SD card across multiple devices

[exitsign074]

Operating System: Android 9

Hi!

I would like to access songs on Spotify offline on my Android car radio. Unfortunately, it is not possible to hook it up to my home Wifi due to distance/signal strength.

So I would like to know the following:

if I download songs to an SD card at home on my mobile phone [or PC?], would Spotify, given I put that card in my radio, detect these songs and able to use them?

If not automatically, are there any steps on the PC I could follow [i.e. manually copying and renaming folders] to accomplish my goal?

Since I never had storage issues whatsoever, I don't even own an SD card, so I can't try right now, which is why I'm asking beforehand.

If anyone could be of assistance, any help would be much appreciated!

[Luan]

Hey, @exitsign074 
Welcome to Spotify Community and thanks for reaching out here!

Actually you can download your songs on your smartphone and use the car mode of Spotify to play your songs, even offline. It can be done using the Android Auto, CarPlay, Bluetooth or cable. You can check more information about it here:

•  Spotify in the Car

And of course, if your car supports it, you can access Spotify directly on your car media system.

If you have any other further questions or need more help, let me know! I'd love to help!

Best Regards,
hezorg

[exitsign074]

Hi @hezorg!

Thank you very much for your quick response!

Playing music via my mobile phone directly while in the car, be it via Bluetooth, AUX or whatever would be a last resort surely. But I already have the Spotify App on my radio, which is super convenient. Plus, I don't want to plug in my phone or fiddle with it in the car. I am quite reluctant to use it while driving.

Currently it runs a Tasker profile which automatically toggles my phone's Wifi tethering which the radio connects to. So, I could spend my entire mobile data volume of a year to download all these songs to my radio.

Which is where my original question kicks in again: Can I, if I download songs on device A, saved to a SD card, import songs into device B, if they both run Spotify?

That surely would be the case if all downloaded songs would be saved in the same location path across any device? Wouldn't it?

[Luan]

Hey again, @exitsign074 

Sorry for the delay...

Actually, there is no way to export offline data from Spotify to another device, because the downloaded songs are encrypted and just function on the device that was downloaded in. 

As I've mentioned before, if you want to listen to your songs offline on your car, you'll need to pair both devices using Bluetooth or using a cable. Unfortunately, the in-car media system just works online.

If you have any other further questions or need more help, let me know! I'd love to help!

Best Regards,
hezorg

[exitsign074]

Hi @hezorg!

---

because the downloaded songs are encrypted and just function on the device that was downloaded in

---

Are you sure about that? Encrypted - sure, makes total sense. But isn't the whole point of encryption that downloaded songs can only be replayed through the Spotify app, which wouldn't of course work if they were provided as mp3 files.

I see no point in generating different encryption keys across devices on the fly during installation. Because that would mean that re-installing the spotify app due to a file corruption for example, without deleting the downloaded music library in the process for future use, would render all that encrypted data instantaneously garbage, and would in addition require redownloading a lot of data unneccessarily.

If, however, the encryption key would be invariant, it would make what I requested initially so much easier.

I'm sorry to bother you with this stuff, as a person who is not employed by Spotify these questions might be hard to answer.

But maybe one day an employee stumbles upon this and sees it as a feature request 🙂 ...or could explain why [if at all] you are right.

The other thing, that Spotify only works online in cars, is not true, at least for after market radios. Personally, I use an after market radio, which is essentially a regular Android tablet, happily running the Spotify App with the same features as on every phone, because, in essence, it's the same. So, downloading is not an issue, apart from the aforementioned thing with mobile data volume.

---

[Luan · Accepted solution]

Hey again, @exitsign074 

Don't worry. You don't need to worry about it! 

Actually, when I told you about the encryption, that was the information I've received from our knowledge base. There is no possibility that you transfer the archives between devices because Spotify has on its own a system of encryption that just allows that the files be executable on the same device where they were downloaded. That is the reason why when you perform a clean reinstallation of the app, you need to redownload the songs and playlists again or even because you cannot play these media files on another player app, per example. 

And, when I told you about the in-car media system, I don't know how your car works, but usually, the car doesn't have an integrated storage system that allows that Spotify files it on the car. (I don't know if I'm being clear, at all hahaha). If your car has an integrated storage system, perhaps you should be able to download your songs and store them on your own car.

Finally, you mentioned something about suggestions, so you can suggest any idea for the Spotify Staff here in the community. And you can get more info about the Idea Submission process here.

Be sure that you can count on us always. And if you think I wasn't too helpful for you, let me know and I can escalate it to another person. No hard feelings! 🙂 

Kind Regards,
hezorg

[exitsign074]

Well, thank you very much!

If exporting the data as I would like to is not possible due to encryption, then I am disappointed, but at the moment there seems to be nothing else I can do about it in the support thread.

I will think about posting it as an idea, thanks for suggesting that.

But first I will ponder why Spotify might have made the choice in the first place to generate new encryption keys every time. Maybe there are other things to protect than just the value of music by tying it to a subscription - rendering stealing of the files impossible.

I would like to thank you very much for your time and efforts. Sure, "that's impossible" is not the answer that I hoped for (obviously ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) but you have been most helpful in the way that I don't even need to try 😉

Now I need to use a complicated system of mobile phones to relay my home wifi connection to my car. I only hope I can convince someone here that this is rather... unpleasant. ( •_•)>⌐■-■

...even if it would totally suffice to tie encryption keys to user accounts.

[Luan]

Hey again, @exitsign074 

Happy to know that my answer was useful to you. If your issue/question was solved or answered, I'd like to ask you to mark my reply as a solution and give me kudos! That's important for other people with the same issue to get a useful answer faster.

And remember that you can count on us, always, when necessary!

Best Regards,
hezorg

[DarrenGedye]

Premium user, New Zealand.

I had a large amount of music downloaded on my Samsung A52 and stored on my SD card. Recently my phone died so I purchased a Samsung A05s and swapped the SD card over, and set spotify to use SD card for storage.

I assumed that all my downloaded music would still be available, but none of it is.

1) Do I have to locate the old downloaded music location and point spotify to that location? Or

2) Do I have to download my previously downloded music all over again?

2B) If I have to download my music all over again then are the original downloads wasting space somewhere on my SD card? If so, what do I need to do to recover that space?