The ♡ Heart button is being replaced with a (+) Plus button

[MattSuda]

In March 2023, the ♡ Heart button will start being replaced with a (+) Plus button for saving things to Your Library. Things that have been saved to Your Library will now show a green ✔ Check icon instead of a green Heart icon.

This new experience is now rolling out to the mobile and desktop apps first and will then come to the other apps (watch, TV, etc.) at a later time.

You can check out this Spotify news article for more information:

Save Your Favorite Songs, Podcasts, and More With Spotify’s Plus Button

In this post, we will show you how to use the new experience and answer your questions. You might have already seen this change being discussed in the Community recently.

New Experience:

                                   

Old Experience:

                      

How does the (+) Plus button work?

• The experience will remain similar for you. When you tap the (+) Plus button from the Now Playing View, songs will be saved to your Liked Songs. The only difference is that now you can quickly tap the (+) Plus button again to add the song to your other playlists too! When you tap the button again, you'll also see the other playlists that the song has already been added to with a green ✔ Check icon.

• The experience is the same for Podcast Episodes. You can tap the (+) Plus button to save podcast episodes to Your Episodes, and then tap the button again to add the podcast episode to your other playlists too.

• Once you tap on the (+) Plus button, the icon will change to a green ✔ Check to let you know that the track has been saved.
  
  
• The green ✔ Check icon also shows up next to the songs that are saved to Your Library on Album and Playlist pages. (but not when viewing your own playlists, only other playlists)
  
  When you see a green ✔ Check icon on a song, it means that it has been saved to Your Library. A song added to either (or both) Liked Songs or one of your own playlists counts as being saved to Your Library. Before with the heart button, the green heart icon meant that the song was saved only to your Liked Songs.
  
  If a song has a green ✔ Check icon because is has already been added to one of your playlists, you can still add it to your Liked Songs playlist. Tap on the green ✔ Check icon and select your Liked Songs playlist from the menu and it will be added.

• The (+) Plus button will also still let you save Playlists, Albums, and Audiobooks to Your Library.

• This change will not affect the things you have already saved to Your Library. The songs you've previously saved will remain in Liked Songs. The Playlists, Albums, Podcasts, and Audiobooks you've previously saved will remain in Your Library.

• The "Add to playlist" icon in the options menu will also become a (+) Plus, but the functionality remains the same.

FAQ:

This section will answer your frequently asked questions and will be updated with the latest answers.

Why are the 💚 green heart icons next to songs I've already liked missing? I used to be able to see the songs I've previously liked when viewing songs on Album and Playlist pages.

• The green 💚 Heart icon has been replaced with a green ✔ Check icon
  
  
• The green ✔ Check icon shows up next to the songs that are saved to Your Library on Album and Playlist pages. (but not when viewing your own playlists, only other playlists)
  
  
• When you see a green ✔ Check icon on a song, it means that it has been saved to Your Library. A song added to either (or both) Liked Songs or one of your own playlists counts as being saved to Your Library. Before with the heart button, the green heart icon meant that the song was saved only to your Liked Songs.
  
  
• If you don't yet see the green ✔ Check icon next to songs in track listings (Album and Playlist pages), you should see this once it rolls out to more users.

I want to add a song to a playlist from the Now Playing View, but I don't want to save it to my Liked Songs. Why do I have to save the song to Liked Songs first?

• The (+) Plus button will let you edit the destination of the song you liked. After you have tapped the button from the Now Playing View, you can tap it again to change or add it to more playlists.

• Alternatively, you can still add a song to playlists without saving it to Liked Songs. Go to the options menu by first tapping the "..." icon and then tap on "Add to Playlist" to select the playlist(s) you want to add the song to.

How do I remove a song from Liked Songs or my other playlists now?

How do I remove a podcast episode from Your Episodes or my other playlists now?

• Songs: This same function can now be done by tapping the green ✔ Check button on the Now Playing View or by going to the options menu and tapping on "Add to playlist". After tapping the button or the option in the options menu, uncheck the "Liked Songs" playlist and then tap on the green "Done" button at the bottom. You can also use this menu to remove the song from your other playlists.

