Online streaming is now the most popular way to listen to music, and Spotify dominates it. This American-Swedish company made its entry into the industry in April 2006 and is now the leading provider. It offers both free and paid (or Premium) subscriptions with the free option offering basic features which come with adverts. The Premium offering gives you more advanced features and an advert-free listening experience. For an amazing experience use these Spotify tips and tricks we have discussed below.
Why You Need to Learn Spotify Tips and Tricks
As part of its continuous growth and improvement, Spotify constantly updates existing features, adds new ones, and revises its interface. Even if you have been using Spotify for a while, these constant changes could have you sticking to the few standard features you use every day and ignoring the rest.
If you are new to the service, all these tabs and features could be intimidating, so you end up only using the basic ones.
Here is our compilation of Spotify tips and tricks you will wish you had learned earlier.
Listen in an Uber
You can connect your Spotify account to the Uber app on your phone. This way, you can keep listening even while on the trip. Better yet, you can play your music through the car’s stereo, so you have your choice of music playing even in a foreign vehicle.
You will need to make sure the Uber driver doesn’t mind.
Find Out About Live Performances
Since Spotify now knows all your favorite artists, it goes a step further to tell you when these artists will be performing live near you through a feature called ‘Concerts.’
Click on ‘Browse’ then on ‘Concerts.’ If any of the artists you have been listening to is performing near you, you get to know them. ‘
If you plan to be out of town next week, simply change the location on the app to the ton you will be visiting and see what concerts you can attend.
Cherry Pick the Hits
Some Spotify tips and tricks help you pick out tracks from a specific artist. What if there are very many tracks and only a few interest you?
Quite often, an artist who has been in the industry for many years goes through phases during which they release some great and some not-so-great music. This artist still has all their content on Spotify, and you would have to wade through a long list of songs to pick out the best ones.
Search Modifiers
Spotify has search modifiers that let you enter details of the specific tracks you want and leave out those you don’t want.
Madonna was in the game for decades, but her best hits were in the 80s. Using the search modifier to search Madonna with the years 1980-1990 included, it only brings up songs released during that period.
Share your Account
Like Netflix, Spotify lets you share your account with a few other people as long as you have a Premium Family plan. However, the people you share it with must live in the same place. Even with a family plan, you can’t share your account with your Mom, who lives in another state. It would have to be a spouse or roommate who lives with you.
It is unclear how Spotify confirms that you live in the same place as the person you share it with. Perhaps they rely on the physical addresses provided when joining the service. However, you happen to get caught trying to lie to the system; you get kicked off the service, so it is probably not worth the risk.
Keep Listening and Save Data
Data saving techniques are among the most valuable Spotify tips and tricks.
If you have a limited data plan and wish to minimize usage, you don’t have to forfeit the pleasures of Spotify. Go to the gear icon in the app, then click on Data Saver. Toggle it to ‘on’ or off depending on what you need to do.
Data saver works by caching data from songs played to help minimize data consumption. According to Spotify, it can cut data usage by up to 75%.
Listen Offline
No, you don’t always have to be connected to listen to music from Spotify. You can listen offline. All you need to do is download the music in advance. Navigate to the content you want to download from the desktop and then toggle the download button on the top right-hand corner to ‘on.’
The catch is that this is only possible for Premium users. On top of that, you can only download albums, podcasts, or playlists, not individual songs.
Discover the ‘Discover Weekly’ Playlist
Are your playlists getting boring? Discover Weekly is what you need. Every Monday, Spotify adds a playlist of 30 songs to your personal ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist. These are songs selected by Spotify robots that base the selection on your previous listening habits.
To get to it, go to ‘Browse’ then ‘Discover.’ You can favorite it, so it always shows up under your playlists.
If you find one or two songs you like on this week’s Discover playlist, make sure to save it. You may not find it there next week as Spotify creates a new playlist every week.
