Is there a way to shuffle across all downloaded playlists while on Android Auto?

[iwr]

I'm testing out a Spotify family plan and I'm finding its features rather lackluster for my use case. I want to pick a bunch of artists I like, download all the songs to my phone, and then when using Android Auto shuffle across all that local music. Is that possible?

I followed the directions to create a Playlist Folder on Windows (which is dumb that I have to go to a different operating system to do this), but I found that the only way I can start playing the Playlist Folder is before I connect it to Android Auto over my head unit. That is, I can't select to play the Playlist Folder on Android Auto. 

Before I abandon the Spotify platform, I figured I'd ask this question. This seems like a super straightforward thing to do, so I'm surprised I'm even having to post this. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Peter]

Hey @iwr,

Thanks for posting about this in the Community 🙂

You're right - it currently isn't possible to play all the songs in a playlist folder from the Android Auto app. It looks like there was an idea about it in the Idea Exchange (see here), however it didn't receive enough votes, so it has since become inactive.

You can always create a new idea for your suggestion (see how to here). However, there's probably a way to work around this in order to achieve the same result that you're looking for.

Just to confirm, do you want to be able to listen to specific albums from an artist, or do you want to have only a selection of songs saved from each artist?

If you could give us any other details which could clarify for us exactly what you're trying to achieve, that would help us come up with a relevant solution.

Thanks! Keep us posted 🙂

[iwr]

Ideally I'd like to be able to shuffle between all my playlists. Right now,
that's just a group of artists I had selected, where I downloaded the "This
is X" playlist. I'd also like to be able to take advantage of the curated
Playlists in the same manner.

I'd like to point out that the idea submission concept totally fails for
folks that try Spotify and find expected features lacking. They aren't
going to stay in the ecosystem long enough to bother submitting these
requests.That I even bothered to find this community and post was more than
I really wanted to do.

I appreciate _your_ help, though.

[Peter]

Hey @iwr,

Thanks for clearing that up, what you suggested makes a lot of sense.

Do bear in mind that Android Auto is designed with safety in mind, as Google themselves have explicitly stated here. This is part of the reason why it has limited functionality and lacks a lot of the features you'll find in the regular Spotify mobile and desktop apps.

Nevertheless, we use the Idea Exchange as a way of hearing back directly from our users, and it gives them the power to contribute towards improving the app and its various integrations, including (but not limited to) the Android Auto integration.

With this in mind, the best way to make yourself heard is by creating an idea for it in the Idea Exchange. Feel free to use the resources I provided earlier 🙂

That said, we appreciate your feedback regarding the Idea Exchange. We do want to highlight, however, that it's been instrumental in implementing some of our users' favourite features, including the sleep timer (a personal favourite of mine).

If you're interested, you can find out more about how your feedback reaches Spotify via the Idea Exchange here, along with a list of other ideas that have been implemented thanks to our users' active feedback.

I hope I was able to help you out a little. Let me know if you have any further questions - I'll be happy to answer them.

Take care for now!