topic Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please in Your Library

Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

DrDamage — Thu, 18 May 2023 11:28:42 GMT

For as long as I can remember, Spotify cannot fix one thing that makes absolutely no sense. If I don’t select shuffled play, the playlist keeps playing from the oldest song on my playlist. I mean, how? What is the purpose of adding songs to a playlist, if I cannot listen to them in order, on a PREMIUM ACCOUNT? I would like to simply listen to my newly added songs, without shuffle. That's very basic, right?

Important note: this goes for DESKTOP, ANDROID and iOS.

No, I do not want to change the order of 9999999 songs. No I do not want to try “fresh installation” every week.No, I do not want to “create a new playlist and move all your songs there and delete the old one” which is 1995 hacking of winamp or some other **bleep**. I want one feature that is absolutely basic for any media player - to play new songs, without shuffler. And yes, I have updated my spotify. It’s the same on MAC, PC, ANDROID and it has been so since day one.

And I beg you... please, don’t throw me “this is a difficult thing to do/need votes/yare yare yare”. This is an absolutely basic feature, that has been present since the first media player that ever existed. So unless your software is written in KOBOL, this shouldn't be hard to do.

Thank you.

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

Yordan — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 10:33:36 GMT

Hi there @DrDamage,

I've moved your post to the Help boards as it fits better here.

It's already possible to change the sorting order in your playlist. You can do that by following the steps below:

on Desktop, open your playlist and click on the column you'd like to sort your playlist by. For example, if you'd like to sort by date, click on Date Added. Click the column again to reverse the order, or a third time to revert to the default Custom order.

You can also set the sorting order from the menu next to the magnifying glass icon.
on Mobile, open your playlist and swipe down on it to access the sort and filter options. Tap on Sort and select the desired sorting order. When sorting by date, tap Recently added again to reverse the order.

More info can be found in this article.

Note that the default sorting order is Custom order for all playlists, but if you manually switch to a different one, the app will remember your choice on this particular device.

Hope this clears things up. In case you meant something else, please elaborate further so we can get a clear understanding of what you're referring to. A short screen recording which captures the app's behavior in action would also be greatly appreciated.

Take care.

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

DrDamage — Thu, 18 May 2023 11:27:21 GMT

Hello Yordan.
First of all, thank you for writing under this thread. Unfortunately, I've got a feeling like you didn't quite give any answers.

Please let me clarify. I know there is a "sort by" option on desktop. What that option does, is it sorts the playlist in a specific order type. Yes, that works - visually it sorts the songs. That's great! What this option does not do, is it doesn't change the order of how songs are played. Every time I double-click on my playlist, it will ALWAYS start playing the same song, over, and over, and over, and over again. No matter how i sort the order of the playlist, the same song will always play first. I believe I don't have to mention how infuriating this is. All I want to do, is to be able to play the newest song every time i click on my playlist. Simple as that.

The second thing is, the same bugged behaviour happens on android auto spotify app. What's worse, there is no option to sort a playlist at all. So not only it's frustrating and doesn't work the way it's supposed to, it's also DANGEROUS, as in order to play my last added song, so that I can play them in order, i have to stop my car, take out my phone, do this manually on the phone, and then get back to driving. And I know some people do this while driving anyways.

Both issues are present for as long as I remember. Could you please, acknowledge this is a bug and just put it into the dev team backlog, instead of marking this and similar topics as "ideas"? A bug fix is not an idea, it's a broken usability issue.

Thank you.

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

CalRJ — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 19:36:35 GMT

This no longer works

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

Alex — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 08:03:29 GMT

Hi there @DrDamage,

Thanks for the post.

You should be able to play your songs from the most recent to the oldest. If your playback starts with the same song every time, it's possible that there are already loaded items in your queue. Open your queue and hit the "Clear queue" button. Also, make sure that Shuffle is fully disabled, so your playlists don't get shuffled.

If this is not working for you, it's possible that there is an issue with your account. If possible, ask a friend/ family member to log in with their account on one of your devices and check if playback starts normally, from the first song in the playlist.

@CalRJ, can you clarify what your exact issue is and we'll do our best to help.

Cheers.

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

DrDamage — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 15:34:40 GMT

Hey Alex, thanks for replying.

So this didn't work anyways. It's the same old bug, where a new playlist stops working with or without shuffler after some time. The only way to sort this out is to create a new playlist, move all songs to it, then delete the old one. Nothing else ever works, and this happens to multiple spotify users (there is at least a dozen topics on this forum).

But putting this aside, the bigger problem really is lack of 'sort by' feature on android auto spotify app. The only way to listen to songs in a car, is to use radio (as spotify without any sorting is basically a radio device). Nobody wants radio, we want our songs. Could you please give any explanation on why this feature is missing? It's so basic it's mind boggling. All topics are ignored by the spotify teams, and the ones that are more active gets a response with some "voting for an idea" which will never work and you guys knows this very well... It's really frustrating tbh.

I'll appreciate any contact.

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

dajaganz — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 07:02:51 GMT

tapping the sort option (eg recently added) multiple times on Android does jack (nothing).

frustrating af.

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

Yordan — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 10:45:14 GMT

Hey @dajaganz,

Are you experiencing this on any other devices? We would suggest performing a clean reinstall of the app, if you haven't already. In case the issue persists, please share a short screen recording which captures the app's behavior in action, along with the exact version of Spotify you're running.

Let us know how it goes.

