.

What you download	Where to get it	How
A track	the search box	double-click the result, or select it and click Download mp3
An album	the search box, “Albums” switch	a double-click opens the track list with tick boxes – Download selected
A track from YouTube	a youtube.com/watch?v=… link	paste it into the box on top (the Paste button) – the video shows up as a row – and click Download mp3
A YouTube playlist or album	a youtube.com/playlist?list=… link, or an album from the search	paste it into the search box and press Enter – you get a list with tick boxes, details below
A YouTube video (mp4)	a link to a video or a playlist	switch to Video, paste it into the box on top and click Download video, details below
A track, album or playlist from Spotify	in Spotify: Share → Copy link	paste it into the search box and press Enter, details below

Files go to the Music \ Nutka folder (C:\Users\<you>\Music\Nutka). Change the folder with the Browse… button and open it with Open folder. An album and a playlist land in their own subfolder, an album with track numbers.

The music always comes from YouTube, also with Spotify links: Nutka takes only the title, artist and cover art from Spotify and downloads the audio from YouTube. That's why you occasionally get a different version of a track, e.g. a live one. The quality is mp3 at roughly 250–270 kbps.

Quality

The list next to the switch: 1080p (default), 720p, 480p or Highest. Up to 1080p Nutka picks H.264 video and AAC audio, so the mp4 plays on a computer, a phone and a TV without extra codecs. “Highest” also takes 1440p and 4K when the video has them – such files are several times bigger, and older TVs may not play them.

Folder

Videos go to Videos \ Nutka (C:\Users\<you>\Videos\Nutka), separately from music. The “Save to” field shows the folder of whatever you are downloading right now; change it with the Browse… button.

How much space

An hour of 1080p video is usually 1–2 GB, 720p about half of that. YouTube keeps picture and sound separately – Nutka downloads both (the progress bar runs twice) and joins them at the end without re-encoding, so during the download the file briefly takes twice the space on disk.

Playlists

A playlist link in “Video” mode opens a list of videos with tick boxes – the same as for music. The ticked ones are downloaded into a subfolder named after the playlist; those you already have are unticked.

Search results

They work in “Video” mode too: select a result and click Download video. For YouTube Music tracks the “video” is often just the cover art.

Spotify

Always music. After loading a Spotify list Nutka switches itself to “Music”.

1. Copy the link

   On YouTube open the playlist or album and copy the address from the browser bar (…/playlist?list=…). In Spotify, next to the playlist or album, click … → Share → Copy link. An album found in Nutka just needs a double-click.

2. Paste it into Nutka

   Into the search box, then Enter. After a few seconds you see the track list with tick boxes.

3. Download selected

   Untick what you don't want (click the tick box or double-click the row) and click Download selected.

• Every track shows its status: searching, downloading 64 %, ✓ done or ✗ error. Nutka downloads 3 tracks at a time; Stop interrupts.
• Tracks you already have are marked already yours and unticked. Just load the playlist again to pick up the new ones.
• If something fails, those tracks stay ticked. Click Download selected again to retry.
• A playlist goes into a subfolder with its name, an album with track numbers. The files carry the title, artist, album and cover art from Spotify or YouTube.
• A YouTube list follows the Music / Video switch: in “Music” mode it downloads mp3, in “Video” mode mp4 videos in the chosen quality, into the videos folder. After switching, “already yours” is worked out again.
• Close list goes back to normal searching.

On first start the app follows your Windows language: Polish Windows gets Polish, any other gets English. The small PL / EN button in the top-right corner switches the language; Nutka restarts in the other language and remembers the choice. The guide and the installer come in both languages too.

YouTube changes its site now and then, so at every start and every 6 hours the app quietly checks for a newer “download engine” and swaps it in. Without internet, or if the update fails, the app keeps working on the version it has.

When a new version of the whole app is out, Nutka shows a window with the list of changes. Click Update now: the app downloads the new version, installs it and restarts (about a minute). Remind me later closes the window until the next start, and Skip this version stops reminding you about it.

You can check manually with the Check for updates link in the bottom-left corner of the window. Your version number is next to it.

Every release is digitally signed with the author's key. Nutka verifies the signature and the checksum before running the installer, and downloads it only from the official releases page on GitHub.

“Windows protected your PC” during installation	More info → Run anyway
Antivirus blocks the installer	in Windows Security: Virus & threat protection → Protection history → pick the blocked file → Actions → Allow on device; then run the installer again (other antivirus: restore the file from quarantine)
Searching or downloading doesn't work	check your internet; close and reopen Nutka (it updates itself at start)
One track won't download, the rest do	that video may be blocked on YouTube (e.g. age restriction); pick another result
A different version of a track came from Spotify	search for the track in Nutka and pick the right version from the results
A playlist won't load	check that it is public; Nutka can't see private playlists or “Liked Songs”
A downloaded video won't play on the TV	pick 1080p or lower – “Highest” gives 4K in the VP9 or AV1 codec, which older devices don't know
Pasted text isn't treated as a link	Nutka accepts only real YouTube and Spotify addresses (starting with https:// or the site name); other text goes to the search
The app is in the wrong language	click the PL / EN button in the top-right corner

Go to Settings → Apps → Installed apps, find Nutka and choose Uninstall. The app is removed entirely, together with the updates it downloaded. Your mp3 files in the Music \ Nutka folder stay.