How To Download Music On Spotify

By Jake McEvoy

Updated: 08/12/22 • 6 min read

One of the benefits of having Spotify Premium is the ability to download music for offline listening. This is helpful when there is no internet connection available, but how is it done?

When we’re trying to listen to music, there’s not much more irritating than losing connection and the music constantly stopping and starting.

For people who often travel and don’t have access to a reliable internet connection, offline listening may be a genuine blessing.

Users of Spotify who have paid for the premium service have a variety of advantages, one of which is the capacity to download music for offline listening, allowing for smooth music enjoyment even in the absence of an internet connection.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you now have the full files saved to your device like you would if you bought a song on iTunes – the music just saves to your temporary files.

But regardless, there’s no more having to sit in silence as the world passes by your train window on your way to work.

Here’s how to download music on Spotify for offline listening:

How To Download Music On Spotify

Whether you want to download particular albums or your entire specially curated playlists, doing so is very straightforward – just follow these steps:

Launch the Spotify mobile app, then go to the album or playlist you want to save to your device.
Tap the arrow in the upper-right corner of the screen next to the heart emblem to download an album or playlist.

It’s as simple as that. Once the album or playlist has been completely downloaded, the download icon will have turned green.

Unfortunately, if you want to download just a few specific songs from an album, you’ll have to create a new playlist that includes them. This shouldn’t take you very long though, of course.

How To Delete Downloaded Songs On Spotify

You have the option of deleting some of the tracks that you downloaded from Spotify if you find that you are running low on storage space on your smartphone.

The one and only limitation is that you are only able to remove whole albums or playlists, not individual songs.

You should just choose the album or playlist that you wish to remove and then choose the downward-pointing green arrow.

When it changes from white to grey, it indicates that the music downloads in question have been deleted.

This approach of erasing data is applicable to mobile as well as desktop applications.

If you are certain that you want to remove all of the music that has been downloaded into your library, selecting the option to “Remove all downloads” is a simpler approach to do this task.

Here’s how to delete all of your downloaded songs at once:

Launch the Spotify app on your mobile device, then hit the Gear symbol located in the app’s menu bar.
Keep scrolling down until you reach the Storage section.
Tap “Remove All Downloads”.

Is There A Spotify Download Limit?

If you are a Premium subscriber, you are probably beaming with happiness at the thought of all the additional perks that you will now be able to enjoy.

What if, however, we told you that there are situations in which Spotify would not download, regardless of whether or not you have a Premium subscription?

Even if you have Spotify Premium, it is important to be aware of the following restrictions regarding downloads:

Download Limits

Downloads of up to 10,000 songs are permitted per device, with a maximum of five devices supported.

This indicates that each of those devices may store up to 10,000 separate downloads of your content.

The disadvantage is that if you download music on a sixth device, the downloads on your device with the longest history of usage will be deleted.

Compatibility

Songs that are downloaded from Spotify can of course only be played via the Spotify app.

These downloads are not kept on your device, nor are they available via any other music applications that you may have installed.

Since of this, if you wanted to download the music and then cancel your Spotify account, you won’t be able to do either of those things because they are inextricably intertwined.

Log-In Requirements

You have the ability to use Spotify offline for up to a month at a time.

However, if you remain out from the internet for more than 30 days, you will lose access to the songs you have already downloaded and will be required to re-download everything.

When using Spotify, you should log in at least once each month to prevent this issue.

This enables the servers of the application to check and make sure that your subscription plan is still active.

How To Automatically Download “Liked” Songs

The majority of the time, if you’re wanting to download music, you, well, like those songs.

On Spotify, as you’re likely aware, you’re able to click the heart symbol next to songs to add them to your “Liked” playlist.

If you want to automatically download the songs that you add to this playlist, you just have to click the download arrow in that “Liked” playlist.

This also applies to the playlists that Spotify creates for you, such as your Release Radar which suggests newly released songs you may like every Friday.

How To Limit Number Of Downloads On PC

Each time you listen to music, it is kept in your cached files. These cached files come in handy, particularly if your internet connection is sluggish.

Your cache files will also include songs that you’ve recently played. This ensures that operations continue as usual even if you unexpectedly lose connectivity.

The cache files may thus be harmful if your device doesn’t have enough disc space, despite the fact that they are beneficial. You’ll eventually run out of space for fresh downloads. Due to this, you can also have sync issues and slower device responsiveness.

To achieve this, open the “prefs” file in Notepad and go to “%localappdata%PackagesSpotifyAB.SpotifyMusic xxxxxxxxxxxxxLocalStateSpotify” in File Explorer.

Insert a new line beginning with “storage.size=”. After the equals sign, be careful to provide a particular amount in megabytes. For instance, if you wish to restrict the size of your Spotify cache to 1GB, your command should be “storage.size=1000”.

Save the document, then restart Spotify.