Disable autoplay on Android auto when starting the car

[balintn2]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

UK

Device

OnePlus 10T

Operating System

Android 14

My Question or Issue

I use Spotify with Android auto and I find it great.

There's one annoying feature however: when I start the car, Spotify automatically starts to play the music/podcast wherever I last stopped it. Sometimes the auto is on mute and I miss parts of the shows.

I searched Android Auto settings, Spotify settings (both very cumbersome to access), but no related options.
I found some community topics (like https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Disable-autoplay-on-Android-auto/td-p/5369679), but in Spotify settings I don't have the one mentioned.

So take this as a bug report for Spotify:
Current behavior: when the phone connects to my car it automatically continues the last audio.
Expected behavior: I'd like to have a configuration option, to disable auto-start when connecting to my car / bluetooth device, so that I can start the show manually as needed.

[CryticalAce]

Hey @balintn2,

To prevent Spotify from automatically playing your music when Android Auto starts you'll need to change a setting on your phone, I'll list some instructions below!

1. Search "Android Auto" in your settings and tap on Android Auto
2. You should then see an option in the "Start-up" section "Start music automatically" which you can disable

From this point on your music shouldn't start when Android Auto starts and you can hit play at your own leisure!

Cheers,

CryticalAce

[markgladding]

The suggested remedy doesn't work for me. I have all the appropriate settings turn off, and it still starts playing away the second I connect to Android auto.

[Dessi]

Hey folks,

Thanks for reaching out!

We're unable to provide an ETA for a fix at the moment, but we’re regularly testing and launching new features and improvements to the app. Your feedback on this is important, as it may ultimately end up paving the way for our broader user experience. Thanks for sharing it here - we appreciate it.

There are a couple of similar threads about this and which have a lot of useful info and suggestions, so I'd recommend trying out the recommendations in this post. There's also this mod reply from a different thread, which has a compiled list of fixes shared by users, feel free to check it out as well.

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 just a post away if there's anything else you need assistance with.

[aybesea69]

This doesn't work. I have the setting disabled and things still autoplay.

[Brass5226]

Same problem. The answer is spotify does not care about your issue that has been known about for years. There is no fix and they refuse to make one.

[Dragon_Lee]

I have a similar issue, do not want to hijack the topic but it does appear somewhat similar, if needed I will open a new topic:

I listen to podcasts in my car and while on hikes I listen to them on in ear headphones...

For a long time things went fine, if one (older) episode was done the next one in line would auto play.

Yet as of roughly a month or 3 ago a very annoying change snuck in, and for a long time I blamed Android Auto for it, due to newer android auto having some incompatibility with spotify, but do suspect its a new Spotify problem now.

What changed is that now when I get in my car and fire up my podcasts it forgot the podcast episode I was listening to and starts playing a podcast episode I already heard at least a full year ago ... and what is worse, a  new queue is made with episodes starting from that old episode ... almost every time it happens it also is the same episode that is started.

I connect my phone (samsung galaxy s23 ultra)  to my car (android auto, always recent versions) by usb cable and is the same I play podcasts and music over when on hikes...

This new behavior is highly annoying, especially in my car where I need to find a spot to stop and browse to the podcast  episode I was listening to the last time.