New Desktop Experience - your feedback wanted!

[Hubo]

Spotify is testing a new way for you to connect with your music on Desktop. The new desktop experience features an all-new design, streamlined with the Spotify apps on all your devices. 

This is a brand-new experience and some parts are still being fine-tuned. Be sure to give feedback with the steps below to let the right folks know what you think could be improved.

The other Rock Stars and I got the chance to test the new desktop experience first and now more users will be able to test it out and give their feedback for the team. If you are a passionate Spotify user and would like to join the Rock Star Program and be part of cool experiences like this, then check out this help article.

How do I know if I’m using the New Desktop Experience?

The new desktop experience is not hard to spot with its new design! Your Library looks like this for example:

 

Why did the app change? 

This test is rolled out to a specific group of users at this moment. It’s not possible to sign up for this right now, but your interest is really appreciated. If you’re interested in testing out new versions of Spotify before everyone else, check this out: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Answers/How-do-I-become-a-Spotify-Beta-tester/ta-p/4551518. 

If you’re looking for more information about how tests work and about how features are released, take a look here: https://support.spotify.com/article/why-am-i-seeing-different-features-than-my-friends/.

How to give feedback?

This thread is your go-to destination for asking questions, getting help for issues you may have, as well as to share your impressions and feedback on this new desktop experience. 

Keep in mind that pictures can say a thousand words, so if you have any screenshots of something you’d like to share of your experience be sure to post them here as well! The right teams at Spotify take their time to read the posts in this thread and use your feedback to fine-tune this new experience for everyone.

[Hubo]

Hi Everyone,

Dan here from the Desktop team again.  Desktop 1.1.55 is starting to roll out now and I wanted to let you know what to expect.

Fullscreen mode
We’ve brought back a new and improved fullscreen mode for Desktop, making better use hi-res artist imagery where available.

Playlisting

• The “create similar” playlist context menu item has been added to the main playlist list in the app
• We’ve improved playlist loading performance when navigating throughout the client
• Show the downloaded badge in the liked songs button when it’s available offline
• Improvements to the use-case of filtering to find a track within a long playlist
  

General

• Episode sorting on podcast show pages, back with improved performance
• Podcast play order improvements, better selecting which episode to play when playing from cards/search etc
• Added the ability to see subtitles on videos where they are available.
• Improved refreshing of content on Home to ensure fresh content
• Show the top 5 cities where people listen to an artist on the artist about page
• Where there are multiple versions of a release, show a dropdown on the album page allowing the user to switch between them

As always, please do ensure you’re fully updated and are running the latest version. We again thank you for the feedback provided. 

Thanks,
Dan

[bperfater]

Found yet another bug on this new awful "desktop experience"

I cannot organize my playlists on the sidebar. I organize them alphabetically but now it doesn't allow me to do so.

Also would like to take another moment to remind you that ALBUM NAME DOES NOT NEED ITS OWN COLUMN and ARTIST needs its own column. 

Can Spotify just admit failure and revert back to the old? This is getting ridiculous.

[J_unior]

I would personally disagree with the Album column being completely useless. I heavily use playlists for compiling albums together and sorting by album is extremely handy for this case. But absence of the Artist column is indeed a huge inconvenience for similar reasons.

[crlsspdstrn]

I've just discovered another very annoying feature - when you search for a song and then click on it, it will play that song, whereas previously it would take you to the album it was on.

[Ro101]

Is this a joke? I honestly can't tell anymore. I've noted about 12 issues, no responses, it's been more than a month since any communication or rollout of new version to address actual bugs.

But latest to confirm there is no warning about duplicate songs, which is insane. Bring that back. Had to go back and delete expletives to post this. Really excited to start exploring other options for my streaming instead of paying a company to try to force a mobile experience on their desktop app and then leave the feedback they asked for unanswered for this long. 

[Kithron]

Here is my feedback, I've gotten it 4 week ago and everything is fine on my end except that the cache download location option is now missing.

I prefer to have it not going to my SSD for offline downloads, just to my 4tb HDD instead.

[Hubo]

Hey @Katrina313, thanks for coming to the Spotify Community!