• Podcast Episodes: This same function can now be done by tapping the green ✔ Check button on the Now Playing View, on Podcast pages, or by going to the options menu and tapping on "Add to playlist". After tapping the button or the option in the options menu, uncheck the "Your Episodes" playlist and then tap on the green "Done" button at the bottom. You can also use this menu to remove the podcast episode from your other playlists.

What happened to the "Like all songs" menu option on Album pages in the mobile app?

• This same function can now be done by tapping the "Add to playlist" menu option on an album page and then selecting the "Liked Songs" playlist.

What happened to the "Swipe left to Like" gesture to quickly like and unlike songs in the mobile app?

• When you use the "Swipe left to Like" gesture on songs in playlists or in album pages, the song will still be saved to Liked Songs. However, now when you swipe again, the "Add to playlist" menu will open up so you can now quickly add to or remove from Liked Songs and your other playlists all in one step.

Why can I no longer add a song to a playlist more than once using the "Add to playlist" menu in the mobile app? There used to be a popup telling me if a song was already added to a playlist and there was an option to ignore that and add it again.

• Right now the ability to add a song to a playlist more than once using the "Add to playlist" menu in the mobile app is currently not possible. As a workaround you can still add songs to a playlist more than once using the desktop app. In the desktop app, you can drag the song into the playlist, or use the "Add to playlist" option in the right click menu.

Feedback:

Where can I give my feedback about the new (+) Plus button?

• We welcome your feedback about this change. The best way to share your feedback is to comment here in this thread.

[Austin05]

Personally, when I like a song, I also add it to a certain playlist with all of my newly liked songs. It’s tedious to press the 3 dots at the top right, then click add to playlist, then click the playlist I would like to add it to. Every. Time. I know this isn’t an issue for most, but it’s very tedious for me, especially when I’m listening to music and driving.

If you could make it so once you like a song, you can press the like button again and it opens a playlist selection screen, including the “Liked Music” playlist so you can unlike it if you accidentally liked it. This should probably also show the playlists that the song is currently in. This would also make it easier to remove songs from playlists.

Also, another *possible* addition would be to have a small pop up or text box that explains you can use the like button to add music to playlists.

A benefit of this change is that people like me, who add all newly liked music to a playlist, don’t have a headache. 

A possible downside to this change would be that if someone wants to unlike a song (which in my experience is rare) they have to make two extra screen presses.

If this change were made on both PC and mobile, I could see how many people would appreciate it.

[jovem1]

why do you bother making feedback threads if you're going to continue making awful changes that more than half the user responses don't want? are you serious? i understand that your design teams (or whoever manages these awful changes) needs to actually change something in order to keep your jobs and prove you're working, but how about you fix something that needs fixing then - such as playlists no longer repeating automatically, an issue that's been around for months and many updates. you have hundreds of threads to sort through and take actual, USER-BASED suggestions from. but yes, by all means continue confusing the casual customers of this app and driving them away onto other platforms. if i didn't have a duo plan with someone else i would have already cancelled and moved onto the service that came with my phone. who doesn't just love when the app that is supposed to be simple and intuitive is constantly made worse by the dumbest updates imaginable 

in the initial feedback thread some of your most long term customers said that this change was unwanted and overall UNNECESSARY and you went ahead with it anyway. definitely just keep making spotify worse and harder to use. i can't believe i'm paying to be a guinea pig for these god awful "design tests"

[jovem1]

while you're at it, i just can't wait for you to inevitably re-implement that ugly, ridiculous "now playing" interface where the song title was for some reason AT THE TOP OF THE SCREEN, where NO ONE is naturally glancing to, and the sleep timer that no one uses was in the middle of the screen. i'm starting to think your design team is genuinely made up of aliens studying human behaviour and making the most ridiculous guesses as to what we want to see in this app. i hope whoever is finalizing these pointless changes (instead of fixing what actually needs fixing) loses their job and can never work in user design again

i've been on spotify for years and hit almost 150k listening minutes last year. but if i have to go through one more of these awful design tests i'm moving to another platform for good. who do i look like to be paying for this ridiculous**bleep** to be blasted all over my listening experience without permission

[handymonkey]

“The ability to see which songs you've previously liked will return to track listings soon. (Playlist and Album pages) We don't know yet if this icon will still be a green heart. The team is currently working on making this experience better.”

