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.

[Clown418]

@MattSuda, I see 3 ways to keep the new functionality and bring back the lost one :

• Have both the heart and the plus/checkmark, or
• Let users choose between the heart and the plus/checkmark in settings
• Give users another way to rate song and know which one is our favorite 

If neither of these options aligns with Spotify's direction, I see another one that might help mitigate the change for some unhappy users like myself. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement.

• When you browse someone else's playlist, the green checkmark appears when a song is in one of your playlists. However, when you browse your own playlists, the green checkmark only appears when a song is present in another one of your playlists. 

For users, like me, loving to add full albums in my playlists, it will still not help me to find my favorite songs from an artist (as every albums of this artist might be in at least one of my playlists), but at least, I will be able to find my favorite songs inside my playlist... 

My playlist 1 (my Liked Songs playlist, for exemple)

Artist A - Song 1	Green ✔️
Artist B - Song 2	White ➕
Artist G - Song 3	White ➕
Artist D - Song 4	White ➕

My playlist 2 (With 200 different albums)

Artist A - Song 1	Green ✔️
Artist A - Song 2	White ➕
Artist A - Song 3	White ➕
Artist A - Song 4	White ➕

Someone else playlist or a Spotify's playlist

Artist W - Song 2	White ➕
Artist A - Song 1	Green ✔️
Artist Y - Song 3	White ➕
Artist D - Song 4	Green ✔️

Artist A - Album (as you see, this is not useful to find my favs songs of this albums...)

Artist A - Song 1	Green ✔️
Artist A - Song 2	Green ✔️
Artist A - Song 3	Green ✔️
Artist A - Song 4	Green ✔️

[CM970]

I used the heart sign to find songs within a certain user generated playlist.  If I have 100 songs on a playlist I created, but 10 are my favorite (and i would like/heart those 10), I used to be able to see a green heart.  This functionality is lost, and makes sorting through large playlist (for your favorites) very difficult, honestly impossible.  It would be awesome if spotify could revert or show green check (if hearts are out).  Thanks.

[evcm]

@MattSuda

"Hey folks, thanks for posting your feedback about the new (+) Plus button experience. We are not able to reply to every single comment here, however all feedback is being read and sent to the team for review.

Here are the latest updates for December 2023:

• The (+) Plus button experience is now rolling out to the desktop app and Web Player (other apps will be coming at a later time)

• The FAQ has been updated with the latest info about now being able to see your previously saved songs in track listings (Album and Playlist pages)"

LMAOOOO, what a wonderful way of saying "We're sending your feedback to our team that doesn't give a single sh*t for it, and will continue to roll out this change that 90% of our community has shown nothing but a deep hatred for, because well, we don't give a single sh*t if any of you hate it, and have been set in stone on this change since we rolled it out, but we don't wanna tell any of you guys that, and are instead gonna ask for your feedback that we aren't going to listen to to provide you with a false sense of hope." 🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼

[Samppa3]

This ain't no correct way to develop app, do unnecessary changes (READ: unwanted changes) and then force people to use it.

I would fire the person who came up with this change and also fire the person who approved it.

[shane_b]

THIS IS A TERRIBLE UPDATE GUYS!

While the update adds some nice new features, such as being able to simultaneously add a song to multiple playlists or easily check which playlists a particular song is already in, it removes a MAJOR piece of functionality and the fact that you can't view the songs you've liked on an album page or playlist seems like a HUGE oversight. This makes no sense!

Have a I liked the song? Or is it just in one of my playlists? There's no way to be sure without clicking on each track with a green tick to check one by one. This adds so much more time to this process and for me personally as well as people I've spoken to, it massively reduces the functionality of the site and reasons we love Spotify. Mobile app, fine, no biggie, but you need to be able to easily view which songs you have liked on album pages and playlists from the Desktop app like any other music service.

One solution would be to keep both the heart and the + symbol side by side. Why can't the two be separated? One is to Like the song, the other is to add or remove it from a playlist. Very simple.

Otherwise, Spotify should only display the green tick for songs that have been Liked, not songs that are in one of my hundred or more playlists. Why do I need to know at a glance if songs are in one of my playlists? I don't! I can easily click on the + button for that information if desired.

[shane_b]

Please don't change the web player as well... it's now the only way left I have to use Spotify in a meaningful way to research, sort and like new music. Unfortunately the alternative is just not workable in its current state, without the ability to easily see liked songs at a glance.

[Botbuster]

can you at least make it so you don't have to hover the cursor onto the songs so you can see what songs have been liked or not

[VarthDader]

This update completely removes a core functionality of how I use Spotify. I have to jump through menus now to see what songs I have liked, instead of looking at the heart and knowing I have already liked it. I wouldn't mind the additional functionality IF the heart icon were already present. The update will most certainly end up with me removing a song from a playlist without having "liked" it. I mainly use playlists to discover new songs and then like them. Please give us an option to display the heart in a column view.

I have been using Spotify for close to ten years now, and I have hated the way most the design decisions clamp functionality. There was nothing wrong with a simple tabular view where you could drag columns around to change spacing (this is especially relevant to song titles that had long names), you removed the artist column, heck even the liked songs where the artist is the second one doesn't show up on the artist page as liked. Most of the songs I have liked long ago don't even reflect as a heart on the relevant album. And now the heart is put in menus behind menus.

I know you people at Spotify don't listen to feedback, and I am only posting this so other people are aware that they are not alone in their frustration with all your changes.

/rant

[AcrylicAlysz]

Wait… you’re saying feedback is being read and that you’re still going ahead with the rollout for desktop? Read the feedback again. 

