Despite the cut-throat competition from the likes of Apple Music and YouTube Music, Spotify remains by far one of the best music-streaming app with over 350 million active users. Apart from boasting one of the largest libraries of tracks (over 70 million), the app is feature-packed and offers ton-of customization for a fully personalized music listening experience. Whether you are new to the music app or hunting for the best Spotify tips and tricks to get the most out of it, this in-depth guide has got you covered.

To offer up some sneak-peek, Spotify has got a wide range of tricks up its sleeve. Thus, it’s really fun to unravel those cool Spotify hacks and bring them into action for enhanced control as well as a much-improved music listening experience.

  • Control Playback on Other DevicesPowerful SearchFind Explicit/Remix TracksCollaborative PlaylistsTransfer Playlist from Other ServicesMaintain a Detailed Spotify HistoryAdd Local Library to SpotifyShare Links With TimestampsShare Songs to Instagram StoriesConnect Spotify to Google MapsControl Spotify in Google MapsWake Up to Your Favorite TrackArchive Discover Weekly PlaylistLink Shazam to Spotify Instead of Apple MusicEnable Data SaverCustomize Audio Quality for Wi-Fi/Cellular StreamingCustomize Spotify Download QualityDisallow Explicit ContentCustomize Spotify NotificationsEnable Private Session to Listen AnonymouslyDelete Spotify CacheDon’t Share What You Listen to with Your FollowersHide a Song from an Album/PlaylistGet the Most Out of EqualizerShow/Hide Recently Played Artists on Your Profile

1. Control Playback on Other Devices

One of the best and my favorite features of Spotify is that it syncs your current listening session to the cloud, giving you the power of cross-device playback control. Dubbed as Spotify Connect, this feature enables you to play music and control it from any of your devices. You could be listening to music on your laptop or speaker, but the mobile device can be used as a remote.

While searching for music using the artist, album or song title on Spotify is common, the music streaming giant also enables you to perform advanced searches via operators like AND/OR/NOT, as well as narrow your search results to the year, genre, and more.

3. Find Explicit/Remix Tracks

Spotify is designed for use by everyone. While some users are more comfortable with a clean version of the track, there are others who would pick the explicit or remix of their favorite track. The search shows the most popular version of the track and it might not necessarily be what you like, however, searching for its alternative version is no chore.

If you and your friend have an almost identical taste in music, the collaborative playlists feature could be super fun to check out. Spotify allows you to create playlists that you can share with your friends and they can edit the same – add or remove songs from the playlist. Collaborative playlists are marked by a hollow circle next to their name.

To create a collaborative playlist, you’ll first need to create a simple playlist and then tap the ‘three dots’ icon and choose the ‘Collaborative Playlist’ option from the menu in your Spotify desktop or mobile app.

Spotify being super late to the music streaming scene in India means that there’s a high probability that you’ve been using some other streaming service for your music needs. I myself had stuck to Google Play Music and accumulated a lot of artists, liked tracks, and obviously a myriad of playlists on there.

Spotify maintains a record of all the tracks you’ve played recently and you can check the same by clicking the ‘Queue’ button from the bottom bar and navigating to the ‘History’ tab. However, it isn’t really exhaustive and doesn’t offer any insights into your tastes or listening pattern.

Well, this is where Last.fm comes to the rescue. I bet a lot of you must have heard of it since the service has been around for quite some time, but it’s still relevant and popular today as well. You can set up Spotify Scrobbling in Last.fm to get a detailed Spotify playback history log, weekly reports with insight into your music tastes.

Unfortunately, Spotify’s catalog is currently lacking a number of artists, all because of its failure to secure a partnership with Warner Music in India. But you don’t need to worry if you don’t find a song or album that you’re looking for because you can yourself add it to the streaming service from your personal offline collection.

