Songs keep switching to video mode when I only want to listen to them

[New user]

I pressed the switch to video button and then moved back but now songs default on the video view when I don’t want it to. How do I stop this from happening?

[Ietsorigineels]

Is there a way to set the default to no videoclips? I have looked but can't find it anywhere. Now it goes directly to the videoclip even if i just said with the last song that I don't want it. It's really annoying to have cosntant moving images in the corner of my eye all the time while doing something else. And it's really annoying to reset this every song again.

[tyditt]

How can I disable these stupid videos???  

I want to listen to the music!!!

Videos always have some intros where they talk a lot of nonsense or just stupid noises.

Add an option to disable videos!

[btz1]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Macbook Pro M3

Operating System

macOS

My Question or Issue

I'm using the desktop version of Spotify on macOS, and I've encountered a very frustrating issue: whenever I play a song that has a video version, the video automatically starts. This is extremely disruptive, as I simply want to listen to the audio version, as I always have.

There are cases where the video version significantly alters the listening experience. For example, AC/DC's 'Shot to Thrill' video includes elements from the Iron Man movie. While I enjoy the film, it's not always the context I want when listening to the song. I want to hit play and immediately hear the audio version, without having to manually turn off the video every single time.

It feels like the audio-focused experience of Spotify is being pushed aside. We're now constantly battling against podcasts, audiobooks, video clips, vertical video cards (TikTok style), and only as an afterthought, the core of Spotify: audio music.

Is there any way to disable this automatic video playback and return to the default audio experience? It's becoming increasingly tedious to have to manually switch off the video every time I want to listen to a song.

Thank you for your assistance.

[EmiloStudio]

I get you want to follow competitors by allowing video (like other platforms), but stop forcing us to view it. The quality isn't the same, the volume isn't the same. I'm sick of disabling it manually.

[jgu7man]

I think you could add a feature to select how you prefer to use the app like "Audio first" and in that way keep always listening to audio and only if I want to see a video, switch that song to the video version.

It is good to always improve; for me, I just want the videos to not appear first or without my consentiment.

[Kathena]

Mine keeps doing the same and it's so annoying. I don't want the extra audio from music videos. I just want audio but I have to change it on every song

[08melse]

on spotify when i click a track it plays the music video not the audio version which is annoying on mac and no way off turniing it off and any ideas

[dr-shaw]

Never had to post anything here till now.

But, this video mode thing is quite a big deal.

You see, one of the most enjoyable things in Spotify is the algorithm. This means, I'm searching for one song, play it and then Spotify continue playing songs of the same taste/genre etc.

Now, because the default play mode is video.. the algorithm only plays songs that have video.. and not only that it plays them in video mode which is terrible.

I use Spotify mainly with Android Auto while driving my car.

So I can't touch my phone during driving.

Those videos are terrible for couple of reasons:

Quality is worse.

No explicit which means a lot of annoying beeps.

Many videos have some extra sound effects and intros which really maks this worse when all you want to do is listening to good music.

Spotify you should really address this matter quickly, it could be a deal break in the long term.

[Nunesg]

Stop the TV Spotify app from playing music videos by default. If I want to play a music video, I'll choose to. The newly added five-second selection helps mitigate the issue, but videos still play by default, even if I made the selection through another app. At least make it possible to disable videos by default.

[raychica]

my windows desktop app started to show videos by default the other day and there's no way to turn it off.

if i want to play something, videos will play by default. it was the other way around before this.
first i thought this was nice, but i wanted a slider to play only videos. now i NEED a slider to play only audio.
somwhere they said something like "we're not going to become a video app", but that's what i have currently. a music video app.

[Nao812]

Deberían tener esto como algo opcional, ya que al momento de escuchar música a mi no me gusta escuchar el audio del video, para eso mejor YouTube, por eso decidí tener Spotify ya que no están los sonidos de fondo de video simplemente el audio, sin embargo ahora me estresa qué no inicie directo la canción e incluso hasta baja la calidad del audio

[oonanyqvist]

I hate this feature. I don’t want to watch any music videos with terrible audio quality. There’s no option to turn it off permanently, and it keeps annoying me. The only way to switch back to audio is this little button, but I have to press it every single time a new song starts playing, as it automatically defaults to a music video with bad audio.

It’s especially frustrating when I’m driving and have to search for the “switch to audio” button. Considering how much I’m paying for this app every month, I should have the option to enjoy high-quality audio rather than being forced to deal with crappy audiop videos I don’t care about.

[Outis1410]

Need help to deactivate automatic video playback, no matter if im actively watching and spotify is opened or if its playing in background. Video versions are sometimes drastically different and i really dont like to go into spotify everytime a new song starts.

Thanks in advance.

[nhz]

i also had this problem but found a fix:

go into the spotify web player and play a song that has a video on it, then press "switch to audio", should fix it for all upcoming songs in the app and in the web player.

[fathystarworld]

Thank you so much, this really helped me and works fine

seems that the android apk version has the problem and the windows application as well

The only fix is to login through web https://open.spotify.com/

[norapastoret]

I just want to listen to the song and it keeps putting the music videos, it's annoying because some music videos pause and there's dialogue in the middle of the song or take longer to start the song because of a cinematic intro, for example, and I just want to listen to the song. I have to keep switching to just listening to the song every time, annoying!

I like that there's an option to watch the music video, but not that it's the default and I have to keep changing it 😞

[brunopasse]

Since the last update, when a song has a video, it will automatically play. I find this very annoying for three reasons:

1- I like listening music at high audio quality, and in most cases, the audio in the videos are lower than the "very high" quality of media I use. Every time I want to listen to a song, I have to interrupt it to switch to video mode.

2- In many videos, there is an intro without music, and I just want to listen to the song, not watching the video and hearing random sounds.

3- I just simply don't want to watch videos. I want to use Spotify to listen to music, and that's it. The dynamic in videos distracts me when I'm studying, for example. I don't want more stimuli than what I already have with social media.

There should be and option to disable video mode. I don't want to watch videos on Spotify, I'm there just for the music.

I hope you can fix this. Before it was quite better.

[kwentar]

Please, add a switch that make audio-mode the default one. I want to listen to my music, and SOMETIMES watch a video, not another way around. Right now every song in my library that has a clip starts in video-mode with all the additional buffering, poor audio quality and dialogs from a video. That's unacceptable.

[m0yP]

I want to force audio over video in Android, since video quality sucks for most tracks. There should be an option or toggle!

[Vmontoya23]

Is there a setting to disable the music videos and switch to audio automatically? (Mobile app)