Thanks for sharing this here, it's really appreciated. I've taken a look at the issues you reported and I'm going through them step by step.

1. On my end, it shows a pop-up when I try to add one or more songs that are already in the playlist: 

Could you try this again after a restart of the desktop app?

2. I understand your feedback about this and it's passed on to the right folks. The Search-button in the sidebar works the same way the search bar would. You can click it and start typing immediately; alternatively you can also use a shortcut to Search (Cmd + L/Ctrl + L)

3. You can view the Genres & Moods in Search. You can also find playlists and albums, just for you, in Home. Your feedback about this has been passed on to the right folks as well. 

4. Hmm, this works on my end. Could you make a short video of what's happening when you try to drag tracks to another position in your playlist? I'd love to take a closer look here.

5. This works on my end as well. Could you try to resize the sidebar again after a restart of the desktop app? 

Your feedback is really appreciated and the Desktop team is taking everything into account. 

Thanks again for sharing here, 

Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @combolito2, thanks for sharing this here!

Hmm, that's odd. Could you try to restart the desktop app and try this again? If that didn't help, could you try to reinstall the app with these steps: https://support.spotify.com/article/reinstallation-of-spotify/? Let me know how you get on!

Have a good one and thanks again for posting here,
Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @Ro101, thank you for posting in this thread.

Your feedback is actively being read by the Desktop team and it's really appreciated. Let's go through the points you brought up one-by-one.

1. I get how this feature could be useful. This feature currently isn't implemented in the regular version nor the new version. If this is something you'd like to see, I recommend creating a new idea on the Ideas board. Also, you might be able to use these steps as a workaround for this: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/How-to-see-all-tracks-from-an-artist/td-p/1580810

2. I understand your point here and thanks for giving some clarification on how you'd use this feature. That's really useful for the teams working on this experience. There's a workaround for this as well: you can tap/click: "Start Playlist Radio" and then head to the Play Queue:

 You'll be able to find the tracks from Radio and you can drag-and-drop them into a playlist, if you'd like. 

3. You should be able to use Search similarly as you did in the old version. You can click Search in the menu and start typing. You can also use a shortcut to get to Search quickly (Cmd + L/Ctrl + L). Again, thanks for posting such a detailed overview of how you use Search in the app; they can really use this to fine-tune the app.

4. I understand your point here as well. There's a lot of folks in this thread who feel the same way about the artist column and it all reaches the Desktop team loud and clear. Hopefully, there'll be more information soon.

Again, your feedback - and that of all the others in this thread - is really appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with the new version of the app.

Hope you're having a great day,

Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @user-removed, thanks for posting here!

Glad to hear you're interested in testing new things. Right now, there's no way to sign up for this test. There's some more information about tests at Spotify here: https://support.spotify.com/article/why-am-i-seeing-different-features-than-my-friends/. If you have any questions, be sure to create a new thread on the right board. 🙂

Thanks, have a great day!
Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @Kithron, thanks for your post here!

Glad to hear things are working well on your end! 🙂 Hmm, could you try to restart the desktop app completely? Could you then head to: "Your Display Name > Settings > Show Advanced Settings > Offline storage location"? 

If you don't see that option, could you share a screenshot of how things are looking together with the version of your Spotify app and operating system? Keep me posted!

Have a good one,

Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @1990eam, sorry for the delay in getting back to you!

Hmm, let's take a look here. Could you hover over the small version of the album art and click the upward arrow that appears? That should help here. 

Let me know how you get on!

Have a good one,

Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @mlidbo, thanks for your post here!

Hmm, Local Files should be working as usual. Could you make sure you're on the latest OS and Spotify versions on both your mobile device and your desktop? Also, could you check if you've followed all the steps from: https://support.spotify.com/article/listen-to-local-files/? Lastly, if you're using a VPN/proxy, try disabling it and see if the Local Files start syncing.

Keep me posted on how you get on!

Have a great day,

Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @taemkv, thanks for your post on the Spotify Community!

Hmm, that doesn't look right. Thanks for creating this video, that really helps troubleshooting what's going on here. Could you try a full reinstall of the Spotify app with these steps: https://support.spotify.com/article/reinstallation-of-spotify/? That might help here. Let me know how you get on!

