Can I Really Listen to Napster Music for Free?
Is Napster's Free Service Available Outside of the United States?

Find, Play and Buy Music

How Do I Find Music in Napster?
How are Search Results Displayed?
What are Artist and Album Pages?
How Do I Play a Song Using the Napster Free Player?
Can I Load More Than One Song Into the Player at a Time?
How Do I Use the Player Controls?
I Try to Play a Song but I Only Hear a 30-Second Clip, Why?
Can I Download Songs to My Computer Using the Napster Free Service?
How Do I Buy a Song or Album from Napster?
What Can I Do with Music I Buy From Napster?
How Can I Restore Napster Tracks That I've Purchased, or Copy These Tracks To Another PC?
Is My Credit Card Information Safe When I Buy Music From Napster?
Does Napster Work with iPod?
I am in the United States and I Have a Napster Card. How Long Do I Have to Redeem It?
Why can't I find the music I am looking for on Napster?
Why do some tracks have a 30 second icon play button?

Napster System Requirements and Configuration

What are Napster's Minimum System Requirements?
Is it Possible To Get Viruses from Napster?
Does Napster Use Cookies?
Is Napster Scanning My Ports?
Can I Listen to Free Music Using any Internet Browser?

What are NapsterLinks?
What is Napster's Affiliate Program and How Does It




Yes. Here's how it works. You can search our catalog of 3 million songs and stream songs up to 3 times each for FREE. After the 3rd free play of any single track, you can either purchase the track or become a Napster subscriber. As a subscriber, you can download an unlimited number of full-length songs to your PC. As a Napster To Go subscriber you can transfer those tracks to your compatible portable player without paying per track.

The Napster free service is currently only available in the United States. We are working hard at expanding the free service to all Napster service territories. Until then, all users outside of the U.S. can preview 30-second clips of any song in our extensive music catalog.

If you are in the United Kingdom, Canada or Germany, the Napster subscription service is available in your country.


If you know exactly what you are looking for you can search for it by song title, album title or artist name. If you would rather see what Napster has to offer, you can browse through the Napster catalog by your favorite genre or see what we've Just Added.

To search Napster:






To Browse Napster:







A search results page will display all results returned based upon the type of search you performed:



A search on an artist name returns results under the following columns:






A search on an album name returns results under the following columns:











A search on a track name returns results under the following columns:











Artist Page:

The artist page includes an artist image, discography, biography and recommended artists. Select a tab to view each option.



Album Page:

The album page may include the album artwork, artist name, album information including a tracklist, and recommended artists.






To play a song in the Napster Free Player, select the play button next to the track title or select the track title itself. The song will be loaded in to the Napster Free player and begin playing. The 30-second clip button in place of the play button indicates that song is only available as a 30-second sample.

Yes. Select Play Album or Play Playlist to load the entire album or playlist into the player and begin playback.

The Player Controls are designed to mimic familiar stereo components.











This could be due to a number of reasons.

Users not in the United States:

The Napster free service is currently only available in the United States. We are working hard at expanding the free service to all Napster service territories. Until then, all users outside of the U.S. can preview 30-second clips of any song in our extensive music catalog.

Exceeding the streaming limit:

All free users can stream a full length song 3 times. After that, Napster provides a 30-second sample of the song.

To listen to the full length song after you have streamed it 3 times, you may purchase the track and permanently download it to your PC or become a Napster subscriber and listen to the song as often as you'd like.

Song Rights:

Napster does not have legal rights to offer every track in our catalog as a full-length stream. Some songs are only available for sale, so if you try to stream them, you will only get 30-second previews. To gain access to the complete track, you must buy it. These songs are identified in our search and browse results by a "buy only" button.

You must purchase songs to permanently download them to your computer using the Napster Free service. Once you purchase a track you can burn it to CD, transfer it to a portable device or keep it on your local hard drive.

As a Napster Subscriber you can download an unlimited amount of songs to your PC, without having to pay for each track.

As a Napster To Go subscriber, you can download an unlimited amount of songs to your PC, without having to pay for each track and take your music with your by transferring it to a Napster To Go compatible portable device.

And of course, all Napster subscription members can still purchase music to burn to CD or just keep permanently in their digital music collection.

