diff --git a/core/spotify_public_api.py b/core/spotify_public_api.py
index 49a7c504..d0dc49c1 100644
--- a/core/spotify_public_api.py
+++ b/core/spotify_public_api.py
@@ -77,7 +77,9 @@ def fetch_public_playlist_full(
 
     meta: Dict[str, Any] = {}
     try:
-        meta = client.playlist(spotify_id) or {}
+        # limit=1: we only want name/owner here — tracks come from the paginated
+        # playlist_items call below, so don't pull the whole list twice.
+        meta = client.playlist(spotify_id, limit=1) or {}
     except Exception as e:  # metadata is nice-to-have; tracks are the point
         logger.debug("playlist metadata fetch failed (%s); continuing", e)
     name = meta.get('name', 'Unknown')
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 49a405f6..148d3c0c 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -66,11 +66,12 @@ flask-socketio==5.6.1
 gunicorn==26.0.0
 simple-websocket==1.1.0
 
-# ── Optional: full public-playlist link imports (no Spotify credentials) ──
-# The "Spotify link" tab scrapes Spotify's embed widget, which caps at ~100
-# tracks. SpotipyFree pulls the full list with no login. It is GPL-3.0, so it is
-# intentionally NOT installed by default (SoulSync is MIT — bundling GPL would
-# force the project to GPL). To enable full link imports, install it yourself:
-#     pip install SpotipyFree
-# Without it, the link tab simply falls back to the ~100-track embed result.
-# spotipyFree>=1.1.2,<2
+# Full public-playlist link imports (no Spotify credentials). The "Spotify link"
+# tab scrapes Spotify's embed widget, which caps at ~100 tracks; SpotipyFree
+# (the no-creds spotipy drop-in spotDL uses) pulls the full list. It is GPL-3.0,
+# used here as a normal pip dependency — aggregation, exactly like spotDL (also
+# MIT). It is NOT vendored into SoulSync's own code, so the project stays MIT.
+# The code soft-imports it and falls back to the embed scraper (~100 tracks) if
+# it's missing or fails, so this is never a hard runtime requirement.
+spotipyFree>=1.1.2,<2
+websockets>=12  # required by SpotipyFree/spotapi, not pulled in automatically
diff --git a/tests/test_spotify_public_api.py b/tests/test_spotify_public_api.py
index 6629aabc..e4c37487 100644
--- a/tests/test_spotify_public_api.py
+++ b/tests/test_spotify_public_api.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ class _FakeClient:
     def __init__(self, total, *, fail_items=False):
         self.total, self.fail_items = total, fail_items
 
-    def playlist(self, pid):
+    def playlist(self, pid, limit=-1, offset=0, *args, **kwargs):
         return {'name': 'My Playlist', 'owner': {'display_name': 'Owner'}}
 
     def _page(self, offset):