Have a great day,

Hubo

[Hubo]

Thanks @FabienT, for summing this up. It's really appreciated. The desktop team is reading this feedback right here with me and although they can't respond to every individual post they're really appreciating all the time you put in to share experiences in this thread.

Hopefully these points will be addressed soon! 🙂

Hope you're having a great day!
Hubo

[22Samuel]

Can you add different themes for the background I have been seeing the same black background for 4 years and it's getting really boring. You could add backgrounds such as the ones you do for the playlist where it has the colors fading for example.

[Katrina313]

Hi @Hubo, thanks for replying...

1. The duplicate song issue (which wasn't working at all a few weeks ago) seems to be working intermittently now. It "finds" the duplicates about half of the time, but if the playlist I'm adding to is large (I have some that are over 1000 songs), it often will not alert me to the dupe. I've also found that when adding several songs at a time (for instance, if I want to add an entire album), it doesn't warn me of duplicates at all...even if the playlist I'm adding to is small. Since the duplicate message is unreliable, it might as well not exist...so I am forced to search for every single song every single time I want to add something to a playlist...it's a nightmare.
2. The search button on the sidebar is a huge pain. Instead of being able to simply click into the search bar at the top of the screen, I now have to click on the Search in the sidebar, then click into the search bar...and if I am trying to search for something based on the page I'm looking at (for instance, if I am looking at an album and I want to search for a similar song title)...I can no longer do that. Moving the search bar into a separate menu makes no sense.
3. Having Genres and Moods inside of a sidebar option called "Search" makes no sense. I'm not searching, I'm browsing...they are not the same thing.
4. The playlists don't scroll while dragging songs - so, yes, I can move a song one or two places up or down, but if I want to move it more than a few songs in any direction I cannot do that.
5. I can resize the sidebar, but when I restart the app it reverts to the original setting...it never did that before. So now, every single time I open the app I have to reset all of my settings - it's crazy!

I just want to say, I never asked to be part of your test group. I never would have volunteered for this. I am a software developer myself, I spend all day every day designing, developing and testing software...I don't want to do it in my downtime. I really don't appreciate being forced to be a beta tester without my consent and without any warning whatsoever. I have been a premium subscriber to Spotify for about a decade and I have never even considered switching to another service until this horrible "upgrade" was forced on me. This is a really terrible way to treat your long-time customers.

[Kithron]

Hi @Hubo,

Here is the latest screenshot of my desktop with Spotify running in the background on advanced settings. My system is running on Windows 10 20H2 (19042.746)

The download location option for cache is not there and wanted to let Spotify know.

[Ro101]

Hi Hubo,

Thanks for the responses. A few follow-ups;

1) Being able to scroll through to see all songs was indeed a function of the older versions. I uninstalled and downloaded an older version of Spotify from October 2020 and included a screenshot of the way I preferred it. You'll see it's the artist page where all songs are displayed and groups by album (which is the way I very strongly prefer it compared to the updates in the new version -- please bring back the organization and structure per my screenshot).

2) Thanks for the workaround for now, but per the user experience, I still think it makes sense to mimic the behavior of being able to navigate from creating a playlist radio to the actual list (as you can when you create a radio station from a specific song or artist).

3) Good to hear this is helpful feedback. I think the lasting point is simply that the search bar only being available on certain screens is frustrating, and having to navigate back to find it is the base issue here

4) Great! It did seem like a lot of people preferred having the artist column, so glad that feedback is noted.

[charligrace1]

In the new desktop update it doesn't warn you when you add a Duplicate song to a playlist. But it used to in the old versions. Can we have this feature back please?

[Jewraxxus]

I've tried to like this new UI and Spotify in general for the last few months, and I'm **bleep**ing tired of it. First I had a lot of performance issues, on my grossly overqualified gaming rig, which were temporarily mitigated by deleting over 1000 songs from my liked songs, and now the performance issues are back. The app takes well over 2 minutes to load when before, it took seconds. Then, they pushed this shitty, broken UI to my account without my permission. If I had the option to opt out of their compulsory beta program, I would, but since they've said to go and **bleep** myself I'll instead cancel my subscription. It was an adequate run, for a while.