Removing offline music doesn't clear space

[yeaber]

I was running out of space due to downloaded/offline music, so I unchecked a bunch of albums/playlists so they would no longer be avaialable offline.  Although the music was no longer available to me offline, it didn't free up any space on my phone.  I had to completely clear out the cache through settings to clear up the space.  I then did it a number of times to test - downloaded one or more playlists, verified the size of the com.spotify.music folder, then deleted the playlist.  The com.spotify.music folder never changed size.  I even tried rebooting with no luck.

This is frustrating because I keep a few of the playlists I follow downloaded for offline use.  Spotify automatically downloads new songs when they get added to the playlist, but when songs get removed from the playlists, the data doesn't get removed from my phone so that floder size stays the same - it doesn't get any smaller when those songs are moved.  The only way to clear out the com.spotify.music folder and get it to resync correctly to only the songs I set it to download is to clear out the cache entirely, and re-download the playlist.

This is on an htc one m7, latest version of spotify.

[Vanyo]

I don't think the app offers a way to do that, but my bet is that Spotify does not even "know" which songs you undownloaded. It's probably a basic architecture problem having to do with encryption, and a major flaw. I don't download songs offline anymore, because the functionality is so bad.

[Joe]

You'e almost certainly right. Was just wondering.

[djben]

What is the Period of time and how do you un download stuff

[Paynex]

How long would the cache of the deleted music in the playlist be stored before it gets completely deleted to reduce disk usage?

[Joe]

The assumption that the android OS would clean up the cache appears to be a myth. The only sure way to reclaim wasted space is you clear the cahe completely then redownload the music you want offline.

[johnonline70]

That isnt entirely true because if you reset the download button, Spotify then re-downloads the songs using up more memory on the phone ON TOP of the memory

that it initially doesnt let go of ??? Its a real pain needs attention !!!

[pugnacious_g]

How long is this time period? I have tried waiting for the better part of an hour and the space still has not been cleared. I have tried closing the app and reopening, and rebooting my device to no avail.

[PN]

I came upon this topic (Started in 2014? Wow!) after I realized that one of my playlists "Discover Weekly", curated by Spotify, was set to be available offline.

However I didn't realize that since this list changes weekly, the songs downloaded to my device, kind of dissappear from the playlist but are still stored on my device without any way to delete them ... I also noticed that if I uncheck the "Downloaded" button in the playlist and then re activate the button, all the songs in the playlist get redownloaded and obviously a previously downloaded version of the same songs is still saved in my storage, but not accessible by spotify (I watched as my available storage decreased.)

I think this should be a very simpe fix Spotify, and am surprised it has not been patched for 3 years.

[Habdank]

Hi,

This issue seems to be 3 (or more) years old.

Could someone from Spotify team really take care about it?

Best regards,

Seweryn.

[nigelvdv]

Solve this please. This makes spotify unusable for less technically adept people. After all these years, sigh...

[Almajo88]

Not just for those who're less technically adept, there's no way for anybody to circumvent this (without resorting to less-than-kosher methods) and it's frankly insulting that their one and only solution for removing downloaded songs is to remove the entire cache and redownload everything. Clearly they've (Spotify and the music industry in general) prioritised encryption very heavily, as if these songs aren't going to be pirated one way or another. 

[YvanKyle]

So after a few hours or days the memory would eventually be freed? Did I get it correctly?

[Vanyo]

It will not, in my experience.

[YvanKyle]

Does logging out of my account delete all of the songs in my library? Is there any way for me to clean up the unused space cause it really slows down my phone and I recently checked how big of the space is being used - 22.54 GB!!!!! PLEASE HELP ME. I don't wanna loose all of my songs but of there is no solution for this I might just cancel my premium subscription!!! 

[YvanKyle]

Does logging out of my account delete all of the songs in my library? Is there any way for me to clean up the unused space cause it really slows down my phone and I recently checked how big of the space is being used - 22.54 GB!!!!! PLEASE HELP ME. I don't wanna loose all of my songs but of there is no solution for this I might just cancel my premium subscription!!!

[YvanKyle]

Does logging out of my account delete all of the songs in my library? Is there any way for me to clean up the unused space cause it really slows down my phone and I recently checked how big of the space is being used - 22.54 GB!!!!! PLEASE HELP ME. I don't wanna loose all of my songs but of there is no solution for this I might just cancel my premium subscription!!! 

[YvanKyle]

Does logging out of my account delete all of the songs in my library? Is there any way for me to clean up the unused space cause it really slows down my phone and I recently checked how big of the space is being used - 22.54 GB!!!!! PLEASE HELP ME. I don't wanna loose all of my songs but of there is no solution for this I might just cancel my premium subscription!!! 

[YvanKyle]

Does logging out of my account delete all of the songs in my library? Is there any way for me to clean up the unused space cause it really slows down my phone and I recently checked how big of the space is being used - 22.54 GB!!!!! PLEASE HELP ME. I don't wanna loose all of my songs but if there is no solution for this I might just cancel my premium subscription!!! 

[vega2k]

I am facing the same issue as you others and i had no offline songs downloaded but still had a high GB of data in my spotify app. Ive tried to clear and wipe data n cache from the system settings on my phone, but the data storage will still rise up whenever i decide to log back into my account.

So i decided to do a little test of this today and i created a new spotify account, and wiped and cleared all data and cache. 

As i loaded into my new account, Spotify data storage went up to 3.03mb. fair enough.

I then added somewhat 3 or 4 songs to my songs list, aswell as i subscribed to discover weekly playlist.
Data storage was now 23.14mb.

Be aware this is all streaming and i am not downloading any songs for offline purposes.
I then deleted the songs i had added to my songs list, and also unsubscribed to the discover weekly list. 
Data storage was still on 23.14mb.

Further on i started streaming or listening to a couple of random songs in the discover weekly list. After about 4 songs, the data storage was raised to 44.59mb.
After listening to about 3 more songs, the data storage was now up at 57.22mb.

This was ofcourse a free account, and i was forced to listen to 2 commercials, which pushed the data storage up to 58.40mb

further along i played about 2 more songs and the storage was up at 63.10mb

I dont know when, or even if, spotify sends the data storage to cache folder or even if thats how its suppose to be but after about 40 minutes without using spotify or the phone in general, the cache had gone up from 200kb something to 514kb and the data storage went up to 65.54mb

So that probably explains the large amout of GB spotify is using on our phones. we actually pay for something to fill up our devices with tons of gb and its not even offline downloaded content. 

Edit: after 3 hours, without using the phone or spotify the cache went from 514kb to 564kb and the data storage up to 66.43mb. and then, just by opening spotify, the cache whent up to 740kb and data to 66.62mb. So we can all imagine what this looks like in the long run. 

[lennyzer0]

Hmm, came looking for a solution to this very annoying issue but it seems Spotify couldn't care less.  Disappointing...