topic Re: New User in Desktop (Windows)

New User

user-removed — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 21:44:37 GMT

Plan Premium

Country USA

Device (Desktop PC)

Operating System (Windows 7)

My Question or Issue - I'm a fairly long time Pandora user and finally thought I would give Spotify a try (they offered a pretty good deal combining their Premium service with Hulu's basic video service). Well after using Spotify for a couple of days now, not really sure how good a deal it is. Does not seem to be near as user friendly or flexible as Pandora, with at least a couple of glaring deficiencies. The Radio function or feature appears to be useless as the user cannot even create their own stations even though Spotify's own Help site says you can. For the Album feature there does not appear to be continuous play from one album to the next - play just stops at the end of a selected album. You can shuffle tracks within a single album for what that is worth, which is not much. On the Artist feature if you have saved multiple Albums under a single artist, you can select that particular artist and shuffle tracks for that artist amongst all the saved albums - so basically this is the only real meaningful or useful shuffle feature. Compared to Pandora, Spotify appears to be a very bare-bones music app. So I guess I'll get to my questions. Does anybody out there a lot more familiar with Spotify know of way to provide continuous play from album to album and/or from artist to artist and preferrably to universally shuffle from track to track between both albums and artists? And I guess lastly, why does Spotfy's own Help section give instructions for adding Radio stations when it can't be done, and agin I have the Premium service, which is supposed to be the 'full meal' deal? I guess the one good thing I'll say is that Spotfy does seem to have a pretty good selction of available music based on the artists I've searched so far. Its just a shame they cannot provide a significantly better user interface.

SRT

Re: New User

someradno — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 23:02:20 GMT

I'm not sure about the radio stations but for the shuffling artists and albums you could add the songs to your favorite tracks and play them from there with the shuffle on. Just click on the heart next to the track/album to add it to your favorites

Re: New User

Sebasty — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 13:49:20 GMT

Hey @user-removed, welcome to the Community!

The radio feature was recently changed, so I suggest reading this Solution for more information and tips. The changes don't seem to be reflected in the Support site yet.
By enabling autoplay in your Spotify preferences, Spotify will continue playback when your music ends. 🙂

About continuous playback in Your Library section - I would suggest using folders and playlists instead of saving, in this case you can achieve both shuffling and continuous playback from one album (playlist) to another. See this Support article for more information on how to use that!

There is a limit on songs you can save in Your Library, but there is no limit on how many playlists and folders you can create.

If you need more help, let me know 🙂

Re: New User

user-removed — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 17:03:58 GMT

Hi Sebasty,

The info in the Radio, Playlists, and Folders links you provided helps a
lot. Definitely makes the Radio feature useful after all. I did find the
AutoPlay setting after making my initial post. I also found a simple way to
engage Shuffle for all Album tracks saved in your library - just go to
"Songs", not "Albums", and select any song to play, then once it's playing
just make sure the shuffle icon is selected and it appears as though it will
universally shuffle thru all saved songs (as opposed to only shuffling songs
in a single album). Do you happen to know what the song limit is, and will
the app let you know when the limit has been reached? I mean in just the 2
or 3 days I've been using the app, I've already saved quite a few
albums/songs. Of course now that I know how the Radio feature actually
works in conjunction with Playlists I really should not be needing to save a
bunch of individual albums/songs.

Thanks again for the info - very helpful,

SRT

Re: New User

Sebasty — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 19:00:58 GMT

@user-removed

I'm glad to hear this has helped you 🙂

The limit of songs you can add to Saved Music is 10 000 tracks.

The app will let you know with a blue popup notification when you meet the limit.

There is an idea on removing / expanding the limit, so if you'd like to see the limit gone, please leave your vote and feedback to this Idea thread.

It's also true that all your saved albums also appear under saved Songs. 🙂

Here to help if you need more information, have a nice day!

Re: New User

user-removed — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 20:02:58 GMT

Thanks again Sebasty - I voted.

srt

Re: New User

user-removed — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 00:15:49 GMT

Hi Sebasty,

I need to bother you again. The question this time is how do you "import" files from your PC to play on Spotify ultimately as a Playlist, in particular for specific albums? Is this just simply placing the files in your PC's Music Library folder. I know they will show up then under Spotify's 'Local Files' link, but even though they are organized by album folders in my Music library, what Spotify's 'Local File' link seems to show is just a listing of all the tracks in the Library, I think in alphabetical order. I have quite a lot of tunes in my music folders so it would take me forever to hunt and pick individual tracks out to create a specific album Playlist. There has to be an easier, simpler way. I looked thru Spotify Help again and it does talk about importing local files, but does not give any specifics on 'How To', at least that I can find - so not very helpful.

Any advice would be appreciated, again,

SRT

Re: New User

Sebasty — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:01:41 GMT

@user-removed

Local Files are shown as a list of files indeed. You can click on artist/album/title or song length columns to sort the list by these as well as use the Filter for finding more specific tracks, artists or albums.

It might be easier for you to turn off syncing Local Files from "Your Library" and use the "Add a Source" button instead, navigating to specific album folders you want to find, and adding them.

Let me know how it goes 🙂

Re: New User

user-removed — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:16:50 GMT

Thanks Sebasty, I'll try the latter. So really what is called 'Importing'
is really just linking or creating a link to the existing files wherever
they are located on your computer, such as your 'C drive', etc. And since
those "local" files then really still just reside on your computer, I will
not be able to access those particular playlists from say the Spotify app on
my TV streaming device?

thanks again,

SRT

Re: New User

Sebasty — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 12:03:01 GMT

@user-removed

That's right, Spotify client will create a link between itself and the audio file on your hard drive, pretty much like Windows Media Player and other music players.

You can access playlists with these songs inside by syncing them with your mobile client, but not with other devices.
You'll still see them in playlists when you access them in another computer or device, but they are greyed out.

I would use a different service (like dlna connection for home cinemas that support it) for local file streaming, or a cable. 🙂

Note: I'd suggest making a new thread for different questions - this way other users who have similar questions can find the answer easier.

Hope this helps 🙂

Re: New User

user-removed — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 16:48:02 GMT

Hi Sebasty,

Thanks for the confirmation - will do on new threads.

srt