ID3 tags in local files

[Pleur]

Dear all,

After switching to spotify, I left behind an immense music library, much of which is not available on spotify. So, when I heard I could add these as local files (and even sync them up to my mobile device!) I was delighted of course. However, up to now, it has been a disaster on all platforms.

First of all, my local files can't be played on Ubuntu 17.10 (I'll leave that be for now)

Next, I manage to get the local files on Windows, but the title of the .mp3 file just shows up as a name! No tagging whatsoever, which I all do extensively by hand. No song title, no artist, no album (nor art), no track number.. I don't even need the lyrics and genre but these are all fields that Spotify should have support for.

Hoping this is just an importing issue, I was stupid enough to have removed the local files. Because upon adding them again, they don't show up in Spotify anymore! Re-adding the files to the folder doesn't work, restarting doesn't work, within %appdata%/Spotify there is no users folder as people suggested removing... I am at my wit's end.

So, end of rant. Question is: How do I add local files to spotify into a folder I already added once? And how do I carry over the tags that those files have?

Thanks in advance!

[Sebasty]

Hey @Pleur

That doesn't sound good!

It's not the Users folder that was supposed to be removed (I'm afraid the program won't like it). 🙂 It's a file called local-files.bnk, which is in Roaming/Spotify/Users/1234567-user. You have to close Spotify before deleting this.

I would recommend reinstalling Spotify on all devices, still: read this article.

About files - Spotify supports .mp3, .mp4, and .m4p files, but no lossless files. Protected files need Quicktime, then most will play.
When you browse your local library in file explorer (in Windows), do the metadata show up as well (contributing artists etc)? Make sure the folder view is 'Details'.

Deleting the local-files.bnk has resolved most of local-file issues for me.