Raising this thread again since it still comes up top on a search for "spotify linux local files permission denied"
The suggestions in the link @jooon offered do not/no longer work since the only directory Spotify can access under $HOME is /home/<user>/snap/spotify and the Spotify snap is packaged as "strict" confinement.
See: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snap-confinement/6233 if interested.
I'm not sure what went wrong with the "spotify:home" connection/interface not actually providing access to all of the user's home directory but it seems like that is broken one way or another.
So option 1 results in a new mount point that Spotify still cannot access and option 2 results in snap installing Spotify but with the message:
Warning: flag --classic ignored for strictly confined snap spotify
However, if you're finding this in 2021+, @jooon's suggestion to use a bind mount is still close to what you need. We just need to mount the external targets into a space Spotify can already see. Hopefully this guide will be useful even if you don't know what containers or bind mounts are.
To get both the cache where you want it and local music files working:
* Open Spotify > preferences
* Show advanced settings
* Check "Offline storage location" points to /home/<username>/snap/spotify/common/.cache/spotify/Storage
* Change it if you want, just make sure it matches your bind mount.
* Close Spotify
* Run this in a terminal:
cd $HOME/snap/spotify/common
mkdir .local
sudo mount --bind /wherever/you/want/offline_files/actually/stored/ .cache/spotify/Storage/
sudo mount --bind /path/to/your/local/files/ .local/
* Open Spotify > preferences
* Switch on local files and add a source
* other locations > computer /home/<username>/snap/spotify/common/.local > open
* You should now see your local files in "Your Library" > Local Files
* Right-click your previously downloaded playlists and select "Download"
* You should see them "download" ridiculously quick and the "Your library" progress bar go through the file count fast. (if it goes slow, Spotify is re-downloading instead of just realizing that your songs are already indexed)
* If you don't see any of your known-previously-downloaded stuff getting indexed immediately, either you got the bind mount wrong or the Offline Storage location is not pointed at the folder you did bind to.
* If only some stuff registers immediately but other stuff downloads again anyway, that happened to me too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
* This might just be that you also need to bind mount the ~/snap/spotify/common/.cache/spotify/Data folder in addition to the Storage folder. I'm not sure where the overlap is or why Spotify settings doesn't mention it but there's at least as much data in the Data folder as the Storage folder and they both get updated on playlist downloads.
Once you know the mounts are working you can make them permanent by following instructions here:
* https://serverfault.com/questions/613179/how-do-i-do-mount-bind-in-etc-fstab
* Just add lines to /etc/fstab for each folder matching the pattern:
/source /destination none defaults,bind 0 0
* Reboot and check the folders/Spotify behavior again to make sure your mounts stuck.
* Do not follow the instructions here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/550348/how-to-make-mount-bind-permanent
(Which is what you will likely find on a search for this idea.)
* That will most likely lead to your system crashing into maintenance mode on restart.
* If that happens, don't panic. Nothing got wrecked, your entries just failed to mount and linux takes mount failures very seriously. 😏
* Just follow the instructions on screen to get to a command prompt. Then edit /etc/fstab to remove the new entries you added. Reboot. Try again.
This worked for me running dual-boot Kubuntu on an ext4 main drive partition binding the offline storage to an NTFS secondary drive with existing files from a Win10 install and local files on an exFat secondary drive.
If you want to know why bind mounts work for this and soft links don't see: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/198590/what-is-a-bind-mount
In particular, the top answer's segment on "Mounting in a jail or container".
Staff / Moderator/ 2 years ago in Social & Random