So where has my library gone?

[QuirkBit]

Updated Spotify desktop client yesterday (about says v0.9.8.258) and the 'Library' option has dissappeared and been replaced by a rather useless and blank looking Your Music > Songs / Albums / Artists. Also I cannot star anything, a plus seems to have replaced the star. The Library was my goto screen on spotify as it contained all my local files and playlists....Spotify has rendered itself rather useless for me in 1 update, unless I go and manually create a library playlist which I would then have to manually update each time I added new music.

Please advise how to get the library back or a suitable workaround which provides the same functionality. Also, why the hell were users not notified of this big change?

[PaulRx4]

Now that there is no LIBRARY  how do we know how many playlist or slections we have, and if things

we have done work or not. LIBRARY was very useful, and dont ask me to move 500+ playlists to my music.

a lot of things could be done from library, including find  lost items.. ANOTHER useful fiunction gone, like

the NEW  tab.  WHAT NEXT????.   also the broswer version has no folders?????? what do you do if you have

100's of playlist,, scroll forever????.. To find something using a name in search you have to try several different

versions and orders just to find what is there. What is next to vanish folders  ot playist? Dispite your selections

you dont really cater to serious music fans,. I guess there is more business in phones,, right?????  

[Joe]

I would guess that the priority for the current release was to cater for the "average" spotify user and I'm pretty sure that added features catering for power users will be released over the coming months; if only because the guys who work for Spotify, particularly the development staff, are almost certainly power users themselves.

[LaRube]

I agree with the main thrust of this dicussion.... Library was where I played a shuffle that included all my Playlists, Local Music and it seemed to add new stuff to (may be wrong about that...)....  Anyway I have about 17,000 local files; I had over a hundred playlists... Am I now expected to try and add all those to Your Music now? Good lord that would take me days and days....  I do not want to do that... There has to be a better way!

I GUESS IF THIS IS WHAT I FACE FROM HERE I WILL START LOOKING FOR A BETTER PACKAGE... I tried rdio the other day and also look at beats... This is just not acceptbale.... I can live with any new way of doing things that does not lose my 2 years of history!

Thanks for any help!

[LaRube]

Yes but with the muber of Playlists and the thousands of songs in my Library this would take days! Not only that when one is 60 Playlists away from "SONGS" you have to drag the list to a place that is off the screen and it gets very very tedious! This is not a valid work around!

Thanks for the suggestions though...

[LaRube]

Amen brother!

[LaRube]

Agreed... If I have to spend days to recreate over 2 years of listening history I will look for another service... This is a feature I just loved about Spotify... I have a hunch this is some sort of revenue (paying royaltes) move... Thre is a strtagey behind this that will lower their outlay of royalties... Have nothing to base that on but a hunch, so take it as you will...

Thanks for the posts... Glad I am not the only one... That counts for something! 🙂

[user-removed]

A few people have mentioned making a master "library" folder/playlist and moving other playlists into it.  I've tried making both a new playlist and a new folder;  with the former, I can't move other playlists into it (the icon turns into a "no" sign when i drag it over the newly made "master library" playlist) and if I make it a folder, it functions pretty much the same as the Your Music section--I can't include local files.  And neither of them allow the Starred track playlist to be dragged into it (and I have far too many Starred tracks to drag them each individually).  Is there something else I'm missing that will allow me to drag and drop ALL my songs, including starred and local files, into it?

[masoo]

This:

"BEING ABLE TO MIX ONLINE AND LOCAL FILES WAS THE ONLY THING THAT MADE SPOTIFY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER ONLINE MUSIC SERVICES."

[LaRube]

rdio allows you to mix local and streamed I believe...

[bettmo]

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@mpj wrote:

Hey guys, great to hear from existing Library users. Your Music is hot from the oven,  and it's to get feedback like this that we have the community forums. I'll make sure that we'll talk about this thread at the next planning meeting.

In the mean time, as has already been alluded to in the thread, a dirty workaround is to keep all your playlists in a folder and click the folder to list all tracks in the playlists of the folder.

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Screw that!  I want the library function and the star function.

[masoo]

Thanks, LaRube. I have used Rdio in the past. I should have added in my previous cut-and-paste quote that I am old-fashioned and prefer a desktop program over a web version. Most of my music listening comes when I am on my computer. I don't care for Rdio's desktop app, although in other respects they are quite strong.

[LaRube]

I hear ya' ... I have just under 20,000 tracks on my computer as well... That is a negative to rdio...

[LaRube]

Your consideration is appreciated mpj! Thanks...