Though listening to any interviews with the ceo about the new ux- it’s clear he’s condescending towards his listening customers so I cannot imagine that he’s encouraging his staff to take user feedback seriously.  

[bosi]

In a post from 2022, Spotify launches an update to all IOS users(?). In a summary of the user comments, Spotify says:

So far, the following main areas of feedback have been taken taken into account and forwarded to the relevant team (this being a summary, with the actual report being more in-depth):

• Adding a whole album to a playlist is really useful.
• Swiping to add a song to the user's Liked Songs is practical.
• Adding songs to other playlists works well, but adding songs to the Liked list now takes more actions, which isn't ideal.
• The "heart" symbol in Now Playing view just looks visually better to you and makes it easier to tell if a track has been added specifically to your Liked Songs.
• Tracks no longer having a "heart" symbol on the artist page or when viewing albums and playlists is dearly missed.
• When tapping the "plus" symbol, the Liked Songs playlist should be deselected OR it should be separate from the "heart".

Don't worry - the current changes are something we're still testing out, so they aren't final.

Very funny. Another funny statement by Spotify in this thread is 

EDIT: We've double checked this with the right teams and indeed the heart icon will be missing next to your songs while browsing your playlists. We're gathering all feedback about this here though, so rest assured it has been passed on. This is exactly what we're looking for to ensure we're making the right changes and to tweak things moving forward. Keep it coming!

This was one year ago. Then what happens? Spotify rolls out this exact sh*t to all users!!!

A user wrote "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? " and 308 people has liked it. I liked it too.

I read in the news that Spotify is going to layoff a great number of employees. I wonder why. Maybe does Spotify wish to get out of this business.

[pizzaskull]

This change is @$$ seriously, what the **bleep**. Bring the heart back, or add a heart next to the plus, so I can like the song more easily, and see which ones are liked more easily.  

[MattHarra]

It really messes up my flow of how i listen to music to not be able to see at a glance which songs I've hearted and which I have not. Now I need to go through one by one and see if they were added to "Liked Songs" - huge pain in the **bleep**.

[twf85]

When you changed the ♥ to a ➕, I could see the logic in that decision. It seems few apps have much love for hearts these days.

I'm not a fan of the circle with a plus sign in the middle (the circle typically has no significance and adds nothing, in my opinion, beyond appealing to a designer who does not like a naked plus sign), so I wasn't thrilled by the change; however, I could still tell which songs were Saved when browsing other playlists.

With your latest change, I have lost that ability (at least within my existing playlists).

I'm a big fan of the Discover Weekly feature, so much so that I "archive" it each week (just so that it will make it easier to find a song I might have stuck in my head later on).

For me to Save a song, it usually needs to be something I either love immediately or find myself humming along and tapping my feet after 3-4 listens. These songs, to me, are above average.

I appreciate that we can make an unlimited number of playlists, but I do not like the direction the Liked Songs "playlist" is headed in. Those songs used to be special and you could identify them wherever they were in the app.

I may not remember the name of the song or even the artist, but those icons offered critical context clues, which really helped me navigate my playlists. I would really appreciate it if you could restore some way of quickly identifying which songs are Saved when browsing playlists.

[User-3]

Please distinguish checkmarks at least by color for Liked songs! 

It doesn’t require UI change — just a single line of code.

• if the song is in Liked Songs make a checkmark in red
• if the song is in a regular playlist keep the checkmark green

[mastazi]

I can't overstate how much I hate this new (+) button, it lacks affordance (I found out I could use it to like a song, took me 10 minutes to work out how to un-like it), it lacks feedback (have I liked this song? Is it part of some playlist? Maybe both? Who knows!) 

Basically it breaks half of Don Norman's rules. Whoever designed this doesn't really understand much aboutg UX design.

Spotify has gone so much downhill in the last couple years.

[Thaliel]

my biggest problem with this change is I keep my liked songs in one big playlist with all other songs I listen to. now I cannot see which of these ~1500 titles is a liked song I want to play every time. I used the liked songs as markers of a sort, like playing one liked song, then playing the song located- let's ssay- 3 spaces above that. this is no longer possible now

[Ky9432]

- I'd like to be able to see what songs I liked, both in my own playlists and in other playlists. I used "like"s as a mark a lot. I visualized my experience for myself, basically.

- If I'm on my own playlist, this change is nothing but a downgrade. Every song there has the checkmark, and I cannot distinguish between the songs I specifically "liked".

I do understand the usage of easily selecting the playlist, and that is appreciated, but I do not wanna lose how I easily saw what songs I "like"d, especially in my own playlists.

My desire is to either be able to turn it on/off from the settings or have both "heart" button and "add to playlist" button there. The change is just inconsiderate and disrespectful to playlist-only users.

[Thaliel]

If I'm on my own playlist, this change is nothing but a downgrade. Every song there has the checkmark, and I cannot distinguish between the songs I specifically "liked". 

-IKR, just talked to a support member about this and all they told me was to do a clean install, which wouldn't get rid of any UI changes.

[Ky9432]

yea what will "uninstall" do anyways? This is not a bug it is an update, specifically planned to be this way, not something "fixed" from repairs.

[BabyEcho0_YT]

Hey everyone,

i know that this has been going on for a long time since March and its getting annoying to you all but at this point you guys need to let it go and deal with it because some people are making ideas and having some moved to this post and some are out there getting likes, but at this point none of them are not getting enough votes and getting closed or not making pass "Good Suggestion" and you can try all you want but i don't think that it's not going to work.

heres a post that has 333 likes by juzh, you can try your best on that post here but at some point it's not going to get enough votes and closed.