Playlist full

[claramson]

When my playlists are getting close to 10 000 they are full and no more songs can be added. Is that the way its designed? And, this is starting to worry me, what happens when the library is getting close to 100 000 songs? 

Of course I make another playlist named "...part 2". That is not the question.

Apologize beforehand if this subject already has been covered. I did a search and could only find that it has happened, not if it was by design.

Love Clara

[Peter__ · Accepted solution]

Playlists do have a maximum length of 10,000 tracks, however I am not aware of any limit on the library tab (since it is just all of the tracks from all of your playlists). 

Peter

[sam-lexky · Accepted solution]

I had a friend who started using Spotify a couple weeks ago and decided to switch back to Rhapsody becasue he said the limit was 3,000 songs. I didn't think that that sounded right, but I'm not really sure. Any insight?

[Joe]

There is a limit of 3,333 spotify tracks which can be downloaded to a device and you can download to three different devices so that, potentially makes 9,999 downloaded tracks in all. Of course, you can stream spotify content without any limit at all.

[sam-lexky]

Thanks for the clarification.

[claramson · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the answers.

The playlist doesnt get full at exacyly 10 000 but very close and all at different numbers so it cant be the number of digits.

Bytes? Well, my Dance list with an avarage of 6 minutes songs gets full a little later the the Rock playlist with shorter songs.

I guess Im just curious. Why?

The 3 333 song to put on a Iphone is clearly by design, but this. A flaw, en error?

Does it matter? For me it does. I start listening at a playlist designed by genre at random and let it play for hours. I listen about 10 hours a day and like the variation within the paylists. Now it gets limted by a 1-3 year of publishing span.

It would be calming to hear from an official spotify rep that it is no limitations on the total amount of library or someone who has over reached it.. Considering the amount of time and effort I have put into to select all those songs a limit would be devastating. Yes, I have listenend to snippets of every 8000+ album before i included them.

[Peter__]

Just to clarify:

- Playlists in general have a maximum number of contained tracks which is ~10,000 tracks. My guess is this restriction is put in place for performance reasons (very very long playlists would be a nightmare to scroll through or load all of the data). Playlists might also contain "hidden" tracks which is why you might not be seeing them all. In the desktop client if you go to Edit/Spotify > Preferences > Playback > Untick "Hide Unplayable Tracks" you will be able to see them all.

- There is no limit on the size of your library, once a playlist gets full you can just make another if you like.

- With Spotify Premium, you can store up to 3,333 tracks (max per device) on offline playlists on up to 3 devices. That restriction is down to the licensing agreements Spotify have with record labels. So on a device, if you try and sync a playlist with 10,000 tracks for offline usage, it will download the first ~3,333 and then stop (assuming you have enough free storage space). 

- If you want official confirmation, you can drop the team an email here 😉

Peter

[claramson]

So its performance reasons then. What is the difference between the performance of a playlist and library. If i can play a library with 80 000 without problem why not a playlist?

Loading you say. Dont understand that. Do you really mean that every time I click on a playlist it gets loaded on a server? Thought streaming made loading unnecessary.

Scrolling you say. Do you mean me searching through the playlist? Same here as in library mode. it can be done, just wonder why. i use the filter function if I want to find something but if i want to scroll i can do it however big.

As for the total not being exactly 10 000 I made the hidden tracks visible and it didnt change the total number of the playlist. 

I really do appreciate your help Peter. it just doesnt make sense for me.

Will drop the team an email

[Peter__]

Ever tried to load a 10,000 track playlist on a mobile device 😛 ? It can be painfully slow!

There is no library function on mobile devices either (which I'm guessing might be a design decision too). 

Peter

[claramson]

Got a reply from Spotify today. They say its not a built in limit,  but wanted to know if I spefically meant added or loading. Stopped or being slow. I clearified I meant adding coming to a total stop.

Will be in touch later about the replies.