Now Let’s Sing Along
We all love to sing along to our favorite tunes. A sing-along feature is one of the most requested additions. Although a direct one is not yet available, you can get real-time lyrics through an app called Musixmatch.
After downloading it, you will need to connect it to your Spotify account. With that, you can have the lyrics to a song overlayed in real-time. Spotify will be partnering with Musixmatch soon, so it is only a matter of time before you can achieve this without having to open another app.
Keep Some of Your Listening Private
One fantastic thing about Spotify is that you can see what your friends are listening to, and they can see what you are listening to as well. The downside is that they will easily spot it when you have spent a couple of hours listening to many heartbreak tunes you would rather not talk about.
Private listening is one of our favorite Spotify tips and tricks because it lets you draw the curtain when you need to hide from the judgmental public. Use Private Session to remove all listening activity from your history.
To activate it on an Android device, click ‘Settings’ on the top right and ‘Private Session.’ For iOs, click on ‘Settings,’ the ‘Social’ then ‘Private Session.’
Timestamped Podcasts
Podcasts are another reason Spotify gained such wild popularity. Music for entertainment and relaxation and educative podcasts to jog your mind. It lets you share podcasts with friends but considering podcasts are often quite lengthy, you usually have to guide your recipient to the exact point you want them to listen to. You would typically note the time elapsed at that point and indicate it in the accompanying message.
Now you don’t have to go to all that trouble. Simply tap the share button on the player, then enable the toggle to share the podcast with a timestamp and send. When the recipient gets it, they only need to click on the link to be taken directly to the timestamped point of the podcast and can listen from that point.
Transfer Playlists to Spotify
Spotify is a relatively recent entrant into the music streaming arena in some countries. If you are in or lived in one of those places, chances are that you had accumulated a rich list of favorite tracks and podcasts.
With access to Spotify, you may be dreading the thought of leaving all that behind to start afresh on Spotify. Well, you don’t have to. You can transfer playlists from other streaming services like Google Play to Spotify with assistance from a third-party service called Soundiiz. You can complete transfers in a matter of minutes without interfering with the original version on the other platform.
Dig Up the Explicit Version
Some songs come in two versions. A clean version as well as what is usually the original explicit, not-so-clean version. Yes, perhaps the former would be best when you are streaming with kids in the room, but that doesn’t mean you can’t access the explicit one. Spotify displays the most popular version, but you can dig up the adult version.
Scroll down and look for the ‘X More Releases’ option. Not every track has an alternate version, but this is where to find it if it does.
Get Exclusive Offers and Rewards
Another one of many Spotify tips and tricks so many people don’t know about is a chance to get exclusive offers.
If you were a famous artist, how would you know who your real fans are? Spotify is the answer.
Real fans come first.
Spotify has a feature called ‘Fans First Emails.’ Through it, fans of a particular artist are easily identified so they can get access to presale tickets before a concert. They also get gifts and merchandise exclusively distributed by the artist.
The good news is that this is not one of the Spotify tips and tricks that you can only enjoy as a Premium user. Even free users count as fans.
Learn More about Your Favorite Artists
Very often, you discover a track on Spotify and fall in love with it. It soon becomes one of your favorites, and you wish you could find out a bit more about the artist. Spotify lets you learn more about the artist by right-clicking on the song and selecting ‘Go to Artist.’
It brings up lots of information about the individual or band, including images and a biography. You can also find other tracks by the same artist, adding them to your favorites list.
The Concerts feature serves a similar function, but this one also gives you information on any upcoming concerts by the artist and where they will be happening. If there are some, you will also find directions on how to book tickets.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the many Spotify tips and tricks you want to learn to enhance your overall experience with the service. What is clear is that there is a whole world of possibilities hidden in the tabs you so often ignore.
Like many other Freemium services, you get a lot more from Spotify Premium than you do with the free offering. The main attraction is that you don’t have to tolerate numerous adverts. Even then, you can still enjoy the bulk of the features for free.
