Let me permanently disable Smart Shuffle

[Toprem]

Plan: Premium

Country: USA

Device: Pixel 3xl

I do not want to use Smart Shuffle, at all, ever. For the past few months it has been screwing up my Liked Songs and it is extremely annoying. When I turn off shuffle because I am in a block of songs I want to listen to, the next song it plays will ALWAYS be a specific song instead of the next song in the list. This specific song changes whenever I add more songs to my liked songs.

[katmandoo122]

Pretty convinced that Spotify just hates its customers. 

[jonmcg9]

i hate smart shuffle. i wish i could activate and disable shuffle without smart shuffle being involved. it should at least have a different button.

[saṅgīta]

How many bites into an apple, before it becomes an apple core?, How many licks of a Tootsie Roll Pop before one gets to the chocolaty center?, How may genuinely well-reasoned and sincere messages sent to Spotify must go unanswered before the reservoir of one’s patience and goodwill runs bone-dry???

There are two primary reasons this is such an unnerving problem of Spotify’s: 1: The obviousness of this exquisitely stupid intrusion into PRIVATE AND PERSONAL playlists, and 2: We're been pushed farther afield from getting a solution to the original problem, the one that existed prior to the molestation of peoples’ PRIVATE, PERSONAL playlists, namely: the improvement of the actual ‘shuffle’ feature of the songs that are included in a person's own PRIVATE, PERSONAL playlist/s. The shuffle feature has long been a source of frustration as it inadequately rotates through all of the songs included in the playlist, frequently replaying the same small handful of songs over and over with only occasional interruption from any other songs deeper in the playlist. Some of my playlists have 200 songs in them, and yet the shuffle feature frequently only plays 20-50 of them. This is what needs your attention. I'm tired of asking you to get your [please insert the strongest, most vile and disgusting Swedish-swear-word, like ‘F’ing in English, right _______ here] hands off of my PRIVATE, PERSONAL playlists. You already have smart shuffle features in your AI generated playlists - THEY DO NOT NEED TO BE FORCED INTO PERSONAL AND PRIVATE PLAYLISTS AS WELL.

Finally get out of my private, personal playlists and fix your unimpressive RNG-tech.

[arianevans]

Still cannot stand this feature - most recently have issues with what appears to be Smart Shuffle turning on randomly. However, due to lag in the UI/UX, I sometimes suspect:

1. I might have accidentally tapped it and it didn't show up as "on" until later, after putting phone in pocket.

2. I tried to turn on Shuffle, but was already on but not displaying in the UI, thus switching to Smart Shuffle unwantedly.

Happens multiple times per week.

Same problem trying to turn it off (is it off? How long do I stop and stare at the Spotify UX to decide?. This happens on my new Samsung S23U (no lag on anything else) and various DAPs. This feature is the WORST EVAR on small displays like old DAPs and cheap phones (used as remotes).

There are rare times I do want to use Smart Shuffle, on SPECIFIC playlists for Discovery. The other 99% of the time I never ever want this feature to turn on, and I'd settle with permanently disabling it if provided the option.

There is absolutely nothing worse than turning on an ADHD/neuro-divergent friendly instrumental playlist, having "Smart Shuffle" turn on and being blown out of my blissful productive ikigai focused flow by some random awful jarring music that Smart Shuffle decided to cram into my playlist. I stopped using Spotify on my best DAP, and drastically reduced overall use in favor of purchased music and playlist control.

If you are a Spotify PM, you should be able to measure significantly decreased use of Spotify across our entire family now, and it's almost entirely due to this feature. (entire family dislikes it)

Bonus - your recaptcha settings are also insane.

[Metard79]

please use the pre-written prompt and spam the Spotify customer support team, we will be heard.

.

Spotify customers demand the following:

1. No more Ads for premium customers. Spotify uses deceptive legal language claiming premium user get an “ad-free music listening experience” then bombards them with pop up and banner ads that Spotify refuses to acknowledge as ads, but as “personalized recommendations”. These recommendations try to sell me something, making them ads legally.
2.  

Premium Spotify users demands an AD-Free APP EXPERIENCE.

