Spotify Offline Mode - How does it work?

[SimonsCat]

Hello

I am planning to buy Spotify Premium in order to be able to listen to Spotify on my Android device. Before I do so, I have some questions I didn't find the answers for (yet).

1) When I've downloaded a playlist for offline mode, does it use my Internet connection for playing the playlist while being in online mode? In other words: Can I use offline playlists in online mode?

2) If I search for a specific album in Spotify (which I actually have in one of my offline playlists), does it stream from the Internet or use the offline playlist to play the songs?

3) If I have the same song in two different playlists I want to download, does it store the song on my device twice or just once? Does Spotify download each song individually or just the playlist in one file?

4) How much space does a 3-minute song downloaded for offline mode approximately use on my device?

EDIT: found the answer:

Quality 96 kbps => 0.72 MB per minute.
Quality 160 kbps => 1.2 MB per minute.
Quality 320 kbps => 2.4 MB per minute.

I hope you can help me and thanks in advance

Simon

[jeffbeck]

Hi Peter,

Thank you so muc for your help. I'm just curious if this is documented anywhere besides these forums as far as "offline" plays being counted for artist royalties and compensation...?

Thank you in adavance

J.

@Peter wrote:
Spotify counts all plays even when offline and reports them for artist royalties when you are next online. 😉

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[Daniel]

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@junglepuma wrote:

I have a question that I'm not sure if I'm just dense and reasking the questions these other users have asked... However, in your support articles it has a reminder to "turn off offline mode anytime you want to stream." So, here is my question. When I turn Offline Mode off...the green arrows next to my songs disappear which make me feel as if they are no longer saved to my device? And if so and I have to go into offline mode somewhere without a WiFi signal, will I still be able to listen to the songs I originally downloaded in offline mode without using data to REdownload everytime I switch from streaming to offline?

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Hi there, once you have downloaded them for offline use then they should remain on your device unless you either downgrade from premium, clear your cache (or a cache cleaner automaticlly does this on your phone) or if you were to make them playlist no longer available for offline listening.

Basically you should be OK. And remember you need to go online at least once every 30 days so that the licence verification can happen else you will not be able to access your offline tracks anyway.

[Daniel]

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@jeffbeck wrote:

Hi Peter,

Thank you so muc for your help. I'm just curious if this is documented anywhere besides these forums as far as "offline" plays being counted for artist royalties and compensation...?

Thank you in adavance

J.

@Peter wrote:
Spotify counts all plays even when offline and reports them for artist royalties when you are next online. 😉

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Hi @jeffbeck you can read all about how the royalties system for Spotify as well as more info regarding how Spotify affects artists on the official site here: http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/

[BigT9976]

I have downloaded several playlists to my Spotify, and it works great in offline. My only concern is about my data usage. Yesterday I was listening to Spotify in online mode without WiFi(4G) for about 3hrs on one artists radio and when I started listening my data was at .566MB of data and after that 3 hours I was at 1.112GB??? How in the world did I use this much data??? When I listen to Pandora it might use .3MB for my 8 hour workday. When I looked at my data usage it had spiked tremendously that day, then I looked at Spotify usage and it showed .1MB foreground usage and .8MB for background usage, can someone please explain this??? I have changed my settings in my phone to only use background data on wifi. And when I listen to my playlists I make sure its in offline mode?

[mitnavnerbo]

Hi everyone 🙂
Got this question:
I know that you can turn on/off offline mode in Spotify's "settings". But you can also do that in every single playlist.
If it's turned off in settings but on in playlist, will it always automatically use synced version or will it still stream if connected to wi-fi?

The reason I ask this question is due to settings of streaming and sync quality.

Kind regards
Bo

[Willow113]

But do i need internet to be offline

[Daniel]

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@Willow113 wrote:
But do i need internet to be offline

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Hi. Definitely not, that's one of the great things about it. I use it on the plane loads!

[leandroddantas]

Hello,

So the only playlist I followed is the "Discover Weekly" and I downloaded it to offline. Next monday this playlist will be updated and new songs will be downloaded. My question is: the songs from the previous week, which are no longer part of the playlist, will automatically be deleted from my device or they'll still be there? Thanks in advance.

[Daniel]

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@leandroddantas wrote:

Hello,

So the only playlist I followed is the "Discover Weekly" and I downloaded it to offline. Next monday this playlist will be updated and new songs will be downloaded. My question is: the songs from the previous week, which are no longer part of the playlist, will automatically be deleted from my device or they'll still be there? Thanks in advance.

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Hi,

The playlist will synchronise with the managed playlist on the server. This means that any tracks which are no longer on the playlist will not be available to play on your device. If you find any tracks that you like you should save these to your library in order to make sure you can later retrieve it. 

[user-removed]

...

[Joe]

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@mulayne wrote:

I do not understand this. If I'm offline, how does Spotify know what and when I play something? I'm really hesitant about subscribing to premium because it seems difficult and cumbersome to me.

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You need to go online every 30 days so that spotify can collect play data and to check that your subscription is still active. If you don't, your offline access will be withdrawn.

[krongen]

I've downloaded many songs in spotify and marked them for offline-playing.

It happens very often that  -  if there is no online connection  -  I can't listen to my songs offline!

What did I wrong?

Must I go to my settings and put into the offline-mode during I stil have a online connection?

Greetings Klaus R.