Offline Music - How does it work?

[hoibie]

OK, I've had this question running around in my brain for quite a while.  Here goes:

I have a pile of Spotify albums that I like and listen to.  The ability of Spotify to find rare tracks and obscure groups is quite amazing.  But, I have avoided making any of these as available "Offline".  Why?  Because I think that if I make them available Offline (like when i have no connectivity), all this content is sitting on the phone.  Well, good except that my SD card will definitely top out.  No question that 40gB of Offline content (music) will fill that card up in no time.

Do I understand this correctly?  The selected album/playlist will actually physically be D/Ld and physically located on the device (phone/tablet) for playback?  Nice feature but geez, I'd have to have a medium sized SSD to store it locally, wouldn't I?

What am I missing?  Does Spotify have some magical way of compressing everything into a tiny chunk of storage???

hoibie

[KDbeast42813 · Accepted solution]

Yes, that's pretty much what it means.. U can download selected albums or playlists that are available to listen to if u are in a bad service area or u want save your data. Or if u have the room on your phone or SD u can download your whole library which u what I did and its nice

[hoibie]

You know, I've always wondered about that! I could easily (and I mean EASILY) top out a 32 gB card. So I'd have to be real careful with this. And Spotify is probably the only app that can play these tracks due to DRM restrictions, so I'm guessing. IOW, they wouldn't be able to be played on some other device or another player on the phone.

Thanks for the reply.

hoibie

[PhantomDiesel]

Hi

With an active Internet connection, select a playlist. Note: By default you will need to connect over Wi-Fi. ...
Tap Available Offline to ON at the top of the playlist.
A green arrow will appear next to the playlist when it's available.
Turn on Offline Mode in Settings > Playback and tapping the switch at the top.

Hope this helps

GOD BLESS
and have a great day
Spartan117

[hoibie]

OK dig a little deeper.  Available but _only_ on that device/computer up to the limit of 3.

And do you know if these tracks can be moved/copied to other folders?  I'll have to see what folder it downloads to.  I might find the folder itself is encrypted, right.

Let me try one and see.

Tnx.

hoibie

[hoibie]

OK, I tried one playlist on my computer - Win 7. It's got the green arrow. But it's hard to find where the tracks are. Either they're skifully hidden or totally encrypted. This is a bit dangerous if you don't know where it's being stored. May of today's SSDs get "narrow" what with Windows OS demanding so much space be dedicated on the boot drive.

Wonder where these tracks are actually physically located...

hoibie.

[PhantomDiesel]

I don't know I don't have windows I have Mac and iPhone and iPad I have been told that u can't have songs stored as MP3 I think the downloaded song are saved in the Spotify app it self

[andedrunkard]

they use some kind of encryption, you wont be able to 'get to' the music. It just stores them on the phone.

couple of points
1. can get confusing if you download a lot of various albums, there is no way to see 'ALL' downloaded items to undownload them. You have to filter your playlists by downloaded only, albums by downloaded only etc and then individually undownload. pretty pants if im honest.

2. you cant change spotify to download the tracks to your SD card, i tried all methods on forum and got bored.

personally fallen out of love with the service provided and im off looking for alternatives as non of the changes they make seem to be giving a monkeys about the user's goals. They seem more intent on introducing features to generate 'buzz' these days. i.e. playstation

[JJFIVEOH1]

So what is the difference between 'offline' and 'download'? I have the option of turning on the 'offline mode' or I can go to the playist options and click on 'download'. Does this mean that turning off 'offline mode' is the same as clicking 'undownload' in the playlist options?

Which method will remove the downloaded songs from my SD card if I no longer wish to keep them downloaded?

[andedrunkard]

i have moved to rdio now, couldnt care about spotify after using rdio, its brilliant. intuitive and i got instant support from their tech desk with an android issue. I couldnt be happier cancelling my spotify subscription. good luck to all you waiting for basic things to get better, or leave and try another service,. this really isnt the only streaming service out there, despite the hype!

[hoibie]

@JJFIVECH1

I'll try.  When you make an album or song "Available Offline", that means it will be in fact physically "Downloaded" (sent) from the Spotify server and physically located on your device.  As we've now discovered, these files are unlike .MP3s but are placed on the device in a hidden form that you can't get to - except through use of the Spotify app.  Although they're used in different contexts, Offline and Downloaded I believe mean the same thing - content that is now located on the device.

HTH.

hoibie

[JJFIVEOH1]

hoibie, thank you for the reply! Yeah I've been using download for a while, it comes in very handy. I just assumed that the two would have different functions or else there would only be a need for either 'download' or 'available offline'. Thanks for confirming.