The 18 Best Tips and Tricks For Spotify

Listen to the Discover Weekly Playlist

Spotify offers a unique playlist called Discover Weekly, updated every Monday with a roundup of songs based on the music you already love. The more you use Spotify, the more Spotify learns about your listening habits to deliver the best songs just for you.

You can find the Discover Weekly playlist by accessing your playlists in Spotify. It will likely be listed as the first one.

When you hear a song you like, add it to your Spotify, add it to another playlist, go to the album it's from, and more.

Organize Your Playlists Into Folders

This may not be necessary if you have only a handful of playlists, but if you're a long-time Spotify user with a range of tastes in music, chances are you have to scroll through lots of playlists to find the right one. You can save time by using playlist folders to categorize related groups of playlists.

At this point, creating a playlist folder can only be made from the Spotify desktop app. Navigate to File in the top menu (three-dot menu > File) and select New Playlist Folder. A new field will appear in the left column where your playlists are, which you can use to name your new playlist folder.

To organize your playlists into folders, click the playlist you want to move and drag it to the appropriate folder. Clicking the folder's name brings up your playlists in the main window while clicking the arrow icon beside the name of the folder allows you to expand and collapse its contents in the column.

See Your Music Streaming History

If you use Spotify to search for new music to discover, there's always a chance you'll miss something good by forgetting to save it to your music or add it to a playlist. Lucky for you, there's an easy way to check your streaming history on the desktop app.

Click the Queue button on the bottom player, marked by the icon with three horizontal lines. Then select Recently Played to see a list of the last 50 songs you played.

Easily Switch to Private Listening Mode

Spotify is social, which can be great when you want to tune into what your friends are listening to and vice versa. However, it's not so useful when you want to listen to something a little more obscure and don't want your friends to judge you for it.

You could make new friends, or you could stop your music from being shared for a little while. When you don't want anyone to see what you're listening to, switch your listening to private mode, and you'll be all good. On the desktop app, you can do this by selecting the arrow in the upper-right corner beside your username and selecting Private Session from the drop-down menu.

To listen in private mode on the mobile app, tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the screen to access your settings, under Social, toggle on Private session so that it's green. You can switch this option off and turn it back on any time you want.

Save Your Data by Downloading Music

Say what? You can download music from a music streaming service?

Well, sort of. First of all, you must be a premium user to use this feature. Second, the music doesn't download to your device so that you can keep it forever. It simply downloads it temporarily within your Spotify account.

According to Spotify, you can listen to up to 10,000 songs offline without an internet connection. This is useful if you love to listen to music while walking, in transit, or at any public place that doesn't offer free Wi-Fi to its visitors.

On any playlist or artist album you're looking at in the main tab of the desktop app, select the down arrow (Download) just above the list of tracks. Spotify takes a few seconds to several minutes to download your music (depending on how much you're downloading), and the green down arrow appears, so you know it worked.

You should also see a down arrow above the tracks listed for a playlist or artist album on the mobile app. Tap to download your music and turn on the button so that it's green for listening offline.

Automatically Save Songs from YouTube or SoundCloud to Spotify

Chances are you discover new music outside of Spotify. If you come across a new music video on YouTube or a great track on SoundCloud, take the pain out of manually adding it to your Spotify music collection by using IFTTT.

IFTTT is a tool that you can use to access all sorts of apps and services to be linked in a way that automates triggers and actions. Two popular IFTTT recipes built for Spotify include:

• Add songs from YouTube videos you like to a Spotify playlist
• Save the tracks you like on SoundCloud to a Spotify playlist

IFTTT is free to sign up for, and there are many great existing recipes that you can start using immediately.

Add Songs to Spotify from Shazam

Shazam is a popular music app that people use to identify songs they hear on the radio or somewhere else where the song title and artist name aren't clear. After Shazam identifies a song for you, you have the option to add it to your Spotify music collection automatically.

Once the song has been identified, look for the More option, which should pull up some extra listening options. Listen with Spotify should be one of them.

Turn On the Crossfade Feature

If you don't like the pause that separates the end of one song from the beginning of another, turn on the crossfade feature so that songs blend together as they finish and start. You can customize crossfading to be between 1 to 12 seconds.

Access the settings from the desktop application and then scroll down to look for Show Advanced Settings. Click that option and continue scrolling until you see a crossfade option under the Playback section. Turn this option on and customize it however you want.

To access this feature from the mobile app, access the settings, tap Playback, and customize the crossfade setting.