Buying music from Napster is easy and convenient. You can purchase single songs or complete albums. Here's how:








You will be prompted to download the Napster application if you do not already have it installed on your PC.

Once downloaded Napster will walk you through the billing information and purchase process.

When you purchase songs they immediately begin to download to your computer. You can view the download progress by gong to the Download Status folder in your Library. Once a purchased track is downloaded, it appears in your library's Purchased Tracks folder.

You must use a credit card or Paypal account to purchase music from Napster.

The songs and albums you buy are yours to keep forever. You can burn an individual song as many times as you like and the same songlist up to 7 times. You can copy your music to 3 computers, and transfer it to a compatible MP3 player an unlimited number of times.


Open the Napster application and use Copy Library to re-download your tracks after a hard disk failure or reformatting. You can also use the Copy Library feature to make copies of your downloaded and purchased tracks on up to 3 PCs. Just sign in to your Napster account, select Copy Library from the My Account menu and follow the prompts.

Napster uses industry-standard Internet security procedures for transmitting all credit card information. To meet this standard, all credit card information is encrypted and securely transmitted using SSL technology. This information will not be disclosed under any circumstances.

Napster would like to work with your iPod but Apple has chosen to keep both the iPod and iTunes closed off from Napster and every other digital music service. Napster's philosophy is different. A Napster Membership gives you more ways to discover and enjoy music on more players.

If you reside in CA, CT, HI, LA, MA, ME, MT, ND, NH, NJ, OH, OK, RI, VT, or WA, and bought or hold a Napster Card with 'Card carries its value for 1 year from day of activation' or 'Card carries its value for 1-year from date of purchase' or similar language on the back of the card, Napster wants you to know that your card will not lose its value over time. Your card will continue to carry its value until it is redeemed. The declared limitation does apply for all other U.S. states.

The music you are looking for may be added soon.

In our daily efforts to build the finest and largest music collection ever, we face and overcome many challenges.

The biggest challenge is that different individuals hold different rights to each piece of music. The people who have ownership or rights to a track include the performers, the publishers or songwriters, and the record labels, which promote and distribute the music. Publishing copyrights are held by so many different people, tens of thousands of music publishers in the US alone, that it would be impossible for us to track them all down. To follow copyright law, we must have an agreement from every rights holder on a track before we make it available on Napster, or risk huge fines.

Other issues that complicate the process of bringing music to you include:




As we overcome the obstacles that are built into the future of digital music, you will benefit with more and more music available to you

A small percentage of tracks on Napster are restricted to 30 second clips and not available for full-length listening. These tracks must be purchased to receive the full-length version.



To listen to Napster's free service you must have the following system requirements:

To download and use the Napster application to listen to music, you must have the following system requirements:




Napster does not use scripting languages that are capable of any viral activity on our Web pages. The only programs we deliver to your PC are the Napster application itself (when you become a subscriber or purchase a song) and the other components that form the installation. These programs are thoroughly checked for viruses before we generate the installation.

In addition, to make sure that no one hacks our installation and replaces it with one that contains a virus, we have a certificate assigned to us by VeriSign that permits us to sign our installation files. We do this with every installation we generate and you will see evidence of this when you start the install process. All other data and information delivered by Napster is in such a format that it cannot carry viruses.

Yes Napster does use the following types of cookies:





See our privacy policy for a complete explanation of our use of cookies

To ensure optimal performance, our servers routinely ping your computer in order to deliver content more efficiently. This process is completely harmless and does not compromise your system in any way, although some commercial firewalls may report these as port scans.

Yes, you can use any flash supported browser to listen to free music. For the best possible experience, Napster recommends using the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape.


You can embed NapsterLinks on your webpage, your blog or even in an email to link to any song in the Napster catalog.

With Napster's affiliate program you can earn cash while you share your favorite songs! Click here to learn more.

As a Napster affiliate you can earn money while you share your favorite Napster music. Simply sign-up as a Napster affiliate, add a NapsterLink or Napster ad banner to your web page, social networking page or blog and wait for your check. If someone is directed to Napster from your NapsterLink or Napster Ad banner you will receive:




Participation in the affiliate program is free. Click here to sign up