So you’re taking away functionality that the majority of all these commenters wanted, and have wanted, in each post this discussion has come up in. Well, the team has currently made the user experience MUCH WORSE, so working on making it better is the only choice they have. Thanks for making me an Apple Music subscriber.

[BabyEcho0_YT]

@jovem1 it is official that the heart is a plus sign so all of this back and forth argument can stop and if you don't like it you can switch to the computer version and don't have to deal with the Confusion of the plus sign and hey i been in a the situation where i almost deleted my account and stop being on spotify because people started saying rude stuff on my idea but i got over it and ignored those people and moved on and keep my focus on helping people like you, and you can do the same thing by ignoring the fact the heart is a plus sign now and move on to a different path in the spotify community(EX: help people out and try the best you can, create new ideas that will be good for the spotify web player(if you put an idea for changing the plus sign to the heart again it will get closed)

if this post is helpful hit the "Accept as Solution". If you appreciate my answer, maybe give me a Like. follow my spotify? and community account here and if you want a different kind of spotify offline head here and it will be poston the idea submissions when they look through the ideas. keep up the good work!

Note: I'm not a Spotify employee.

[jovem1]

No, I pay monthly to use this service and I'm going to comment if they keep making useless changes. They're asking for feedback and I'm giving feedback, as did the 100s of people in the other thread that were ignored. If you want to just accept that things are "finalized" then you can go ahead and let yourself be steamrolled by the wishes of the company you are GIVING YOUR MONEY TO, for some weird reason, but that is not what I want to do. We are the customers and our opinions are supposed to matter, hence why they bother making these threads in the first place (even if they are hard-pressed to take the suggestions they get).

It's not my job to lurk the forums and try to clean up their messes. There are people at Spotify being paid to do that and they should be doing their jobs.

I am the consumer, I deserve to have an easy listening experience, and I have the right to put my perspective out there when they make changes that don't contribute to that goal. That is the purpose of forums and feedback. 

[MattSuda]

Fun Fact for those tracking history:

The (+) Plus icon is actually what the button used to be before the Heart icon, several years ago. This is pretty much going back to that.

[jovem1]

if we're aiming for a real throwback we could just start pirating music and stop giving our wages to companies like this. with the way things are going now, using youtube-to-mp3-converter to rip all my albums is about as convenient as using spotify

[kaworu_bloodpaw]

@MattSuda

Haha I knew it! Wasn't it a checkmark at one point too? Sometime between like 2015-'16?

Also, great post! It's all very clear and descriptive.

[MattSuda]

@kaworu_bloodpaw 

Thank you! 🙂

It worked similar several years ago to how it will now (expect the adding to other playlists too part) when you hit the plus icon it turned into a check icon.

[thezapperer]

Give the heart button back, the plus is such a worse experience. It doesn't matter that it only adds two extra clicks. The way a lot of people use spotify is as follows-

1. Hear new song on discover weekly or radio while doing something else, like driving.

2. Click the heart. 

3. Continue listening/going about their business. 

4. Later on, when they're ready to organize their music, they move songs from "liked" to more specific playlists. If they don't like the song, they simply like the heart again. 

I don't want to add more clicks to this. I just want to click one thing that is the simplest way to visualize a "like" which is a heart. We literally can say "I ❤️ you" instead of "I like/love you" because a heart is the fastest way to symbolically convey 'like'. My "liked" playlist isn't a playlist so much as it is a big storage bin for later organization, and a place I can just hear every song I've ever enjoyed on spotify. Beyond that, the heart symbol just has a certain feeling to it. It makes me glad to see it. That's some kind of subconscious thing, but it definitely adds to the experience, even if it's subtle. 

