Spotify constantly adds new features and sections to its app, and oftentimes they’re easy to miss.
There are many tips and tricks designed to help you get the most of your subscription.
The best features apply to only Premium users, but there are also some apply to free listeners.
Visit Insider’s Tech Reference library for more stories.
For music fans, Spotify is easy to love. And with over 70 million tracks and 3.2 million podcast titles, it’s no wonder why.
But beyond being the biggest music
streaming
service in the world, Spotify’s success is due in large part to its intuitive interface and always-updating features. We’ve rounded up our favorite tips you may not know about — just keep in mind you’ll need a Spotify Premium account to take full advantage of all of them.
Check your most up-to-date stats
Visit your profile to see up-to-date listening habits.
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The streaming platform’s end-of-year Wrapped campaign may get all the attention, but you can keep track of your listening habits all yearlong. In addition to third-party sites that can show your stats in novel ways, you can view your most recent stats by accessing your profile.
To see your top artists and tracks of the month, click on your profile name at the top-right corner of the desktop app or web player. Click Profile. Your profile displays your top artists and tracks of the month.
You can also find up-to-date stats in the mobile app. On the top right-corner of the mobile app, tap the Recently played icon, which looks like a clock. From there, you will find your listening history cataloged by date.
Pin content in your library for easy access
For more control and access to what you listen to the most, take advantage of Spotfy’s pinning feature. You can pin up to four playlists (including playlist folders), artists, albums, or podcasts to the top of Your Library section for quick access. On the mobile app, simply swipe right on the item you want pinned. Swipe right again to unpin it.
Find fresh music with Spotify’s recommendations
Check out the Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists for personalized recommendations.
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Spotify has an uncanny ability to understand musical preferences, and it channels that power into personalized playlists. Curated from your listening history, these playlists can be found in the Made for you hub, which is accessible through the search section on the mobile and desktop app.
Here’s a rundown of the music streaming service’s most popular personalized playlists:
Discover Weekly: A 30-song playlist of new songs and rarities, updated every Monday.
Release Radar: A playlist of new songs from your favorite artists, updated every Friday.
Daily Mixes: Playlists that bring together your most recent listened tracks, plus fresh ones, updated daily.
Search smarter
In addition to searching Spotify’s massive catalog by song, album, artist, genre, mood, or lyrics, you can get hyper-specific results and further refine your search by year, genre, album, and record label.
For example, if you’d like to listen to Nina Simone’s early albums, you could type the search terms artist:”Nina Simone” year:”1959-1965″ in the search bar and Spotify will return all the music she released during those years. Or if you’d like to curate a playlist of music from the 1970s, type year:”1970-1979″ and you’ll find a collection of songs from the time period.
Create a new playlist based on an existing playlist
It’s easy to make new playlists with Spotify’s help.
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A speedy way to build more playlists from the desktop app is letting Spotfy create playlists from ones you already created. The feature takes an existing playlist and generates a new one of similar music instantly, and only works when the source playlist is yours. To do so, right-click on a playlist and select Create similar playlist.
Enhance a playlist you create
If you want help curating a playlist, but don’t want to rely entirely on Spotify’s algorithm, the Enhance feature is for you. Open a personal playlist, then tap the Enhance button at the top of the playlist’s main page. Spotify will add similar songs, which are marked by a green icon. If you like any of the recommended tracks, tap the plus sign to add it to the playlist permanently.
Collaborate on a playlist with others
Enlist friends and families to collaborate on building the perfect playlist.
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Spotify makes it easy to invite friends to join a playlist and add tracks to it. Anyone who is included in the collaborative playlist can add, remove, and reorder tracks.
To make a collaborative playlist in the mobile app, create a new playlist or open an existing one. Tap the collaborative playlist icon, which looks like a person with a plus sign. Alternatively, you can tap the three dots, then select Make collaborative. Once the playlist is collaborative, you can share the link with others.
Spotify Blend is another nifty collaborative feature that allows two users to create a shared playlist based on their recent listening habits. To make a Blend playlist on the mobile app, find the Made for you section from the search section, and then tap Create a Blend. Once the other person joins, a playlist is automatically generated that’s updated daily.
Organize playlists into folders
If you’re big into following and making your own playlists, you probably know the library can get cluttered quickly. Bring order to your collection by making folders that group similar playlists together. You can only create playlist folders on the desktop app or web player, but they show on all devices.
To organize playlists into folders, right-click on the playlist section and choose Create folder and give it a name. From there, you can drag and drop a playlist into the folder to add it.
Change a playlist cover image
If you’re a Spotify power user, chances are you’ve got plenty of different playlists to match any given mood. By default, Spotify playlist covers show a grid of four album covers from the tracks featured in the playlist. For a more personal touch, you can change the cover image.
To change a playlist cover image, open up a playlist on your mobile device and tap the three-dot icon. Select Edit and then tap Change Image. On the desktop app, all you need to do is open the playlist and click on the cover image to change it. Keep in mind that the minimum size is 300 x 300 pixels.
Use Group Session to listen with friends in real-time
Group Sessions allow Premium users to listen to content simultaneously with friends.
