Published on
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Twitter: @sabare12
In this blog, I'll show you 2 approaches to generate the Spotify Refresh Token and then use that to programmatically create an access token when needed.
I needed the Spotify Refresh Token for my blog site in which I could display my Top 10 Tracks as well as display the currently playing track in the footer section.
First Approach
Step 1: Generate your Spotify client_id
and client_secret
Go to Spotify developers dashboard.
Then select or create your app.
Note down your Client ID and Client Secret in a convenient location to use in Step 3.
Step 2: Add Redirect URIs
to your Spotify app
Open settings for your app.
Add
https://getyourspotifyrefreshtoken.herokuapp.com/callback
to yourRedirect URIs
as shown in the image.Click on save
Step 3: Get your Spotify refresh Token
Add your
Client ID
andClient Secret
to the form and select thescope
for your project. More information about the scope can be found in the documentationClick on Submit to get your refresh token.
Second Approach (Longer)
Step 1: Generate your Spotify client_id
and client_secret
- Follow the steps from Approach 1 till step 2 and add
<website>/callback
to yourRedirect URIs
. Eg.http://musing.vercel.app/callback
Step 2: Create URI for access code
In the URL below, replace
$CLIENT_ID
,$SCOPE
, and$REDIRECT_URI
with the information you noted in Step 1. Make sure the$REDIRECT_URI
is URL encoded.https://accounts.spotify.com/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=$CLIENT_ID&scope=$SCOPE&redirect_uri=$REDIRECT_URI
This is how mine looked like.
https://accounts.spotify.com/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=CLIENT_ID&scope=SCOPE&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fmusing.vercel.app%2Fcallback
Step 3: Get access code from the redirect URI
You will be redirected to your redirect URI which in my case was set to https://musing.vercel.app/callback.
In the address bar you will find a huge URL string similar to the one below. In place of
$ACCESSCODE
there will be a long string of characters. Note down that string for the next step.https://sabare.me/callback?code=$ACCESSCODE
Step 4: Get the refresh token
Type the following CURL command in your terminal and replaces all the variables with the information you noted in Step 1 and Step 3 :
$CILENT_ID
,$CLIENT_SECRET
,$CODE
, and$REDIRECT_URI
.curl -d client_id=$CLIENT_ID -d client_secret=$CLIENT_SECRET -d grant_type=authorization_code -d code=$CODE -d redirect_uri=$REDIRECT_URI https://accounts.spotify.com/api/token
The resulting JSON string will look something like this. Note down the
refresh_token
. This token will last for a very long time and can be used to generate a freshaccess_token
whenever it is needed.{ "access_token": "ACCESS_TOKEN", "token_type": "Bearer", "expires_in": 3600, "refresh_token": "REFRESH_TOKEN", "scope": "playlist-modify-private" }
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