However, I have to admit that I do not have a clue how to do what you are suggesting in trms of the playlists... I have not delved into the native file structures and operations with Spotify... I sort of left that sort of thing behind when I moved into Management.... I am a high level concept guy now... (Whatever the heck that means!) In any case could you supply more detaled instructions... I will try just about anything once... I beleive it was Jean Jacques Rousseau that said, after spending the weekend with the Marquis de Sade, ... "Trying something once is philosophy... twice is perversion..." anyway Thanks for the post...

[WillemVM]

I have the same question. Is the libary really gone?? 

[LaRube]

Well WillemVM the short answer is yes! It is gone! There are new links to Songs, Albums and Artists but they are NOT populated with what was in your Library before. If they were it would be fine... Unfortunately the technical team decided that (in my case) over 2 years of customizing my listening experience it is not important to allow be to continue using that customized list... I have to start over from square one... However... One never knows... perhaps they will change their mind... Stay tuned... In the meantime check out other Music Services...

[noble_fail]

Just wanted to add my voice to the growing crowd. As others have said, I liked Spotify because it allowed me to mix local files with stuff I've saved on their service and because they have a Windows program, I don't like listening to music in the browser for some reason.

So yeah it seems kind of insane that they would release this without, as someone else said, the only thing that made them unique.

[QuirkBit]

Guess this update has gone out to a lot more people recently. The workaround which was provided is still not as straightforward as the Library functionality. This combined with the removal of the stars system has made the app a lot less intuitive and usefull for me. Whoever at Spotify HQ is facilitating these changes need to have a rethink. 

[cohenfs]

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@Rollo_ wrote:

My workaround, I've made a master Library playlist folder, and have moved all of my other folders and playlists into it.  Actually, it cleans up my playlist area nicely, and newly created playlists stay out until I'm ready to organize them.

To be honest, I don't find the "Your Music" section nearly as flexible as the tried-and-true existing Playlists methed, but to each his own.  Until Genre or Tag support is introduced, I don't have much time for Your Music.

I just received the 0.9.8.258 update this morning, no visible changes, likely bug fixes, I'll withold judgement until I've had a chance to play with it.  They may have fixed the CPU problem that's been happening when the Activity Feed is offline.

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That is not a workaround because all you did was create an extra large playlist, which does not function the same way as Library did. A playlist maxes out at 10,000 songs. A Library never maxes out. For instance, I had about 60,000 songs. I would use Library to easily filter for whatever I wanted in ALL my songs. Sometimes, I'd shuffle having fun with the luck of the draw. Now, if Spotify allows a playlist to be of infinite size like the Library, then, yes, you have what can be reasonably called a workaround. Why get rid of Library? Does it make the program work better?

Spotify screwed up by not automatically depositing all songs into "Your Music." That would have been even better than Library because of the sleekness of everything being organized by song, artist, and album. What stinks is that "Your Music" is empty and you can only deposit albums and songs one click at a time. You can't even "plus" a playlist. The "Your Music" has great potential if it contained all MY music, but, no, Spotify is going to start us off with a blank slate.

[cohenfs]

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@rastadavid wrote:

I completely agree. Please bring my library back. Would it hurt to have it there? or as an option at least.

It was so easy. All my different music in one play in case I am in the mood of different types of music. 

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Or, allow "Your Music" to have the filter and automatically contain all songs. Then, you have the functionality of "Library" embedded in the new "Your Music." What kills me though is that "Your Music" is completely empty and has to be populated one click at a time.

[Erika_J]

I'm really upset with this change. I, too, was a Premium user who mainly listened in the "Library" section. I still did use playlists, like my "For Writing" playlist, etc, but most of the time I listened in the library and could easily filter by artist. I had a large amount of local files mixed with files that I added from Spotify.

I dropped and dragged the Starred playlist into my music, plus some of my other playlists, and I also managed to drag my Local Files in there, maybe this is new because it seems like nobody else could. I don't know, maybe it didn't even work. But what really annoys me is that there is NO WAY to filter the music! I know that there are those "Artist" and "Album" tabs, but when I go to them, they only have 8 each - the eight albums that I clicked individiually with the little "Plus" buttons before deciding it was a waste of time and dragging and dropping the entire Starred playlist. THe rest don't show up there!! Let's say I just wanted to listen to Jack's Mannequin - I'd have to scroll all the way there and try to not to miss it, which doesn't sound that bad but I have a ton of music and I'm always passing right by things. This is just annoying. If the library had added automatically to "My Music" then I wouldn't be that upset. But now it's just a whole annoying process... why couldn't the library just stay the same? It was the main feature I used on Spotify.

I'm pretty annoyed, honestly. Why aren't the artists I dragged and dropped showing up in the Artists section? I just don't get this. It's driving me crazy.