Spotify doesn't give me the option to use my SD card

[#1]

When I go to settings it doesn't show the option to move my downloads to my SD card

[kakol20]

Plan

Premium single

Country

UK

Device

Samsung Galaxy A20

Operating System

Android 11, One UI 3.1, September 1 2022 Patch Level

My Question or Issue

After my phone updated I lost the option to change the downloaded location to my SD card. I know that there's nothing wrong with my SD card because other apps let me use my SD Card.

[Lyubka]

Hey there folks,

Thank you for reaching out here in the Community!

Could you try to log out > restart your phone > log back in to see if that makes any difference for you? It's also a good idea to try clearing your cache to remove any old files that might be causing issues.

We'd suggest take out the SD card and put it back in to see if that'll make any difference as well.

In case you still don't have the option, we'd recommend performing a clean reinstall of the app. It'll get you the latest app version with all necessary updates and fixes and remove any corrupted files from previous installations. 

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes.

[kakol20]

I have tried all of the above. I reformatted my SD card, reinstalled Spotify, took out my SD card, and restarted my phone.

I can not do a proper clean install of Spotify because I have Android 11, and I do not have access to the com.spotify.music folder.

[Joan]

Hi there @kakol20,

Thanks for the reply. Would it be possible for you to:

1. Try installing Spotify on a different Android phone with a different SD card and checking if it works?
2. Try using the same SD card on a different phone to see if that works?

Keep us posted.

[WulfricWulfstan]

I'm going to go through this one more time as I'm getting a bit fed up repeating myself. Back in October 2022 there was an Android update. After this I noticed that I was getting the problem where the music wasn't playing, that the time counter was staying at 0, even though the Play button had changed to the Pause button.

Having tried to resolve this I removed the App and reinstalled it, at which time the Playlist problem happened. The Playlists were there, but contained no listings. i removed the SSD card and reinstalled the App. All was ok, the playlists were back as normal. So I reinserted the SSD, at which point the playlist issue came back. Further to this when you went in the Storage option you couldn't change back to the Internal storage. If I left the SSD out and installed the App from fresh all was ok, however as soon as the SSD was inserted the same problems came back. At this point I reverted to using an old Galaxy S3 that had been updated. That worked ok.

In December as I was fed up with not being able to use my Bluetooth headset on the old phone I contacted Spotify support via Facebook. They proceeded to go through some troubleshooting with me... which has now made things worse. The the playlists are working ok, but this is basically because there is now only one storage option, the Internal one. The option to select the SSD isn't in settings anymore.

You keep telling us to swap the cards out, to format them, try a new one, but none of this appears to be working. Not only this but our cards are being seen by the Phones as we are able to download files to them, store our photos on them, store our movies on them and other audio files. So the issue isn't with our cards, it's the App and probably how it is talking to Android.

[ShallowHal]

I have a different but similar problem.  Spotify does recognize my SD card and does give me the option to move files there, however the process for moving the files to the SD card rarely works properly.  After a clean install, if I download files to the SD card, after a device reboot the app will then switch the storage option to Local Storage and start trying to download songs there.

The problem is your app.  Fix the damn app.

[Steamworks]

Samsung A10e running Android 11 with all available OS updates applies running Spotify versioni 8.7.92.521

The option to use my SD card doesn't appear at all. I've already tried doing a clean reinstall and all that jazz. Other apps have 0 issue accessing the SD card. I can pop the card in a card reader, and it works fine there. 

[Yordan]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the reports.

We've forwarded this to the attention of our tech folks who'll look further into it. We'll keep you posted here as soon as we have any new info to share, so stay tuned.

Cheers!

[cleyclun]

Plan

Premium

Country

Turkey

Device

Samsung Galaxy A20

Operating System

Android 11

I was saving all my songs to SD card until a system update (some security update if I remember correctly). After the update, all my songs got deleted and storage selection button disappeared from settings. Is this some kind of a weird bug happened with my phone or Spotify recently removed that feature.

I also completely deleted Spotify app and formatted my SD card. But it didn't helped.

[Taylith]

Hello @cleyclun , welcome to the community 😄

I believe I experienced something similar a few days ago on my Samsung.

Could you head over to settings and quickly make sure the Spotify app has storage permissions and if possible, access to the SD card.

Afterwards you can restart your device so that the storage button reappears within the app. (that's what I did anyway)

I hope this issue will be resolved soon enough and do reach out if you need further assistance.

Take care and happy new year 💚

[cleyclun]

I tried it but sadly it didn't worked.

Also Spotify can see my mp3 files in my SD card and play them. So, it's probably not about permissions.

My best guess is that the latest firmware blocks something about Spotify. But I don't have time to install previous version of firmware and reinstall all my stuff to test it. But if it helps, I might try to record `logcat` output or something.

Thanks anyway.

[Taylith]

Hello once again @cleyclun 

I've learnt that there have been reports similar to yours and the matter is being looked into.

In the meantime, I'll move your post over to this thread and you can subscribe to it for updates.

Take care

[OscarDC]

Hey folks,

Thank you for your patience.

The relevant teams are already aware of the situation but they keep investigating the case. Since we need as much info as possible, would you mind checking if the app has all permissions granted on your device settings? This is because the app needs writing and reading permissions on storage to be able to recognize the SD card slot.

Also, in case you haven't done it before, include in your next response the OS version and the Spotify version you're currently running.

We appreciate your patience and cooperation. We'll be on the lookout.

[ShallowHal]

It's the job of your app to assign the permissions. People shouldn't have to be system administrators to make your app work.

[OscarDC]

Hey folks,

Thank you for waiting.

The relevant team has already confirmed a new update is available for all users and it should fix the issue. In order to make sure that the stored cache will not affect the proper behavior of the app, we'd recommend performing a clean reinstall by following the steps in this article. It will also ensure that you have the latest version installed.

If by any chance the issue persists, include in your next response the make, model and OS version of your device, along with the Spotify version you're currently running to make the relevant team aware of it.

We'll be around.

[cleyclun]

Samsung Galaxy A20, Android 11 A205FXXSBCVI2 / A205FOJMBCVJ2 / A205FDDSBCVI2 September 1 2022 security patch (latest firmware, Turkey)

Spotify version: 8.8.0.347

Issue still persists after a clean reinstall. Also Spotify can see my other mp3 files in my SD card as "Local Files" and can play them. Storage permissions are given as "Allow access to media only". This problem is not about client side. SD card is clearly reachable and Spotify can access them too. You guys should investigate what is incompatible with this firmware.

[SadieGeez]

Samsung Galaxy A10e
Android 11
Spotify version 8.8.2.434

Did clean install, no change. Still no option to move to SD card in either Spotify or Android settings. Permissions for app are "Allow access to media only."

[Steamworks]

Samsung Galaxy A10e, Android 11, Spotify 8.8.2.434

No option to use my SD card yet. Did verify that it had SD card permissions.

[Alex]

Hi folks,

Thanks for reaching out about this and sharing your device info.

Can you let us know when exactly this started happening, like after an app or OS update?

Can you also send us some screenshots of how the settings menu looks on your end?

Cheers.