A plus/check does not convey the same idea. I went to check the liked status of a song and was confused by the check. The only place most people have seen a checkmark is on twitter, where it is used to denote verified/official accounts. So I saw the artist name with a check next to it and thought, "huh, guess artists are verified now? but where is the like button? it took me a minute to figure out what had happened. Sure, it only adds two more clicks. But I like spotify because it's so FAST and EASY to use. I can easily click the heart icon when I'm doing something else. It's a large easy target to hit. I don't want to mess around with scrolling and menus when I'm busy doing something else. I don't care if the "liked" section is the default playlist to add things to. I don't want to click other things. I'm cooking or folding laundry or doing homework. I don't want to open my phone, click a plus, click liked, click done. I don't want to fatfinger and add it to another playlist by mistake. If I realize I don't actually want to keep the song in my liked, I could just click the heart again. You've turned a 2 click series into 6 clicks for literally no reason. 

It's insane, because you FINALLY perfected the driving view. The driving view is perfect, it has everything I want to see big and easy and accessible. It stays open so I can easily and safely navigate. Never touch that again. It's a mature, perfect design. 

I already have an iphone. I love spotify, but this is such an obnoxious change that I will switch to apple music out of spite. There are freely available tools to transfer out all my playlists, it'd take maybe an hour to switch over. I actually made an account here to beg for this to be reverted. PLEASE bring the heart back, or figure out another way to let me add a song to my liked with one touch. 

[thezapperer]

@MattSuda

@kaworu_bloodpaw 

Cool bit of history! Let's leave it there :^) No reason to revert a change that happened like 7 to 8 years ago when people are so clearly happy the way things are now. There was no reason to do this. They probably changed to the heart from the check initially because it tested well in beta. 

[Hubo]

Thanks for the run-down Matt! 👌

[BabyEcho0_YT]

i will try to get used to the plus sign but i will still will still use my computer with the heart thanks matt

if this post is helpful hit the "Accept as Solution". If you appreciate my answer, maybe give me a Like. follow my spotify? and community account here and if you want a different kind of spotify offline head here and it will be poston the idea submissions when they look through the ideas. keep up the good work!

Note: I'm not a Spotify employee.

[BabyEcho0_YT]

@MattSuda

what do you guys use to make your videos so i can start editing for my brother

if this post is helpful hit the "Accept as Solution". If you appreciate my answer, maybe give me a Like. follow my spotify? and community account here and if you want a different kind of spotify offline head here and it will be poston the idea submissions when they look through the ideas. keep up the good work!

Note: I'm not a Spotify employee.

[asfaraseyescansee]

I ended up on this forum while trying to come on to complain about the new single-stream scroll setup of the home page, and this is the page that Spotify Help linked in relation to that issue. The issue of heart/plus has no relation to the new constraints placed on each person's algorithmic choices and is purely a cosmetic change. Seriously how long did you guys spend redesigning the like animation to a plus/check when you could have added a dislike button instead? and all the while our actual choices from the moment we open the app have been greatly reduced. Please stop confining your users to what you think the algorithm should look like and instead, give us more choices instead of less. There are a dozen ways I can think of to allow for more user freedom on this platform, which would continue growing the diversity and quantity of music that is supportable on this application rather than gatekeeping it and forcing people to click on the first shiny thing that they see. Irresponsible and anti-democratic.

[kaworu_bloodpaw]

Hey @asfaraseyescansee

You can provide feedback on the new home screen UI design in this thread.

I believe it has not been finalized.

[asfaraseyescansee]

@kaworu_bloodpaw Thanks for the information! I'll repost something similar there.

[pjtaylor49]

 What a shame that feedback was ignored and you are proceeding with the change anyway with no way of users to keep the heart. I will be switching to Apple Music once it hits my phone.

[Njruch]

This new update does add a nice feature but diminishes the whole point of the like button. Before I'd be able to see which songs I've added to liked music from my playlists. Now for each song I have to click the like button just to even check if the song is liked or just added to my playlist. Then if I want to add a new song to a playlist I have to unclick add to liked songs and then add the my playlist. So it's not even really saving me anytime to add to a playlist. Overall I think this feature is a failure and the like button should be added back and maybe even keep this add button next to the like button so I can still add to playlists. But overall it's adding more time to curate my playlists and liked songs.