No ads listening to music

No ads in podcasts

No banner ads

No pop up ads

1. The immediate removal of the Smart Shuffle option  connected to standard shuffle.

Premium users pay for a private music experience, creating personal and custom playlists. Smart Shuffle being forced into regular shuffle is an invasion of our privacy, and 100% counter productive to why we purchased premium in the first place.

If we want to use this option, it needs to be stand alone, or at the very minimum, an option in settings that will disable it from being in the shuffle cycle.

Shuffle should turn on shuffle and off shuffle, and nothing else. You have broken a basic feature of music players with your horrible decision to force smart shuffle onto premium customers through regular shuffle.

[-Karma-]

I just got this amazing upgrade of queue UI. Praying that it stays forever! Hated the previous queue. Now if only we could permanently disable this annoying „Smart shuffle“ in settings. I cannot stand it.. Please Spotify let us remove/disable Smart shuffle permanently. I only want to switch between No Shuffle and Shuffle. I don’t want this third option „Smart shuffle“🤮

 

[saṅgīta]

Hi Adam, like the vibe to your post, thanks; but not the misleading header nor the thirsty pleading for likes/votes. This issue is already patently obvious. It is a mistake Spotify has long ignored, far too long, in my opinion, and your post does nothing but serve as a palliative, a possible feelgood string of words, but adds literally nothing to what is already here. I'd like to encourage you to harness your really good intentions, energy and efforts to find an engineer or product manager or even a Channel Mod and get an ACTUAL response to what they're gonna do and when. God Speed.

[saṅgīta]

DEAR MOD:
This comment thirst-trap has been mislabeled as a 'solution'. This is as illogical and misleading as it is false. A REQUEST for people to upvote this flaw in Spotify's app - is, by definition NOT a solution. Thanks for your attention to this matter.

[-Karma-]

I was about to get so excited hoping they‘re gonna add a setting to disable smart shuffle, until I read the old comment is asking us to upvote another post is labeled as solution. Like what the f? Are you serious?

[jarrettcampbell2000]

This is not a solution, and no customer has ever marked it as a solution, another attempt to silence the paid customers, which are leaving in droves, have you ever heard of AOL or yahoo or Myspace?

[pauloctane]

All I want is for Smart Shuffle to permanently disappear from my playlists, the fact that this "feature" is forced down our throats is unacceptable

[Soundcloudisbetter66]

Obviously you don’t care what the people want we have asked for it for years and you haven’t listened. I will be ending my subscription you have taken the **bleep** for too long and i encourage everyone else to move to soundcloud as well. What a disgusting desperate money hungry company.

[ncad3]

try turning off automix?

[rfrink]

they added a setting to disable it! (only speaking for android mobile, idk about any other devices)

[onlytocomplain]

It's only on mobile. Obviously this is needed on all platforms -.-

[Joan · Accepted solution]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for the replies.

As some of you have noticed, we're rolling out an update where it is now possible to disable Smart Shuffle from the settings as requested. The Idea previously linked here is now set to implemented and includes the exact steps.

This is for Premium users only and is only available on mobile at the moment, but rest assured it will be coming to desktop in due time as well.

Cheers!

[onlytocomplain]

@Joan: that idea has the "mobile" tag and last time I checked, this wasn't possible in the browser, so why are you setting your absolutely irrelevant response as a solution?

[saṅgīta]

THIS ISSUE IS NOT CLOSED OR RESOLVED: AS OF JUNE 17, 2025//THIS IS A BLATANTLY MISLEADING POST - IT DOES NOT ADDRESS THE BUG W/I SPOTIFY THAT IS THE 'smart shuffle' SETTING IN GENERAL - NOR THE CURRENTLY OUTSTANDING REMAINING PROBLEM OF 'smart shuffle' ON THE DESKTOP. DISABLE THIS TIME WASTING POS NOW.

[zimoramma]

honestly shameful of spotify here to just close this out. as of 6.20.2025 this completely useless and un-asked for FORCED feature is still being FORCED without my acknowledgement or consent. FIX THIS.

[dealmeister]

Joan where is this "solution"