How to use Spotify: hit play, ensure ears are on. Right? Actually, not quite. There’s a much deeper audio experience to be had if you take advantage of the platform’s impressive functionality across its mobile and desktop versions. From turning Spotify into an alarm clock to creating communal playlists with friends, not to mention using it to learn Korean, it’s worth looking into the full range of its features. Read on for our list of the best tips and tricks to make the most of Spotify. Although, yes: you will need your ears on.
Get a super-specific song-based mood
Wish you could listen to your fave tune for hours on end without getting bored? Spotify Radio can help with that. Find the song on Spotify, select the three dots next to it and choose the Radio option. It’ll then play you an endless, curated list of similar music. You can use the same trick for artists, albums or playlists as well, and listen to music ad-free with Spotify Premium.
Plunge into Spotify’s vastness
Spotify’s selection of music is humungous – there’s a huge range of albums from artists around the world. But the platform does a lot more than music – there are shedloads of podcasts, featuring almost any regular fave you can think of and plenty you can’t, from wellness to comedy to true crime. It even offers language lessons. Just search Language Superstar for a series of tutorials on Korean, Norwegian, Czech and more.
Have a personal experience
Spotify uses your listening history to develop highly personalised recommendations. Head to Made For You (under Home on mobile or under Your Library on desktop) and you’ll find Release Radar – it updates every Friday with personalised highlights from the week’s new releases. There’s also Discover Weekly, which updates every Monday with tailored song recommendations, and Daily Mix – based on frequently listened-to genres, which blends your regular choices with Spotify suggestions. You can make all of these playlists more accurate by liking songs you enjoy – which in itself creates a Liked Songs playlist.
Entertain the little ’uns
There’s a specific Spotify app for children: Spotify Kids. If you sign up for a Spotify Premium Family account you can download it from the iOS App Store or Google Play. Each child can create their own account, with fun avatars and colour themes, then listen to family-friendly tunes, plus specific playlists tailored to different age groups. Also, the music on Spotify Kids is carefully selected, with explicit music filtered out. That means kids are free to explore music, while you enjoy peace of mind.
Take control of your listening
Spotify is full of cool features for customising your listening experience. Premium users can listen to their favourite music without ad breaks, to make it feel more like a music library than a digital radio service.
You can also change the audio quality of tracks to compensate for the strength of your connection. Select Music Quality under Settings (on the desktop app, click the down arrow on the top right of the screen and for mobile, tap home and then the gear cog on the top right of the screen). Alternatively, Premium subscribers can download tracks to listen to offline, should you be about to subject yourself to train journey-esque levels of poor reception.
Make songs blend seamlessly
Hate that awkward gap between tunes on your party dance floor? Go to your settings menu (see “Take control of your listening” above), on desktop select Advanced Settings or on mobile, tap Playback. You can set tracks to crossfade into each other – with a slider letting you select how long the mix is. There’s also an Automix setting. Who needs a DJ, eh?
Use Spotify to fall asleep/wake up to
Want to drift off to the soothing sounds of your fave playlist? Set Spotify to turn off after a certain length of time by selecting the three dots next to the song that’s playing. Just scroll down to the bottom of the menu that pops up and click where it says Sleep Timer to select how long until it stops.
You can also use Spotify as an alarm – although only if you have an Android phone. Set a Google clock on your phone, then click where it says: Default Sound and you can change the alarm sound. Click the Spotify icon in the resulting window and you can pick a playlist to wake up to.
Listen with others
Spotify’s at its best when used socially. You can follow your friends to see what they’re listening to – as well as other artists to get updates on their releases. To follow artists, just click on their name and select Follow. For friends, you’ll need to connect your account to Facebook.
You can also use Spotify’s Collaborative Playlist function to create a shared listening experience with a pal – just click/tap on the three dots next to a playlist you’ve already created and select Make Collaborative (mobile) or Collaborative Playlist (desktop). Then you can both add tracks.
Get social
Want the world to know about your love of the new Lewis Capaldi album? Select the three dots next to any music you like and you can share it on social media. The interface with Instagram is particularly impressive. On mobile, select the dots and choose Share to Instagram Stories. It’ll auto-create a story featuring the artwork, as well as a clickable link so your followers can open the track on their own Spotify account.
Connect powerfully
You can listen to Spotify through lots of devices – smart speakers, smart TVs, stereos, etc – using your phone/tablet as a remote to set the volume, control what’s playing and more. The most robust way to do this is through Spotify Connect, which uses wifi connectivity to offer higher-quality audio, less dropout and covers a wider range. You’ll be able to use a limited version of Connect with a free Spotify account but to connect to every eligible device you’ll need to upgrade to Premium. If a device offers Spotify Connect, it should show when you tap the Connect icon – which looks like a computer monitor and a speaker – at the bottom of your phone/tablet.
Spotify Premium gives you music without the interruptions. To find out more, click here
