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Removing a podcast from downloads does not free data

Solved!

Removing a podcast from downloads does not free data

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Pixel 5

Operating System

Android 11

 

My Question or Issue

If I go to my phone's settings and go to the "App info" for Spotify, I can see the amount of data used in "Storage & Cache". If I download a podcast, I can see that the amount of data used increases according to the size of the podcast. However, when I remove the podcast from downloads in the Spotify app, the amount of data in "Storage & Cache" does not go down. I've performed a number of tests such as closing and reopening the app, restarting my phone, etc. After tracking this for several days, I have not observed the amount of used data ever go down after removing a download.

Reply

Accepted Solutions
Marked as solution

Hi there @been__jammin,

 

Thank you for your reply and for the screenshot.

 

This is expected as Spotify still reserves this space to be used for other purposes and storage is overall managed dynamically.

 

It will either be freed up if it's not necessary after a while, but more often than not it will be used up as other type of cache. This allows Spotify to function with as little buffering as possible and to store non-audio data like covers, metadata, etc. as well.

 

We don't recommend clearing it and Spotify will never use more than a certain % of your total available storage space for these purposes, but if you really want to - you can de-select what you don't want to keep offline - under Settings > Storage you should see the Downloads part get lower, and then use the delete cache option right underneath to free up the reserved space.

 

Although again, we highly recommend to allow for the automatic storage management to ensure the cache doesn't get corrupted and not to micromanage the storage used.

 

We hope that this information was helpful 🙂

Let us know if we can help you with anything else.

 

Take care!

JeremyModerator
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View solution in original post

3 Replies

Hey there @been__jammin

 

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

 

Would you mind sending us some screenshots of how the Storage looks like on your end before and after downloading the podcast? Also, we'd like to see how it looks like after you deleted it so we can take a closer look.

 

We'll be waiting for your reply.

EniModerator
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“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.”– Maria von Trapp

User data goes from 2.99GB to 3.03GB after downloading a podcast. After removing the downloaded podcast, the user data still shows 3.03GB. Reinstalling Spotify resets the user data, but I have never seen the amount of user data go down after removing downloads.

Screenshot_20210730-120308.png
Screenshot_20210730-120151.png
Marked as solution

Hi there @been__jammin,

 

Thank you for your reply and for the screenshot.

 

This is expected as Spotify still reserves this space to be used for other purposes and storage is overall managed dynamically.

 

It will either be freed up if it's not necessary after a while, but more often than not it will be used up as other type of cache. This allows Spotify to function with as little buffering as possible and to store non-audio data like covers, metadata, etc. as well.

 

We don't recommend clearing it and Spotify will never use more than a certain % of your total available storage space for these purposes, but if you really want to - you can de-select what you don't want to keep offline - under Settings > Storage you should see the Downloads part get lower, and then use the delete cache option right underneath to free up the reserved space.

 

Although again, we highly recommend to allow for the automatic storage management to ensure the cache doesn't get corrupted and not to micromanage the storage used.

 

We hope that this information was helpful 🙂

Let us know if we can help you with anything else.

 

Take care!

JeremyModerator
Help others find this answer and click "Accept as Solution".
If you appreciate my answer, maybe give me a Like.
Live, love, laugh and listen to music 🙂

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