Playback keeps automatically switching to my phone

[huWolfy]

Recently I've been experiencing this issue, where the playback from my desktop Spotify application is switched to my Android mobile phone. This happened multiple times yesterday, and already twice today.

Did someone else also met this issue? Support only recommended to log out/in from the Spotify app on Android and restarting the phone, but this clearly didn't help.

[Joan]

Hi there @huWolfy,

Thanks for reaching out. We'll be glad to help you get the app working properly across all devices.

Can you describe in a little more detail the exact behaviour here? Namely, let us know the following:

• When did this start happening?
• What device are you using? Which Android version is it on?
• Is there any pattern as to when the playback switches or is it purely sporadic whenever the Android app is open? Does it happen with specific content?
• Is it always to the Android app or does playback sometimes switch to other devices too?
• If possible, could you log in on a different Android device with your account and test if the same happens?
• A video of the behaviour. If the files are too large to attach here in the Community, you can send them to us via Google Drive or as unlisted YouTube videos.

With this information, we’d be happy to investigate.

Keep us posted.

[rifle5]

I have this issue also.  I will be playing music on my computer and Spotify will randomly change the playback device to my phone.  It doesn't matter if my phone is on the same network, or on mobile data, it will just randomly switch.

I was able to stop the issue by going into system settings (on Android), applications, and force stopping the Spotify app.

[Thought567]

Yeah, it’s terrible. I wish there was just a way to turn off automatic device changes.

if I want to change what device my Spotify is playing on. I will do it manually

[glimglam2]

Same for me, been going on for several days. Spotify running on Macbook Pro and Android, switches randomly to the phone.

[bluschd]

Plan

Premium

Device

Google Pixel 7 Pro, Lenovo Thinkpad

Operating System

Android 15, Windows 11

My Question or Issue

I have a laptop and a phone. I use both daily to play music. Usually, I'm using headphones and bluetooth speakers. Both of which support multiple connections, so whenever I use either, they automatically connect to my phone and laptop. Then I go to the Windows app and start playing music, which works fine for a while. But then after a few minutes, or whenever I change the bluetooth device (e.g. turn on/off my headphones) the Andoird app automatically "steals" control from my Windows app and then I'm listening to my phone instead of my laptop. This happens every time and is infuriating to no end so I usually end up killing Spotify on the phone and disabling bluetooth just so I can keep listing via my laptop.

This happened twice while I was writing this paragraph...

All I want is to control which device is doing the playback myself without some magic trying to transfer control between devices. When I start playing music on my laptop, I want to listen to my laptop until I explicitly tell the Android app to take over control (and vice versa). It's that simple.

Can this be done somehow or do I just have to live with the status quo?

[Yordan]

Hey folks,

Keep in mind that the mobile app will automatically take over and resume playback when an external playback device is connected to the phone by default.

That being said, could you all confirm whether you're using Multipoint Bluetooth devices, like @bluschd does? If so, test if having just one connected device at a time alleviates this issue.

Let us know how it goes 👍

[bluschd]

@Yordan wrote:

the mobile app will take over [...] by default.

Does that mean it can be disabled somehow?

[Yordan]

I'm afraid it's not possible to turn this off at the moment, @bluschd. That's the current expected behavior. We're regularly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone though, so your feedback on this is greatly appreciated.

Let us know if having just one device connected does the trick.

[benam1]

I'm currently experiencing the same issue. A automatic device change toggle in the settings would be great to see.

[supahz1016]

"I'm afraid it's not possible to turn this off at the moment,"

WHY? People I've been complaining about this for years and nothing has been done. Earlier you said you're ready always looking for ways to improve the experience...well surely you could give us the option in settings to disable auto switching, instead of deciding that you know what's better for us than we the users want.

I am constantly having to fix this issue when I'm listening to music on one device while exercising, then answering the phone on another device and connecting my Bluetooth headphones. So much fun to suddenly have music blaring in my ears while I'm trying to answer my phone. Super frustrating that you aren't giving us a simple option to stop it. 

[peardragon]

When playing music on laptop Spotify often stops playing on laptop and starts playing on my phone even though I'm not doing anything in the app. This often happens when a bluetooth devices is connected to the phone, or I wake up the phone from stand by, or open a Spotify app on it, but sometimes this happens completely randomly. Normally, I can't even switch playing from the laptop to the phone using the Spotify PC application since it can't detect Spotify running on the phone, but whenever something wakes up the mobile Spotify application, it immediately switches device to itself. Restricting Spotify from running in the background in Android settings solves the problem, but it makes it impossible to listen to music on the phone while doing something else.

