Desktop: Jam now available

[MattSuda]

Spotify is bringing Jam to the desktop app! 🥳 🖥️ 💻

Now you can start or join a listening party with your friends, family, colleagues, and classmates, with the Spotify desktop app in addition to the mobile app.

Although you can listen on your own, Jam in the desktop app offers you the ability to share a synced listening experience in real time with other people remotely or in person. For those people who like to listen when they are working, studying, or relaxing, this is a great way to socialize at the same time. The Jam experience is a much better option than just sharing links to songs or playlists with other people.

Let's Jam! Jam is now rolling out to Premium users using the desktop app.

Jam experience overview:

• Start a Jam: To start a Jam in the desktop app, right click on a song or playlist and select the "Start a Jam" option from the menu. You can also start a Jam by bringing up the same right click menu in the Now Playing View or the Queue in the right sidebar.

• Invite people to the Jam: Once you start a Jam, the Queue will open up in the right sidebar. Other people can participate in the Jam from anywhere in the world remotely. Click on the "Invite" button to copy a link to share with other people. Or, the people with you in person can scan the QR code. Spotify users with Premium will be able to join your Jam remotely and listen on their own audio setup and Spotify users (Free and Premium) will be able join with you in person and listen on your speakers. Free users can join an in person Jam using the mobile app.
  
  
• Join a Jam: You can join a Jam in the desktop app via a link shared by someone else. When you click to open a Jam invite link in your web browser, you should see a pop up that allows you to open the link in the Spotify desktop app. Once you open the link in the desktop app, you will see a pop up to join the Jam.
  
  
• Shared playback in real time: Everyone will experience a synced listening session in real time. Any participant can add to the Queue. Any participant can also change what is playing during the Jam session by clicking on a song, playlist, album, or podcast from anywhere in the app. The Jam host has the option to turn off the ability for the other participants to change what's playing, but they will still be able to add to the Queue. The Queue can be edited at any time.

The new Queue experience:

As part of this update, the Queue now opens up in the right sidebar. The Queue now being in the right sidebar allows you to browse content in the main area of the app while keeping an eye on what's playing next or the current Jam that you are participating in. When you are participating in a Jam, the Jam options will appear at the top of the Queue in the right sidebar. You can switch back to the Now Playing View or Friend Activity feed at any time by pressing the buttons that open them.

You can read more info about Jam in the Spotify Newsroom post:

➜ Spotify Unveils Jam, a New, Personalized Way to Listen With Your Entire Squad

You can get more help with using Jam with the support article:

➜ Spotify Support Article: Jam

FAQ:

This section will answer your frequently asked questions and will be updated with the latest answers.

I don't see the option to start or join a Jam when using the Web Player in the web browser? Is Jam supported in the Web Player?

• Unfortunately, the Jam experience is currently only available in the desktop app for Premium users. You can download the desktop app here if your device is supported. When you click to open a Jam invite link in your web browser, you should see a pop up that allows you to open the link in the Spotify desktop app. Once you open the link in the desktop app, you will see a pop up to join the Jam.

I don't see the "Add songs" button in the Queue to go to the Group Recommendations section like I can in the mobile app. Is this available in the desktop app?

• The "Add songs" button in the Queue to go to Group Recommendations is currently not available in the desktop app. Participants can use the mobile app to add Group Recommendations to the Queue.

Feedback:

Where can I give my feedback about the Jam experience and Queue sidebar in the desktop app?

• We welcome your feedback about the new desktop update. The best way to share your feedback is to comment here in this thread.

[crawford13x]

Unfortunately the stupid shrunken queue is now on the web player as well. No way to get a full-screen queue.

[thomasmills89]

Another feature no one requested yet the 50+ page of feedback to the your library redesign is completely ignored.

Spotify does not care about its community.

[iceman42dave]

Who cares? So this is the reason the Queue was moved from the center? Great. At least I know what to blame. I don't think you guys did the math. How many people rely on having a functional queue? Everyone. How many people will be using this lame Jams feature? Maybe one in a hundred people, and I'm being generous.
You can't get a handful of people to agree on anything, and you expect them to agree to all listen to the same playlist? And you expect them do so regularly enough to make this feature worth even rolling out? Congratulations, you've just reinvented radio with a smaller audience, one handful of people at a time, catering to a mere fraction of your user base. And all it took was ruining a Queue that EVERYONE uses.

[obob]

Horrible 😖 Time to switch to Pandora or Youtube Music if the queue does not come back to the center

[r6ze-mvm2k_7]

One month later...is our feedback going to be addressed? Is there any reason why the old layout can't even be offered as an option?

[bas25]

Bring the queue back to the middle. It  is way worse on the right side and it now lost functions like removing multiple songs from the queue at the same time. All these bad UI changes you guys add every update make me really consider cancelling my subscription.

[pastasås]

Also why aren't you paying smaller artists on your platform? No wonder new talent is migrating to other music provider platforms like Soundcloud. Fix this

[Tryp]

It takes a fair amount of hate for me to give negative feedback on a design update, but here we are....AGAIN.

Here's what I said about the Now Playing panel last month:

-Why do I have to choose between queue, now playing, and friend activity? I get this is a business, you are here to make money. There are things that have to be promoted in order for that to happen. However, I don't need 90% of my page to be your recommendations. If you want me to look at less of them, this is the way to go. Smart Shuffle was excellent. Stick with that and PUT THE QUEUE BACK IN THE CENTER, please. Or allow the panel to be wider with column options, at least duration. Personally I'd like to see the middle panel split vertically, with options to put what panels I want where, but I'm not holding my breath. Right now I'd be happy if you just take mine, and the massive number of other complaints about this layout into consideration.

For whatever reason, the layout had reverted after this. I thought maybe you had listened to all the complaints until today, when it changed again for absolutely no reason, mid-song. I minimized to another window with the queue in the center and when I brought it back up it was on the **bleep** side again. So I go searching for a fix and find Matt on reddit talking about "The Queue now being in the right sidebar allows you to browse content in the main area of the app while keeping an eye on what's playing next or the current Jam that you are participating in." I can keep my eye on what's playing just fine when the queue is back in the middle where it shows me actual information about the song. PUT IT BACK. 😡

[RealNC]

One of the reasons I canceled my premium a couple years ago is exactly this. The app gets worse and worse, and even though they always say "we listen to your feedback," they never do. They keep making the UI worse.

There's dozens of totally free music players out there, and most of them beat Spotify when it comes to usability and UI, even though Spotify is a commercial service. Nobody pays the devs of the free apps, or they just get some peanuts through donations, and yet these devs provide useful options in their settings to customize the UI the way you want to. Spotify meanwhile makes way more money that those devs, and yet they can't don't want to spend a single cent to have devs add options to customize Spotify so it suits my needs and preferences.

I don't think I'll ever resubscribe to premium again.

[D1Ck3n]

Please enable Jam for Web and Linux

[dakster]

The sidebar queue is horrific. The queue is 100% the thing I want to see, not a bunch of **bleep** in the center that I'm not actually listening to. Please pass along a strong desire for them to move the queue back to the center please. 

[crawford13x]

I just signed up for one year of You Tube Premium after a two month free trial. This is something I would not have done if it wasn't for Spotify forcing a shrunken queue on me. All for some "Jam" feature I do not care about and would never use.