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.

[Toprem]

Hi @Toprem,

Thanks for posting in the Spotify Community, and welcome!

Although at the moment there isn't a way to permanently disable Smart Shuffle, there's currently a Live Idea for having a Smart Shuffle toggle in the Settings menu, which would allow you to disable this feature.

If it's something that you’re interested in, I would recommend adding your +VOTE to the idea. The more votes an idea gets, the likelier it is that Spotify will implement it, and you can read more about how feedback on ideas reaches Spotify here.

You can also Subscribe to the idea by clicking the three dots next to its title; that way, you can be sure to be informed of any relevant updates.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and have a good day!

[usernameuserusername]

https://support.spotify.com/us/contact-spotify-support/

I advice EVERYONE to jump onto their chat, get an advisor and ask for the status on this matter. 

[natalyatabakov]

I just did, I don't think their support staff have much information about this. But my guy forwarded on the suggestion to the backend team so that's worth something I suppose.

[zenmode]

This is ridiculous. Not allowing disabling of Smart Shuffle? I design AI platforms for a living and this approach is not just disastrous, it's offensive, invasive and insulting. At least put more of that money you're siphoning from hard-working musicians into a better UXR team. 

[wizardtree]

When are we going to be allowed to disable it?

[JohnnyRocker]

Get rid of the damn thing.. Don't add features that are so clearly against your users wishes. Find some other ways to monetize the platform. We're already paying to use it, you risk losing a lot of paying customers .

The thing is annoying as we all know what to expect in our lists and hearing something foreign that we don't approve of is a stab in the back .

Get rid of it already!

[algorhythmz]

MAKE IT GO AWAY.  Lately smart shuffle has made my playlists completely unusable.  For some INSANE reason it only wants to play songs recently added to the playlist.  I have a playlist with over 700 songs on it and I hear the same 10 songs multiple times a day, interspersed with things that are NOT on my playlist. 

I want you SHUFFLE the PLAYLIST, not the last 10 songs on the playlist PLUS whatever the **bleep** you like. 

To roll out a feature that NOBODY ASKED FOR, then make it DEFAULT and not NOT BE ABLE TO DISABLE IT is absolutely bananas.  Your head of product should be fired. 

I have been paying for spotify premium for over 10 years, and have heaped praise for it.  Unfortunately I can't recommend it to anyone any longer and the clock is ticking for when I will cancel. 

MAKE IT GO AWAY.

[itaih9]

Why hasn't this been added yet?

[Lulloa10]

all the tech reps just send me to this page to “like” the suggestion to remove smart shuffle. I despise this feature with all my soul, and it looks like it’ll never be removed :((((. I’ve been a customer since 2011, and this is the main reason I’ve been wanting to switch music services. It’s sooooo infuriating!!!! It’s not smart at all!!! The suggestions are TRASH and I just want to shuffle my own music!

[Ivelina]

Hey folks,

Just jumping in here with a new image to better understand what each of the playback buttons mean:

Cheers 🙂

[itaih9]

Hi, this does not disable them permanently in any way. What we want is a setting to turn off so the only options are linear and shuffle. Shouldnt be that hard to implement. Thanks!

[wizardtree]

Is this a troll reply?

[stevencookiesp]

Absolutely, either that or the mods are actually dense. If this issue isn’t fixed by the end of the year I’m quitting Spotify after many years of streaming via only this platform and nothing else even YouTube.

[JRMarsh]

**bleep** you are kidding surely? I dress myself in the morning and can eat spaghetti without making a mess of it. I didn’t need your help in understanding these symbols, Ivelina. Incredibly dismissive answer that didn’t help at all. 

This isn’t a user issue resulting in the software failing; you are failing resulting in a worse user experience. 

I’ll be moving to Apple Music, so thanks for this final insult on my way out the door. 

[Biotronic]

Ivelina, I don't think anyone here wonders what the symbols mean, nor that anyone doesn't know that the shuffle button switches between those options. As it seems to me, there are two groups in this issue:

1) Some of us just never want smart shuffle - count me among those, though I've switched to Deezer now, because of this exact issue. We want the shuffle button to simply switch between linear play and shuffle play. We'd be happy with a separate button for smart shuffle, or a flag in the preferences that removes the option entirely.

2) Some want smart shuffle, but think the current controls are clunky - it seems sometimes pushing the shuffle button goes linear->smart shuffle->shuffle, and sometimes linear->shuffle->smart shuffle, or that it takes multiple presses to leave smart shuffle. Maybe this is a real bug, maybe it just seems that way since smart shuffle is sometimes indistinguishable from regular shuffle for a while, or it happens because smart shuffle sometimes makes Spotify freeze for several seconds, so you press again because it seems Spotify didn't notice the click. This group of people would also be happy with a separate button, but probably not with a flag (and might even be happy with a simple linear->shuffle->smart shuffle that worked every time without freezing).

The post showing the different modes makes it seem like the people at Spotify are not actually reading the feedback here, and think we just aren't using it correctly. Believe me, we know, and we're using it as best we can, and the post just comes off as tone deaf.

[JRMarsh]

Thanks for putting this so eloquently. To expand on point 2: the interface also puts a banner notification that says “Smart Shuffle Recommendations Added/Removed from Shuffle” which on its own ends up being intrusive. I like to re-shuffle my own playlists a few times sometimes and every time you shuffle it you need to wait for the notification to pop up and expire. Very annoying and it makes me wonder if anyone at Spotify actually uses their software. These are immediately QoL issues that jump out at you when using their software

[saṅgīta]

Creating a playlist, is a personal project—selecting, curating and then sharing a playlist is a VERY personal project. I don't mind confessing that I put some measure of love and care into mine and I imagine this is true for some others too.. I DO NOT WANT Spotify ALGORITHMS forcibly overriding my playlists, I DO NOT WANT this bug/feature set to 'on' by default. I DO NOT want to be forced to panic-tap, while riding/driving, in a vain attempt to turn this feature off, inevitably missing what the 'off' state looks like and then being forced to listen to music I DO NOT WANT IN MY PERSONALLY CURATED PLAYLISTS. STAY OUT OF MY PERSONAL PLAYLISTS.

[ageisen2000]

how do i dislike this post? its completely unrelated to what we want. we all know what smart shuffle is

[srommo]

Especially when driving its annoying as **bleep** to push the button twice every time. I think they do it to push specific Songs.

[onlytocomplain]

Yeah, apparently shuffle is not even truly random. What the **bleep**?

[Stratmandoo]

I assure you, Spotify spends MILLIONS on developing this app. I know, im an app developer and know what it takes to develope and roll out an application like this. Its quite robust and very effective on doing what it does. Could there be features added to benefit its users. They spend time developing things that its users want, which is why you up vote the things you want, because thats how developing applications work.