Could you make it so that the device Spotify plays on (PC or phone) does not change automatically without user input. 

Plan

Premium

Device

Pixel 8

Operating System

Android 15

[big_malk]

Sometimes when I press play on my laptop it plays on my phone, or vice versa. This seems more like a bug than a feature - I can't think why this would be useful?

It would also be great if each device could keep it's own status. E.g. when I listen to a podcast on my phone the playlist I had open on my laptop is lost, and vice versa. I can't see how this might be useful to some people - but for me, it's just annoying. Podcasts on phone, music on laptop.

[DonDomingo]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

Spotify moves from playing on desktop to cell by its own, on random occasions. My cell sometimes starts playing the music when it switches, sometimes it doesn't. But it still shows it's playing on cell instead of desktop when it did switch.

When my music switches to my cell and I switch it back, it turns on a song from an hour ago and it will replay all the same songs...

[TBRUDY]

I have the Windows app on my laptop and can open and play in the laptop. However without even touching my phone, the phone app also opens and runs silently, but in unison with the computer. If I get a call, my BT earpiece for the phone plays the music when I answer. How can I paly on and inside the computer and not have the phone app open also by itself?

[JonnoWasTaken]

I'm also having this issue when listening to Spotify on Windows or in my car (via Android Automotive). If the Spotify app is running in the background on my Pixel 7 it'll randomly steal playback and the only way to stop it is to kill the app, which I can't safely do while driving.

The issue is especially prevalent when listening to Spotify in my car, which I assume is because

Spotify is attempting to play via the Bluetooth connection between my phone and car, but the car won't play audio via Bluetooth unless I switch to the Bluetooth app, so the music just stops.

[frozencardoor]

I'm having the same issue. While listening to music on my Macbook Pro it will automatically switch to my phone, seemingly at random. It's been happening more and more frequently the past few months. I often times have Bluetooth headphones connected to both laptop and phone, but it's also happening when I turn Bluetooth off on my phone. I cannot think of a good UX reason why this is happening — I want to manually select which device I want to play music on, or be able to turn auto-switching OFF in settings.

Is there a solve for this yet? I've seen a lot of people with the same issue.

Plan

Premium Individual

Country

United States

Device

Pixel 9, Macbook Pro 2021

Operating System

Android 15,  Sonoma 14.4

*This exact problem happened while writing this post. Super frustrating.

[65dldde-fr_zg]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 14 to MacBook Air M3 2024

Operating System

macOS Sequoia

My Question or Issue

Just for a brief background: I have my AirPods connected to my iPhone listening to music and I wanted to switch over to my MacBook, which has my wired headphones plugged into. I knew that I had to open Connect to a Device from either device and select my computer. When doing so, my music stops then reconnects to my phone and continues playing through my AirPods when I wanted it going through my headphones from the computer. I've done this about 3 times to make sure it wasn't a minor, one-time glitch but I still had issues: my music just stayed paused on the second and third time. To fix this and go on with my day, I put my AirPods back in my case and switched it over one last time. I believe it glitched because my AirPods were forcing itself to connect back to my phone from my computer (through the Apple ecosystem) when I press play even though it was supposed to be playing only on my computer. 

[MihailY]

Hey @65dldde-fr_zg,

Thanks for reaching out.

To investigate this further, can you try the following:

• See if this happens when the wired headphones are not plugged in the MacBook.
• Close the desktop app and instead switch the playback to the web player.
• Clean reinstall the app on both devices using this guide. As a heads up, you'll need to re-download any playlists you've saved for offline listening.

If the issue persists after reinstalling, send us the exact OS versions and Spotify versions of both devices so we can report this to our tech team.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[Terabor]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

OnePlus Nord 4 and Windows PC (Spotify app)

Operating System

Windows 10 and Android 15

My Problem is, that when I play music and switch spotify output from my phone (with connected headphones) to my pc and afterwards turn of my headphones, spotify then automatically switches back to my phone and blasts the music through it's internal speakers.

This happened to me with different headphones and Smartphones