This feature is limited just to Spotify’s desktop app, so tap the downwards arrow next to your username to open the Settings and scroll down to the ‘Local Files’ section. Here you can add the folders where your music is stored on your computer via the “Add a Source” button.

If you’ve been using Spotify for some time, you would already know that sharing songs is super easy as there’s a dedicated option available for the same next to each track, album, and playlist. However, it’s also possible to share specific parts of the track too.

  1. From the share menu, you’ll need to select the ‘Copy Spotify URI’ option, and then comes the most important part – adding the timestamp to this code. The URI code looks something like this (spotify:track:2EtDBM1HREttw143IwZvJ0) and now you need to add the timestamp (suppose 2 minute and 9 seconds) after a hashtag at the end of the URI code:

As someone who likes to share my favorite songs with friends and followers, I find the option to share songs, albums, or playlists to Instagram Stories quite interesting. If you are also fond of sharing songs, chances are this nifty feature would win you over as well.

You would then see the Instagram Stories option in the Share menu, which on tapping redirects you to the Stories creation screen and shows the artwork of the song, album, or playlist you’re about to share. Simply jazz up this story with stickers or a caption and hit ‘Your Story’ for all to see.

While Spotify is the best music-streaming app, Google Maps stands out as the most popular navigation app. And if you use both these apps, you would be glad to know that the Swedish-based music app lets you integrate with Google Maps. Thus, you can enjoy your favorite tracks during navigation.

To get started, open the Spotify app on your iPhone or Android device -> Settings icon -> Connect to Apps. Now, tap on the Connect button and then tap on Agree to authorize the music app.

Music is an integral piece of road trips or long drives and Google knows it too. The tech giant has integrated the option to control Spotify (and Apple Music as well) with its mapping app. Thus, you can take control of the popular music app right from Google Maps.

Open Google Maps on your device and tap on your profile at the top right corner of the screen. Next, choose Settings -> Navigation Settings/Navigation (on iOS). Next up, select Music playback controls. After that, choose Spotify.

12. Wake Up to Your Favorite Track

My favorite Spotify integration will most definitely have to be this, with the Google Clock app. If you have the Spotify app installed on your Android device, you can now pick the song you would like to wake up to.

Spotify probably has the best discovery algorithms among all streaming services and it shows off the same by compiling a ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist with new artists and tracks – every week. This playlist refreshes every Monday and if you don’t save a track that you liked, then it might vanish the next week.

It’s no secret that Shazam and Apple Music are designed to play nice with each other thanks to the deep integration. Whenever you identify any songs being played in the background, the music discovery app shows the Apple Music link to let you start streaming the song right away.

15. Enable Data Saver

For the folks who don’t want their limited bandwidth to run out of steam due to music streaming, Spotify offers a super handy feature called “Data Saver”. When it’s enabled, the music-streaming app allows you to stream low-quality music (equivalent to 24 bit/s) and disable artist canvases. Moreover, the data saver also lets you enable audio-only podcasts to save only the audio when downloading video podcasts.

To enable Data Saver for Spotify, launch the music streaming app -> Settings icon -> Data Saver. Now, turn on the toggles for Data Saver and Audio-only podcasts.

Another notable feature that can go a long way in ensuring your limited bandwidth doesn’t end abruptly is the ability to customize audio quality for cellular/Wi-Fi streaming. So, depending on your needs, you can fine-tune the audio quality to help extend your plan.

Go to Spotify -> Settings icon -> Audio Quality. Now, you have five options to choose from: Automatic, Low (equivalent to approximately 24 kbit/s) Normal (equivalent to approximately 96 kbit/s), High (160 kbit/s), and Very high (320 kbit/s) for both Wi-Fi and cellular streaming.

If you have the habit of downloading a ton of Spotify songs for listening to them offline, make sure to customize the download quality. The music-streaming app allows you to download low, normal, high, or very high-quality music. If you wish to manage your device storage smartly, make the most of this handy storage management feature.