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For premium users, Spotify’s group session feature allows you to listen with others in real-time. In a group listening session, everyone can control what plays — and you don’t even have to be in the same room. Listeners can choose to listen on their own device, or sync with whatever device you’re listening on.
To start a group session, play a song on Spotify, select the Devices Available logo, which looks like a screen and a speaker. Tap Start Session under Start a Group Session, where you can invite others by link or QR code. You can also select Scan to Join if you want to link to someone else’s group session.
Reorder and modify your favorite albums
For picky listeners with premium accounts, Spotify allows you to rearrange and modify albums. If you prefer songs in different order, or if you want to delete a song altogether, play an album and then tap the queue icon in the bottom-right hand corner and from here you can reorder and delete tracks.
Turn on crossfade for seamless transitions between songs
Ideal for hosting parties or working out, Spotify’s crossfade functionality blends songs together seamlessly by simultaneously turning the volume down on a song as it ends and up on the next song as it begins. You can choose the blend to last anywhere from 1 to 12 seconds. On the mobile app, tap the Settings gear icon at the top right of the Home tab, tap Playback, then adjust the Crossfade slider to your preferred length.
Tweak the audio quality to suit your needs
You can adjust the audio quality through your settings.
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On the desktop and mobile apps, Spotify offers four levels of playback quality: 24 kbp/s (low), 96 kbp/s (normal), 160 kbp/s (high), and 320 kbp/s (very high).
While the platform automatically changes the audio quality based on your network connection, the general rule of thumb is to turn down the quality if you’re trying to save data, and turn up the quality if you want to hear the best quality audio possible. To adjust your audio quality in the mobile app, tap the Settings gear icon at the top right of the Home tab, tap Audio Quality, and select your preferred settings. In the desktop app, click your profile name, click Settings, and adjust your settings under the Audio quality header.
Keep your music taste private
By default, anyone who follows you can see what you’re listening to. Yes, music taste is subjective, and you should listen to what you want to listen to, but you do have the option to keep your listening habits private, if it’s what you prefer.
To create a private session on mobile, tap the gear icon to access your settings. Tap Social, then toggle Private session. On the desktop app, click on your profile name in the top-right corner and click Private session.
Memorize Spotify’s keyboard shortcuts
Spotify offers over 30 time-saving keyboard shortcuts that can save you clicks. Ideal for power desktop users, here are some of our favorites:
Essential Spotify keyboard shortcuts
Search within playlists quickly
When you’ve got a lot of playlists, there will come a time when you want to search for specific tracks within them — the problem is that it’s not that intuitive. When on a playlist, search for specific artists, songs, or albums by using Command + F shortcut on Mac or Control + F shortcut on PC. On the iOS app, just pull down and the search bar will appear. On the Android app, open a playlist and tap the three-dot icon, then select Find in Playlist.
Add your own music to the Spotify library
If your music taste is more eclectic than what Spotify has to offer, or you’re just looking to streamline your media players, you can import local files to Spotify. To do so, open the Spotify desktop app, click your profile name, and select Settings. Scroll to the Local Files section and toggle the slider next to Show Local Files. By default, Spotify will pull music from your Downloads and Music Library folders, but you also have the option to choose any folder on your computer.
Share a specific part of a podcast
Share your favorite podcast moments with timestamps.
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For those who use Spotify for listening to podcasts, a little-known feature allows you to share shows by timestamp. Being able to share a link that jumps to a specific part of an episode makes it all the more easier to share particular moments you want others to tune into.
To share a specific part of a podcast, tap the share icon at the bottom-right hand corner while listening to an episode, then toggle on the Share from mode. From here, you can copy the link. Those receiving the link will automatically jump to the designated playtime. Currently, the feature only works on the iOS and Android apps.
Download songs for offline listening
One of the biggest advantages of a Spotify premium account is the ability to download songs, albums, and podcasts directly to your device for offline listening. The feature is perfect for any time you want uninterrupted playback, and, more importantly, when you don’t want to use mobile data.
To download files directly to your device, look for the download icon, which looks like a downward-facing arrow. When you see a green arrow next to the track, album, or podcast, that means your download is complete and ready for offline playback.
Set up a sleep timer
While Spotify’s sleep timer is useful during bed time, it can be used anytime you want audio to stop after a certain period of time. The feature is only available on Spotify’s iOS and Android apps. To set up a sleep timer, open Spotify and choose a song or podcast, then tap the Now Playing bar. From there, tap the three-dot icon and select Sleep timer. You can specify when to stop the audio from five minutes to one hour.
Michael Nolledo
Editorial Director, Reference
Michael Nolledo is the editorial director of Insider’s Reference desk, a team of journalists focused on providing answers and reported advice to help readers live life better. Previous to Insider, Michael was a managing editor at BuzzFeed. He was the deputy editor of InsideHook, and his work has appeared in Pitchfork and Kinfolk Magazine. Michael has spent his entire career working in service journalism, and has covered various topics including food and drink, fashion, travel, music, and sustainable living. In his spare time, he’s usually shopping for jazz records, attempting to recreate his mom’s Filipino dishes, and generally just trying to figure it all out. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his partner and their grouchy long-haired chihuahua, Bobby Fischer.