Use Search Qualifiers for Enhanced Discovery

You probably already know that you can use Spotify's search function to search for song titles, artists, albums, and playlists. But by using specific search qualifiers before your search term, you can filter down the results even further, so you don't have to browse through anything irrelevant.

Try searches like these in Spotify

• artist:Michael Jackson: Search artist names.
• album:Views: Search album names.
• year:1993: Search for songs released in a specific year.
• year:1993-1997: Search for songs released within a specific date range.
• genre:classical: Search for songs that belong to a specific genre.

You can also combine these in one search. Search Engine Watch has more on how this works, including how to use AND, OR, and NOT to refine your results.

Use Keyboard Shortcuts for a Faster Music Experience

If you frequently use Spotify from the desktop app or web, you probably find yourself having to move the mouse around a lot so you can click all sorts of things. To save time and energy, consider memorizing a few of the best keyboard shortcuts to speed things up.

Here are a few shortcuts you'll want to put to memory:

• Create a new playlist: Ctrl+N (Windows) or Cmd+N (Mac)
• Play pause: Spacebar
• Next track: Ctrl+Right (Windows) or Ctrl+Cmd+Right (Mac)
• Volume up: Ctrl+Up (Windows) or Cmd+Up (Mac)
• Volume down: Ctrl+Down (Windows) or Cmd+Down (Mac)

Check out Spotify's full list of keyboard shortcuts to find more that you may want to use.

Recover Previously Deleted Playlists

We all have regrets. Sometimes, those regrets involve deleting Spotify playlists that we wish we could listen to again.

Luckily, Spotify has a unique feature that allows you to recover playlists you deleted. Visit spotify.com/us/account/recover-playlists on the web, sign in to your Spotify account, and you'll see a list of playlists that you deleted.

Select Restore next to any playlist you want to your Spotify account. (If you've never deleted a playlist, you won't see anything.)

Use the Spotify App With Runkeeper

Runkeeper is a popular running app that can be integrated with your Spotify account so that you can gain access to a collection of Spotify Running playlists. All you have to do is open Runkeeper, select Start > Music > Spotify, then select a playlist.

Alternatively, you can navigate to Browse in the Spotify mobile app and select the Workout option under Genres & Moods, which displays playlists built to match your tempo while you run.

Use Spotify's Built-In Party Mode Feature

If you're not ready to invest in a third-party premium DJing app, take advantage of the Party Mode feature in Spotify. This gives you access to flowing party mixes with three adjustable levels to suit the mood.

To find this feature, go to the Search field and enter Party. Scroll down until you see Genres and select Party. Select a playlist, then select Play.

Collaborate With Your Friends to Create Playlists

If you're planning a shindig or heading out on the road with friends, it can help to have music that everyone likes. For friends who also use Spotify, you can work together to add what you like to a single playlist.

On the desktop app, right-click any playlist and then select Collaborative Playlist. On the mobile app, tap the three dots under the title of the playlist and then tap Make Collaborative.

Use Your Mobile Device as a Remote for Spotify on Your Computer

You can use your Spotify account from all sorts of devices. It will seamlessly switch and sync everything you're playing when you start listening from one device to the next.

If you're a premium user and want to listen to Spotify from your computer but don't want to walk to it every time you want to switch to a new song, use your smartphone or tablet to act as a remote control. On your computer, in the lower-right corner, select Devices (it looks like a monitor and speaker) and then select which device you want the music to play on. Or access Settings on your smartphone, select Connect to a device, and select your computer from the list.

Start playing Spotify from your mobile device. In the Devices Menu, your desktop and mobile device will appear. Select the computer option to keep playing Spotify on your computer, but now you can control everything from the Spotify app on your mobile device.

Send Songs to People via Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp

Spotify users love to share what they're listening to on social networks. But did you know that you can privately message them to people you're connected to on Facebook, WhatsApp, and other messaging apps?

When you're listening to something in the app, tap the three dots located in the upper-right corner and then tap Share. You'll see that Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are two of the options you have.

On the desktop app, next to the song, select the three dots and select Share > Copy Song Link. Then paste the link into any messaging app, email, and more.

Listen to Songs That Have Never Been Played, Ever

Incredibly, millions of songs exist on Spotify that no one has ever played even once. Forgotify is a tool that helps Spotify users discover these songs so they can check them out.

Click the Start Listening button and sign in to your Spotify account. Who knows—maybe you'll stumble across something you'll want to listen to more than once.