Navigate to Spotify -> Settings icon -> Download section (choose Audio Quality -> Download on iOS). Now, select the preferred download quality as per your needs.

Spotify labels “Explicit” content with an “E” tag so that you can easily spot it and decide to view/skip it. But what if you wish to keep all the explicit content away for any personal reason? Well, there is a quick way to disable explicit content on Spotify. To get it done, all you need to do is head over to Spotify -> Settings icon -> Explicit Content and then turn off the toggle.

19. Customize Spotify Notifications

While I prefer to stay away from the incessant bombarding of unnecessary alerts, I like to keep a track of the things that matter or that hold relevance. And that’s what makes me appreciate Spotify for offering the desired freedom to customize notifications.

The music streaming app lets you fine-tune alerts based on your taste to keep the unwanted notifications at bay and keep a tab on the things that interest you. Go to Spotify -> Spotify icon -> Notifications. On this screen, you should see a host of options such as the ability to enable/disable alerts for playlist updates, concert notifications, new music, artist updates, and more.

Though it’s always cool to let your friends, followers, and loved ones know what sort of tracks you love to catch up with, there are times where you may want to keep the privacy about what you listen to. Especially when you wish to relish some offbeat music or something that many won’t find nice. Whatever could be your personal reason, you can head over to Spotify -> Settings icon -> Social and then turn on the toggle for the Private session.

21. Delete Spotify Cache

It’s always better to remove the app cache from time to time. It not only keeps the app uncluttered but also ensures it runs smoothly. So, whether Spotify seems to be rather sluggish or crashes unexpectedly, chances are pretty high that the music-streaming app is cluttered.

Navigate to the Spotify -> Settings icon -> Storage. Now, tap on Delete cache to get rid of all the cache and recover some precious storage on your iPhone or Android device. Don’t worry it only wipes out the app cache and not your downloads.

22. Don’t Share What You Listen to with Your Followers

Spotify automatically lets you share what you listen to with your followers. While this social sharing of music is great, I don’t think everyone would prefer to go this way. If that’s you, there is a way you can stop sharing what you listen to with your followers.

Head over to Spotify -> Settings icon -> Social. Now, turn off the switch right next to the Listening activity option. Going forward Spotify won’t share what you listen to with your followers. Of course, if you ever wished to change your mind, you can go back to the same setting and toggle on the switch for Listening activity.

If you don’t find a particular song interesting, you can choose to hide it from the album or playlist. Simply head over to the playlist which tracks you want to hide. Then, tap on the tiny three-dots right next to a specific track and choose Hide song/Hide this song. You can repeat these steps to hide more songs. From now onwards, a “-” hidden button will appear next to the song/s.

Later if you wished to unhide the songs, go back to the same album/playlist and tap on the “-” hidden button right next to the song.

24. Get the Most Out of Equalizer

Spotify comes with a built-in equalizer so that you can fine-tune your music in line with your preference. From classical to dance to electronic to the evergreen hip-hop, the equalizer has got a solid collection of over 20 audio presets to let you mix and match at will.

Open Spotify app on your device -> Settings icon -> Playback -> Equalizer. Now, choose the desired equalizer. It’s worth mentioning that you can also adjust the preset depending on your preference. Simply use the tiny handle to fine-tune each aspect.

For those who never seem to get enough of their top picks, the ability to show the recently played artists on a profile is fascinating. If this cool feature appeals to your taste as well, you can navigate to the Spotify app -> Settings icon -> Social. Then, turn on the toggle for Recently played artists. From now onwards, your recently played artists will begin to appear on your profile.

Super Cool Spotify Tips and Tricks Lined Up for You

So, these are the top Spotify tips and tricks, which can go a long way in enhancing your music-listening experience. To me, what sets the Swedish-based music-streaming app apart from the rest is the pretty intuitive user-interface. Couple that with a wide range of customization tools as well as personalized recommendations and it becomes really hard to beat.