What's the difference between "saving" an album and "downloading" an album?

[endlesst0m]

I'm trying to free up space. I went through my albums and "un-saved" many albums that I no longer wanted. To my surprise, this freed up space and I was able to download several other albums.

This led me to wonder what it means to "download" an album? Are both "donwloaded" and "saved" albums available offline?

[Joe · Accepted solution]

No. Your Music / Your Library is where you can find the songs, albums, artists, playlists, podcasts, and videos you've added/saved but you need to download music to be able to listen to it offline.

[Boddha]

That is incorrect, I can listen to my saved music offline even when it is not downloaded.

[Joe]

Only if you have switched on "download" in "All songs" which will cause anything you save to be automatically downloaded. Maybe read the relevant help pages.

Save music, podcasts, and videos

Listen offline

[Boddha]

Ok, so I switched off the "download" option in "all songs", I then saved a song without downloading it. I then turned off the internet, so at no stage was this song downloaded.

I then went to play the "saved" song offline, and it played without me having to download it... so if you can play saved songs offline, then what is the difference between saving a song and downloading a song?

[Joe]

When you listen to a song, it is temporarily stored in the spotify cache to save data and ensure smooth playback even if your internet connection is interrupted. if you want to listen to it again in the short term. You can probably do so, offline, without having saved it (added it to your library).

[Boddha]

That makes a lot of sense, Thank you

[Paddykelly]

Sorry but what was the answer to the "what is the difference between downloaded and saved" question?

I have to hunt all over the app to find the download switch as it's not always on songs but saved is there. Why don't they just have one or both. It's really confusing