topic Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what? in Desktop (Mac)

Cache from downloads on my external drive, now what?

z2000z — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 17:16:43 GMT

I installed Spotify on my new iMac. Worked fine.

Today, I went to my external hard drive (where I keep all my documents) and, it was oddly full of folders that had two digit names. s8, f7, aN, etc. My files were there and, fine. Just all these moslty empty folders. A few had one file that was alds giberish but longer like lhfosi7693nksidh07203hd.file
After a call and a failed disk repair, Apple Care technician diagnosed it as a corrupt drive. I concured. So I was ready to pay hundreds of dollars to replace it.

As I went to eject it (to be safe until a new one is bought), a dialog box popped up. Said something like Spotify is using the drive, cannot eject.
Oh! so maybe all those files are some junk Spotify is making?! Sure enough, I quit Spotify and rand Disk Utillity, twice. Drive is perfectly fine!
So…

A) What are these files?
B) Can I trash them or move them?
C) If Spotify on OSX makes this junk, how do I tell it where to stick it? Just, not on the drive but, in a folder of thier own, would make much more sense!
D) Is this normal?

Thanks!

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

phan_times — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 21:34:02 GMT

Hello @z2000z,

Those folders are the cache and saved downloads on Spotify. These files are unique and coded to Spotify music so you cant download songs to your computer off of Spotify. If you delete these files all you will do is clear the cache on your Spotify. Hope this helps.

If this was the solution please click Accept Solution

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

z2000z — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 14:28:48 GMT

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
Now, where and how can I relocated these? Would just like them in a folder on that external so, they are not "poluting" the window with the files on that drive.
Like in a folder called "Spotify junk".
Also, how did these end up on on the drive and not in a folder Spotify made?

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

z2000z — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 19:00:38 GMT

You have to go to prefs and then down one more level in advanced to choose cache location. I did this when I first installed it but, Spotify fogot to put a "make new folder" button (or whatever it is called) on the relocate cache dialog box! I assumed, it would make one of its own (like all other programs do). Nope. You have to first go to the Finder and make a folder on the drive you want the cache to be moved/kept at. If you don't, Spotify just keeps dumping all the cache folders all over the drive you pick. Making this mess.
A nice thing it does do is when you have made a dedicated folder, it moves the junk into it. But you have to do a restart and go have a bathroom break after you reopen Spotify on MacOS

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

Hannah122 — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 18:31:45 GMT

So, I have the same problem but after I delete them they come back again. I don't know what to do so can you help maybe?

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

nick7777 — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 01:45:36 GMT

what's the fix to this??? I added local files, then tried to delete because it some how duplicated each file. Now I deleted the music source for my local files, and now these empty files mostly labelled as numbers or letter/number mix keep re populating after I dump them in the trash when I quit and reopen Spotify. Literally about to lose**bleep**

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

BoyanBarzakov — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 16:28:58 GMT

I created a folder Spotify Junk, selected it as Location (Settings / Show advanced / offline songs storage), and after the player is restarted, all previously created folders were instantly moved there. They still remain, yet the whole storage they take is about 1.5 MB.

I can live with it of course, yet it would be "cleaner" if the old folders, especially when they remain empty, are auto-deleted.

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

DroidPrazeres — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 12:00:01 GMT

THIS WORKS! Exactly what i did after months of mistery and misery. Accidentally went to Spotify for other matters, changed cache settings and... behold... All files went to the new created folder.
Solved

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

sydwrites — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 18:27:35 GMT

Yes, this works, but how do I make it STOP altogether? It's been a couple of years, surely there's a better option at this point other than continually letting Spotify take dumps all over my computer storage?

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

CarlosE — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 19:56:31 GMT

Hi @sydwrites,

Thanks for posting on the Community.

Keep in mind that Spotify needs to store cache and downloads on your device. However, the amount of space required to this is not too much, which means you shouldn't have any storage issue due to the app.

Changing tunes, if your downloads are disappearing and downloading again, let us know in order to check it further.

We'll be here standing by.

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

Hollowest_ — Tue, 31 May 2022 23:47:59 GMT

I have the same thing but how do you located your actually file with the music?

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

Yordan — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 06:16:49 GMT

Hi @Hollowest_!

The content you download from Spotify is stored in such a way that it can be read only by the app itself, so it's not really possible to open one of the stored files through Windows Explorer, (like you would an .mp3 for example), even if you select Spotify as the default program. These files are accessed by the app when it's running and when you play content.

Hope this clears things up. Cheers!

Re: Spotify created a bunch of mostly empty folders on my external drive, now what?

Hollowest_ — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 13:08:14 GMT

Thank you very much