Spotify starts playing automatically when a bluetooth device is connected and phone makes a sound

[jazengo]

Plan

Premium

Country

Norway

Device

Samsung S9

Operating System

Android 11

My Question or Issue

Whenever a bluetooth device is connected to my phone, Spotify automatically starts playing the last song it was paused on if my phone makes any "noise". If I recieve a Messanger message, it starts playing as soon as the "bing" sound is over. It starts playing automatically after I've hung up a call, etc.

I've disabled auto play, I've reinstalled the app and cleared cache.
Under "car view", both "Turn on automatically" and "Always on" is disabled.

I'm unsure what more I can do.

[Banffman]

You can't really call them "well-intentioned" when it's been a problem for so long for so many people on so many different devices, and nothing is done about, just the same garbage vomited by "developers" from their script because they can't admit they don't know how to fix it.

[FreekB66]

Well, I am not a Spotify developer. I just wanted to help people to
understand the annoying behaviour of the app. I don't see why that is *not*
well intentioned.

My suggestion was called 'BS' by another user though. I find that a
disrespectful reaction.

But when this is the apparent culture in this forum, to just complain and
not value people who just try to be helpful, well, then I'm off. I've got
better things to do with my time.

[janice1764]

I am having the same issue in 2023 with a Samsung S21 and  new Bose headphones. The only way to get it to stop is to delete the app. Why is taking years for Spotify to look into this! This is annoying!

[pduisters]

Hello,

Every time when I plugging headphones or connect with bluetooth headphones my spotify starts playing on that device. This is really irritating because I sometimes just want to make a phone call and want to keep the music on the device it is already on. 

How can I stop this switching between devices?

Thanks

[lbdsgn]

Suddenly, desktop Spotify immediately begins or resumes playback when a streaming device is chosen. I do not like this new behavior. It takes control away from the user. 

[emrerbay]

Clean install solved the problem.

Samsung A12

Urbanears Boo

[#8]

When my phone has a Bluetooth connection to a vehicle and open the Spotify app, it will automatically play random music in my library or if I already have podcast paused, the screen will go dark until I hit the back arrow where it will exit out of what it was paused on

[Susan_GP]

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community and welcome!

If you perhaps are using Android Auto, go to the Android Auto app > Settings and look for an option that should say something along the lines of "Start music automatically" or "Automatically start media when you start driving".

If you're not using it, then we'd recommend reinstalling the Spotify app on your device to check if that makes a difference. Additionally, let us know if this “autoplay” happens using just one Bluetooth device or if it happens with any Bluetooth device connected.

Lastly, send over the make, model, and OS version of your device, along with the Spotify version you're running.

We'll be here!

[Barb9]

When my phone connects to the car via Bluetooth, the loop starts automatically. It continues even if the Bluetooth connection is disconnected, so I have to deactivate it manually each time. Is there a way to get around this?

[jorgesilberstein]

When I start my car, Spotify automatically begins playing, even when the app is closed. I pause it and close the app, then open Google Maps. However, if I adjust the volume, Spotify starts playing again. This is extremely frustrating, and I'm considering canceling my premium subscription because of it.

[3cmr]

Device: Samsung Tab S7+
OS: Android 13
Headphones: Samsung Buds Pro

I'm working on a tablet, using the headphones. Spotify is off. Not even started previous few days. After I touched the headphones or put them back to the case, Spotify starts to play music. It may happened even Spotify was force stopped.

Preferable behavior: Spotify do nothing until it was not opened and music runed from the app.

How often it occurs: sometimes - few times a day, even after program force stop. Mainly - a few times a week.

[Airigh]

When connecting to my external Bluetooth adapter in my car, Spotify automatically starts playing Songs. How can one deactivate that, it does not happpen when connecting to my BT headphones

[peon007]

Premium account, same problem.  When a Bluetooth device connects (car, headphones) Spotify auto launches on my android device.  I have several other audio and music players and Spotify is the only one that auto launches on Bluetooth connection.

[ESTIBEN3]

I am also experiencing issue #1 with Spotify and Android Auto. Spotify automatically starts playing when I adjust the volume even if another application was previously playing audio. 

[Rafaelhenck]

2025 and here we are with this issue unsolved albeit happening for years and recurrently reported. It clearly shows that Spotify isn't interested in solving it.

[Temba]

The most recent "answer" makes no sense, and seems to be clearly trying to pass the buck on what is pretty clearly a bug they are either unwilling or unable to fix.

"""Bluetooth""" cannot kick in Spotifys door and force it to play. Neither can Android Auto or any other app. All access to Spotifys API is defined and mediated by the Spotify App. The OS sends it requests and notifications through a number of channels, which it handles how it sees fit. In some cases, it sees fit to ignore the user and os settings and plays on connect anyway, possibly due to a number of different situations.

It is entirely possible that the OS is delivering messages that are indistinguishable from legitimate user interaction. However, this seems unlikely given the 5-6 years of bug reports across multiple platforms i just dug through. It also seems unlikely since this apparently sometimes *doesn't* happen.

I'm my case it's pretty clear its a bug with Android Auto interaction, since the behavior doesn't occur when hooking up to the same car using a standard Bluetooth connection instead of Android Auto. Its also telling that *no other media app other than Spotify* has this behavior. It's also not device based as claimed, since its persisted for me across multiple phones and cars. While there's still a bit of room for a third party app to be triggering this behavior, the fact is that Spotify can craft their API in a way that allows fine grained control of what other apps can do with it. From where I'm sitting there's no reasonable explanation for why this isn't fixable. I'd be happy to hear one, but the ones given so far are simply bad.

[Muffin_15813]

I keep having the same problem every single day, I turn my phone on, plug my headphones in, and start watching something on one of my apps. Suddenly, my spotify playlist randomly starts playing even though I turn it off in the background, and I remove the "Now Playing" bar. It keeps playing, and it's starting to frustrate me. Im not sure what to do. I checked through all the settings and still nothing that could help.

I hope someone can help,

Thanks.

[5H4D0W]

March 2025 and this is still an issue. Nothing I can't stand more than having spotify running in the background on my phone without the actual app open. 

[Jposton56]

This still doesn't work for me in still have to force stop on my s23 and I hate having to constantly do that. Same thing with the auto play. Every time I connect my phone to my truck by bluetooth it automatically starts playing music and I have tried everything to disable that too and nothing works

[n9bitmap]

Six years in and Spotify devs have not figured this out. I've been searching for about and hour, and this looks like the issue. They register in the application manifest, 

"android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON

This lets the application respond to an event EVEN WHEN NOT RUNNING. The proper way is not to register in the manifest but to dynamically register the action when launched and unregister on app close. Then, after your other app interrupts with a notification and broadcasts to let another app resume, Spotify won't get the resume notice unless it is actually running at the time.