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

[Elias21]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!! I DIDNT KNOW WHAT TO DO I COULDNT FIND NEW MUSIC TAHNK YOUNADASLKDALSDJKASDHJlk!"i!!!! WHHHOOIOO NMY BABY IS BAAAAACK WHOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOO TYEAH BABYBBYKDLÖSAKÖDLASKÖDASL

[Hubo]

Hey @22Samuel, thanks for your post here!

Sounds like a good idea! You can vote for this idea on the Ideas board here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Customizing-Spotify-Skins-amp-Layout/idi-p.... That's the best way to get your feedback to the right folks at Spotify. Let me know if you have any questions!

Have a great day,

Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @Kithron, thanks for sending that over!

Could you let me know the exact Spotify version you're on? You can find this information in the three dots menu and then at About Spotify. Keep me in loop!

Thanks,
Hubo

[Hubo]

Hey @charligrace1, thanks for reaching out here!

This feature should be working as usual. Could you try to restart the desktop app and see if you're still having this issue. If so, could you send over your Spotify version and OS version? I'd love to dive further into this.

Thanks,
Hubo

[Kithron]

Hi @Hubo,

The version I'm on is 1.1.48.625.g1c87c7f7-a.

[charligrace1]

Thanks,

I reset and still there is no duplicate song error message.

My Version is 1.1.48.625.g1c87c7f7-a and I am on Windows 10

[RyanCu]

I just noticed that the Albums page for an artist (from clicking Discography on the artist's page) only shows their first 100 albums. I used to be able to see them all in the old Spotify. Now how can I find an artist's older albums!? 😠

[Harinezumi]

I have the same issue: I can add songs multiple times to a playlist without getting any duplicate error message.

[lblackwelluk]

Hi Hubo / @Hubo,

In regards to #4 in your response to @Katrina313 about not being able to drag songs to another position in the playlist, this sounds like the same thing we had talked about in DM. I also cannot do this and I sent two videos to demonstrate that. You're working on  Mac as I recall, and it was working for you, although you saw and agreed then that dragging songs wasn't fully working for me. You said you would pass those videos on, and we agreed that the problem might be in the platform difference. I think this is the same thing Katrina is mentioning, but if you've been able to dig into it further and get any feedback at all from the dev team, we'd love to know.

Did you get feedback when you sent my videos on or was there a change of experience for you (probably not since it's been working for you)?

I'm running Spotify 1.1.48.625.g1c87c7f7-a on Windows 10. Since this forum's URL is under desktop windows, maybe we should only compare Windows to Windows experiences--would that help?

And regarding the DM I sent earlier, maybe that would be appropriate for here -- have you gotten any information about fixes will be included in the next rollout? Do you know when the next rollout will be scheduled (the last being around December 10)?

Thanks very much,

lblackwelluk

[Ozymandia]

The New design is absolutely not usable on a Computer. I only see giant pictures of albums and nothing else. Searching anything is horrible. Where are my playlists? How do I create a new one? Nothing Works!!!!

[aowind]

> Playlists like Release Radar and Discover Weekly will have the ‘hide’ button restored in the now playing bar and playlist view.

This is the feature I miss the most, I hope the Flatpak will be updated soon.

Thanks

[Ozymandia]

Now the bar on the left reapeared again. A little better. But still everything is sooo big? why? is this for blind people?

[Filippilny]

Last played also missing.. Spotify support told me to create enw account to see if the one is in the testing... nice 🙂

[1crimson1]

November, December, and now January. Paying customers, forced into a beta program against their will. How many more months guys? Years? Wow, so glad I ditched this service. Just happened upon an old thread somewhere else and landed here. Glad to see the show still smells around here. Hang in there Spotify members, it'll get better, LOL!!!

[philschmulian]

I REALLY dislike the New Desktop Experience on version 1.1.48.625.

Mostly because of how playlists work (or, in this case, DON'T WORK):

1. The UI changes. There's no more artist column. The artist is now below the track title. If you want to sort by artist, you have to use the "sort" drop-down. Ok, not the worst problem, just not as convenient.

2. You can't drag-n-drop tracks/albums to a specific location in a playlist. You can only drop it into the playlist, which will automatically send it to the end of the playlist. A big no-no if you have a very long playlist.

3. If you copy-paste tracks, it will automatically send them to the end of the playlist, instead of pasting them below the currently selected track. Again, a big no-no if you have a long playlist and want to change the order of the tracks.

Very disappointed in this version. I had to install the previous version and run a script to prevent auto-updating.

[Exit00]

I did that for a while and a playlist that I have for 5 years had 8000+ songs missing out of nowhere.

Of course I contacted them and they added the missing songs back. The only thing is that a 5 year old playlist has 8000+ added on the same day, now...

Just keep an eye on your music, because using older versions comes with a certain risk. Especially if you've been using it for a certain time, like I did.

[zarrell]

DUPLICATE SONGS WARNING NOT WORKING WHEN ADDING TO PLAYLIST!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING SPOTIFY!?

I'M SO *'ING TIRED OF THIS S**T BETA. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!

LOOKING ON HOW TO MIGRATE MY 10YR LIBRARY PROJECT TO A COMPETITOR AND JUMP THIS SHIP F'ING ASAP.

[caquisse]

Tired as well here, since nothing changed at all for a few weeks (months now maybe?), does someone has suggestions on alternative services? (this will probably get deleted but I don't care at this point)

I tried the "world's 1st search engine" service but it lacks a functional offline download feature (rigged with bugs on this part).

Some people recommended the "fruit named" service but I didn't have time to try it yet.

And I'm wondering if it would be better to try out the "world's 1st online shopping company" service before, any recommendations?
For the requirements, I'm searching for a provider with an offline mode which works, with the ability to use my local library when songs are not available on the streaming platform (on this last part unfortunately Spotify is not reliable anymore since local files are not properly ordered per album now :/)

[FabienT]

Hi @maxchaos93 in my beta version I can still order the search results by album, even the local files.

Maybe it's just because the album name isn't specified in your local files meta datas. Personnaly I had to write some of the properties.

Regarding your change to another service, feel free to do it but please do not talk about it in a feedback thread, if you want to go then just do it. This is also true for the ones that said the same before you.

I'm tired too of discovering new bugs and missing things every week and to have no news at all from the Desktop developement team. But I'm still pretty happy with Spotify in general. I quickly found other ways to do the things that are missing now as temporary solution.

Anyways, hope you'll sort that out. Have a great day.

[FabienT]

Hi @Hubo do you have any news from the team ? Are you in contact with them ?

It would be great if we can ask to have some news from the them, at least knowing that they are working on it.

Many people start to get frustrated in here.

Thank you