Where does Spotify save the offline playlist files?

[beric0]

I have a samsung galaxy S2 and recently started using spotify. I set up the offline sync to the directory /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/media/spotify. After syncing up a few playlists, I can indeed listen to them offline using Spotify.

However, I would like to find these song files if possible or at least have the media scanner on Android find them so I can use a different player to listen to these songs from the offline playlists. Inside the SD drive, I can find the spotify folder with directories /android/data/com.spotify.mobile.android.ui/ and then /cache and /files. However exploring further, I cannot find any audio files.

Where are they hiding them? Thanks for your help on this difficult question.

[beric0]

Hey folks,

Downloaded playlists/ albums are stored on your device in the form of cache files. 

You can follow the instructions in this Support Article in order to change the default downloads location on your device.

NOTE: On Android devices, try formatting your SD card as Portable storage if you want to save data manually to it. If it is formatted as Internal storage, the OS will see it as the same pool of memory as your phone's internal storage and you won't have control over where Spotify saves downloads.

Please be aware that you need to go Online every 30 days in order to keep your downloaded files.

Hope you find this info helpful. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions.

[Afront]

Generally ou can only use Spotify to play offline music synced from Spotify.

The files are Ogg Vorbis format but encrtyped by Spotify, so no other media scanner will recognize them as music files. 

[beric0]

So even if I get a media player on my phone that can play ogg files, it still won't be able to detect the song files from spotify because theyre hidden? So there is basically no way to get these song files. This makes it kind of annoying because it means I have to switch between media players because spotify's local library usability is frankly **bleep**.

Is it possible to find the song files on my computer if I have those same playlists synced so they can be played offline on the computer? It'll be a hassle to transfer to my phone but at least ill have them.

Thanks, your the best lol.

[licenced · Accepted solution]

No, they are protected with DRM - encrypted - so that you cannot play them with anything else. If they weren't then there would no need to pay every month - just download everything you wanted, copy the files off then unsubscribe ... you can understand why they do this (aside from the fact that the content providers wouldn't submit any of their content to Spotify if the files weren't protected in this way)

[calebamiles]

Hello, 

I have an almost identical question. I have a Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 and I would like to use my SD card to store my offline music, however, in the current version of Spotify available from the Google Play Store, I see no "more" tab so that "more->settings" is nonsensical. Also pressing, also holding, the menu key on the device at the login screen has no effect. Finally I see no option now to clear offline files. Perhaps the tutorial snippet is in need of an update? Thanks for your help solving this issue. 

[licenced]

Hi calebmiles. Thats not really the same question.

Check this thread for the SD card question: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/New-Android-app-preview-save-to-external-SD-card/td-p...

And this one for clearing the cache: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/quot-Official-quot-new-application-release-missing-fe...

In summary, neither feature exists any more, so yes the tutorial needs updating if they are still mentioned

[calebamiles]

Thanks for the amazingly quick response, kudos to whoever is on support watch this week  Yes, the old doccumetaion needs to be refreshed. 

[Pongalong]

I have a partially related question; I install custom ROMS pretty often and each time I lose my downloaded playlists. So I have a few questions:

1. How can I backup the playlists? Titanium Backup doesn't seem to work, although I had one instance where I did not have to re-download my playlist.
2. If I can't backup the playlist, it seems like the downloaded songs are still taking up space on the phone/card. Do I need to "undownload" all my playlists before I install a new ROM to make sure I don't lose that space?

[agoodpub]

AFAIK The playlists are "backed up" (saved) on your account.  The data (the actual music files) are stored on your device (if you've downloaded them of course!) What you are seeing is that the link between your playlists and the actual files is lost.  That happens regularly to me (and I'm not flashing differerent ROMs) - its a bug.  In may case, when i "download" the playlist again, it re-establishes the link - without actually downloading the actual music files again.

[Pongalong]

That doesn't seem to be the case for me. Redownloading the playlist ends up eating up more and more space and takes quite a while rather than restoring the links.