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

dajaganz — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:48:21 GMT

So you're telling.me i should be able to reverse sort on android? No i
won't be reinstalling. Because i don't think its actually possible by
(stupid) design and you haven't said it is. You're just wasting peoples
time.with this generic advice

Re: [Desktop][Playlists] Play songs from newest to oldest - please

Susan_GP — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 17:01:23 GMT

Hi @dajaganz,

Thanks for your reply.

On Android, you should be able to sort your playlists by Title, Artist, Album, and Recently added, and the order should change immediately. However, reversing (tapping multiple times) the Recently added option might not show a difference in some playlists. This is because all the songs were added at the same time, and since then, no more songs have been added. However, if you have playlists and you continuously add new songs, tapping Recently added will show two sorting options just fine.

Now, if you're having issues with the sorting options, we'd recommend reinstalling the app on your device. You won't lose any content, but you might need to download your offline music again.

If this doesn't help, send over the make/model and OS of the device along with the Spotify version you are currently running.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply!

Re: Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

Surfingrik — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 16:12:49 GMT

I can confirm that this is a massive issue for Spotify. It’s unsafe driving and I’m about to delete absolutely everything. Not only does the sort not stay, but it doesn’t change all the other devices you have so you have to uninstall the app everywhere across your entire home network. For example Google nest does not let you uninstall an app, so I have to reset my entire Google nest just to get Spotify playlist to sort in the order that I want, newest to oldest. Unbelievably bad design and poor execution on a basic feature. Also tells me the people at Spotify aren’t actually listening to music like users do, who build playlists over time. Which explains the design flaw.

Expected user outcome: click to sort your playlist by newest first. Click save. All connected accounts and devices should now play that particular playlist in that particular order. User should not have to uninstall the application.

Re: Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

Darekdanii — Wed, 15 May 2024 14:32:25 GMT

Huge UP.

It always bothered me when I was using Android Auto... Whenever I started a playlist, it always started from the first ever added song.
Same scenario on PC/Windows. If I double click on the playlist, it always starts from the first ever added song, no matter of the set sorting. Altho it was never really a big issue for me on PC/Android, because: click playlist, play first song (Date added sort).
I just bought a a Google Nest Mini 2, and same situation when I play a playlist... Extremely annoying, so please do something about this..

Re: Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

g0dl1ness — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 03:26:19 GMT

Just had a same issue on my garmin mk2i (android) and googleTV.

However when try to find any solutions found a lot of posts , just curioUs how it possible passed 2 years and this bug not fixed.

as example

Re: Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

Yordan — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 08:06:37 GMT

Hey folks!

We can confirm that changing the sort order of a playlist is currently only available on mobile, tablet and desktop. All other devices will show the default one, which is Custom order. Still, you can rearrange the songs while in Custom order via mobile, tablet or desktop and the changes will reflect on all other platforms as well.

It's also worth mentioning that double-clicking a playlist on desktop / the Web Player will always start the playlist in the default Custom order. We’re constantly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone though, so your feedback on this is greatly appreciated - feel free to share it on our Idea Exchange board.

In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so you don't miss out on any updates.

The Community is here if there's anything else you need assistance with.

Take care 💚

Re: Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

dajaganz — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:18:07 GMT

Or if you value the feedback you could get off your a**es and post this
yourself and not make us jump through hoops to help make your product more
usable and user friendly

Re: Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

blah118 — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 05:36:44 GMT

They are not 'fixing' this on purpose. They probably have some back end kickbacks or other incentives to play certain songs more than others. This should not be that hard to implement. Not very customer centric; you are just pissing off your customers.

Re: Play songs from newest to oldest (not sort, play)

Miller01 — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 10:27:28 GMT

It is so frustrating seeing that people are being ignored when reaching out to Spotify with such simple things as song sorting in your playlists.

It makes absolutely NO SENSE that the songs are not being played with newest first, by default and on ALL PLATFORMS.

This tiny thing truly makes me hate this app, which is why I decided to use other options. 👌🏽

Playlist - neueste zuerst - immer!

Talexxx — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 09:31:58 GMT

Also mir ist schon seit Jahren aufgefallen, dass die alle Playlist als Basiseinstellung die ältesten zuerst nimmt. Ob das jetzt "spotify integrierte" Internetbox ist, oder das integrierte Spotify in einem Volvo, oder sogar wenn man nur auf das einfache Bearbeiten geht, springt die Liste sofort auf die Ältesten zu erst. Und das ist nervig, wenn man dann 500 Titel hat und irgendwo Spotify anmacht oder einem Kollegen was sendet, dann hat er wieder die Ältesten am Anfang in der Playlist. Und dann muss man immer rumklicken und sortieren und das nervt.

(Es geht um einfaches sortieren nicht um individuelle Bearbeitung)

Jetzt gibt es ein neues Problem, und zwar im Mix-Modus. (Android) Mix-Modus, springt er sofort auf die Ältesten. Macht man den aus, bleibt er in den Ältesten-Modus. Dann muss man wieder hingehen und wieder umändern. Mix an - wieder das Problem mit ältesten....
Und das ist ein generelles Problem. Das möchte ich ändern. Ich möchte fragen, ob ich der einzige Bekloppte bin, der auf die Einstellung Neueste zuerst bevorzugt.

Also ich bin der Meinung, dass generell als Standard der Titel "neueste zuerst" bequemer ist.

Das ist bei anderen Anbietern zum Beispiel besser gelöst.