Private session influences 'recently played' and maybe recommendations

[Joachim123]

Plan

Free

Country

Belgium

Device

Operating System

Android 11

My Question or Issue

When I search the internet I found different sources saying opposite things. Older sources say that private session will still influence personal recommendations, but more recent sources state that it are really private songs excluded from future recommendations. Is it correct that there was a recent update around 2020-2021 that enabled the last mentioned feature?

A second part of my question is the following. When I listen with a private session with the Android app, the songs still appear in the list 'recently played' on the homepage. Will it also influence my recommendations or is this a bug i which the songs only display in 'recently played' but still not in recommendations? In the case of a bug, can this be solved? The fact that the songs don't appear in recommendation algorithms is the most important, but it shouldn't appear in 'recently played' either.

I wanted to check if this is also the case on 'recently played' in the Windows 10 application, but there is no 'recently played' there. Due to this bug on Android, I don't know if I can trust private sessions on Windows. My recommendations should not be messed up by song in private sessions.

[MafeG · Accepted solution]

Hi @Joachim123,

Welcome to the Community! We're happy to shed some light on the situation

To start, let us clarify that the Private Session feature works the same in the desktop and mobile app. 

When the feature is on, any songs that are listened to won't be used in your personalized playlists. Also, other users that follow you won't be able to see what you're playing. 

However, those songs will show on your Recently Played, but keep in mind that only you have access to this information. 

Hope this clears things up. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[Joachim123]

Thank you for the clear explanation!