As for having music on the phone the 33oo limit its not a problem for me. i usually only listens to short period of time when im out. But I do like having massive playlist from which I can listen hours on end at home. And being able to hear music i added now and 3 years ago.

Clara

[user-removed]

Hey there.

I just hope that Spotify remove this 10,000 song limit. I like to contribute in one playlist and this would be mad thing when playlist is full of songs... I really don't want this to happen, currently 3,500 songs.

[claramson]

As i said in previous message. The answer from Spotify is that there is no "built in limit" at exactly 10 000 songs from their side.

How the problem ocuur, if its due to the slow process receiving info about every song, is still under consideration.

im waiting for furter replies from them and will report here. 

To be clear again, Spotify cannot remove the 10 000 limit because there is no limit imposed by them to start with.

My guess for now is that the system eventually collapses when the data from the playlists gets to big to handle. But again, the last word is not said yet from Spotify.

[Peter__]

I don't believe that, I have made a test playlist below, it currently contains 9,999 tracks. 

I have made it collaborative so anyone can add/remove tracks from it. Try and add a track 😛 

http://open.spotify.com/user/hammeh/playlist/0xsyyxTHyqZMjpPG4jjbBE

Peter

[claramson]

Maybe you should send Spotify an email about it an see what reply you get.

[claramson]

The latest e-mail from Spotift in full:

Hey Clara,

Thanks for getting back to us. Hope you're well today?

As mentioned by my colleague, there isn't a limit on how many songs you can have in a playlist but normally a playlist can handle between 9,000 and 10,000 songs. This is because the Spotify servers will start to struggle if users have more songs than that in a playlist.

I know it's not ideal but I think the best thing to do is to carry on using your playlist part 2 if you wish to add more songs to listen to.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Looking forward to hearing from you. 🙂

Best Wishes,

Joe Dance | CS Advisor
Spotify Customer Service
Cambridge
United Kingdom

[Peter__]

There is no limit, but there is a limit - makes a lot of sense doesn't it 😛 

Peter

[claramson]

So Peter as mentioned in our previous exchange it seems like its not a limit at exactly 10 000 songs which seems correct since my playlists are full before it hits that number.

The suggestion of hidden unplayable tracks tracks messing with the total number are not correct either. Visible or not visible , the numbers change if I remove or add unplayable tracks. Meaning that they are included in the numbers mentioned as a total.

i dont know what the list you have made that has exactly 10 000 songs as a maximum proves, or that I can not reach to that number in my playlists. I saw in another post in a different thread that someone has managed to exceed 10 000 songs.

Guys like you means gold for us users who drops in at the forum occasionally if we have a problem, not to mention for Spotify, the company, But if you dont believe what the Spotift rep says it would be interesting if you did send them a mail arguing that they are wrong. I know I would like to see that debate.

The solution seems to be more powerful servers but i guess that can be a costful solution to a problem which doesnt include that many users. But I still wonder if that also mean the the servers can have problem if the total library gets very large. I will ask them that in my next mail which I had done inte the former e mails but not being adressed at by them.

[claramson]

Meanwhile I wrote a mess adressing our conversation. As seen above. 

I  hope you are not rude or scornful towards me. I think I have kept a civil tone.

[claramson]

And concerning the topic. There is no built in limit at 10 000 songs. There is a limit at 9 000 - 10 000 songs due to not powerful enough servers.

For me it makes sense.  Obviously not for you. Can you elaborate?

I also wonder, do have an adversion towards asking Spotify directly?

[Peter__]

I do have a direct link to talk to the Spotify team so I have asked to see what they say. 

I'm not easily offended, so feel free to write whatever you like haha!

Just been playing around with this, it appears in the desktop client the client will not allow me to add more than 9,999 tracks to a single playlist. However, I can continue to add tracks to that playlist from other apps such as from my iPhone, so it doesn't appear to be a playlist limit server side rather the desktop client is programmed to prevent me making that playlist any longer than 9,999 tracks. 

Peter