Chirp Audiobook Download Script

chirp-audiobooks-downloader-readme.md

Chirp AudioBook Download Script

⚠️ Not currently working. Chirp changed something that broke this script.

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This script eases the process of downloading the audio files from Chirp Audiobooks. It uses the browsers console to generate a list of URLs, and then provides a list of curl or wget commands to download them.

Tested with Firefox + Terminal on MacOS, and Firefox + PowerShell on Windows 10.

As an aside, I want to give a shout out to Libro.fm for providing a simple download button for each purchase. Then you don't need a script like this!

Instructions

1. Find the book in your Chirp Library.
   • If you've already listened to it, you may need to move it back from your Archive.
2. Click the book to open Chirp's web player.
3. Open the browser's Web Developer Tools.
4. Copy-paste the script.js contents into the console and press [enter].
5. Initiate the script:
   • If the book is already at the start, click Play (▶).
   • If the book is on any other track, open the Chapters menu (top left) and select the first Track.
6. Wait while the script advances through each track; it's saving the URLs in the background.
   • It may say "There was an error loading your audiobook, please reload the page." under the Play button, ignore this.
   • It may also show a number of URLs in red in the console, along with a warning after each one. Ignore these also.
7. When it reaches the final track, the script will show a list of commands on the screen in a white box.
   • Click once to highlight the complete list.
   • Copy-paste it to a command line (Terminal, Power Shell, etc.) and press [enter] to execute it.
     • Some command lines will begin executing immediately, however you still need to press [enter] to execute the final command.
8. Once the commands finish, you should have a new folder with a cover image and each of the tracks as .m4a files.
   • On macOS, type open . and press [enter] to view the files.
   • On Windows, type explorer . and press [enter] to view the files.
9. Check the file size of each track:
   • If any are 0 bytes, the download URL may have expired.
     • In that case, go through the process again, but in step 7, first paste the commands into a text editor and delete everything except for the ones to download the 0-byte files.

Enjoy!

script.js

const $ = document.querySelector.bind(document);
function filename(name) {
  return name.replaceAll('&', 'and').replaceAll(':', ' -').replaceAll(/[^a-z0-9 ._-]+/ig, '');
}

const title = filename($('h1.book-title').textContent);
const credits = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('.credit'))
	.map(n => filename(n.textContent))
	.join(' - ');
const dirname = `${title} - ${credits}`;
const commands = [
	`mkdir "${dirname}"`,
	`cd "${dirname}"`,
	// note: unlike the audio files, this one doesn't need to follow redirects, so we can use the same curl command everywhere.
	`curl -o "cover.jpg" "${$('.cover-image').src }"`
];

const tracks = [];

let count = 0;
function addUrl(url) {
	count += 1;
	const chapter = filename($('div.chapter').textContent);
	tracks.push({
		count,
		chapter,
		url
	})
}

function showCommands() {
	const padSize = tracks.length.toString().length;

	// MacOS comes with curl but not wget. Windows powershell has fake versions of both.
	// The "real" curl needs the -L (--location) flag set to know to follow redirects.
	// The fake windows version turns it on by default and *refuses to work if you set the flag manually*.
	// So, we generate correct curl commands for mac and correct wget commands for Windows/Linux/etc.
	const isMac = navigator.userAgent.includes('Macintosh');
	const cmd = isMac ? 'curl -L -o' : 'wget -O';
	
	tracks.forEach(({count, chapter, url}) => {
		let trackNum = count.toString().padStart(padSize, "0");
		commands.push(`${cmd} "${title} - ${trackNum} - ${chapter}.m4a" "${url}"`);
	})

	const div = document.createElement('div');
	div.innerHTML = '<div style="position: absolute; top: 100px; left: 100px; z-index: 100000; background: white; padding: 10px;"><p>Copy these commands to PowerShell/Terminal/etc:</p><textarea id="dl-commands" style="min-height:20em; min-width:30em"></textarea></div>';
	document.body.appendChild(div);
	const textarea = document.querySelector('#dl-commands');
	textarea.value = commands.join('\n');
	textarea.onfocus = function(){this.select()};
}

function next() {
	const btn = $('button.next-chapter')
	if (btn.disabled) {
		showCommands()
	} else {
		btn.click();
	}
}

const audio = $('audio');
Object.defineProperty(audio, "src", {
  get() {
    return '';
  },
  set(url) {
    setTimeout(() => {
      addUrl(url);
      next();
    }, 500);
  },
});

OK the code is now available here https://github.com/Bostwickenator/ch.rip

It is a little more involved than the original script here but from my investigation that seems pretty unavoidable due to some clever engineering on the chrip side. I've tried to outline all the steps clearly including why they are included. This should help non programmers setup and run it.

Please report any issues directly on the new repo and I'll see about getting those cleaned up.

If someone figures out a way to make nfriedly's script here work with the 60 second timeouts for the hidden URLs that would obviously be cleaner but I don't think it's plausible right now.