Offline files from an external hard drive

[luleadam]

I have my mp3 collection on an external hard drive. Some of these files are included in my offline playlists - those I listen most often. 

However, if the hard drive isn't connected, Spotify still tries to access those mp3s from the drive, not from the offline cache, thus making those particular songs unavailable to me unless the hard drive is connected. 

I found a workaround for this, by having two mp3 libraries - keeping the most important files in a local folder and the rest on the external drive, but this isn't very convenient...

So the question: Is there a way to make Spotify cache those mp3s for offline access?

[Peter__]

No, Spotify will always look for those files in their original location. Local files on desktop are never stored inside the Spotify cache.

[luleadam]

But do you have any plans to implement this feature? I think that many will face this issue as SSD drives are becoming popular and storage capacity of computers is thus shrinking...

Another solution could be a Win 8 app that is running independently from the standard app and syncs the offline mp3s the same way as iOS apps.

[Peter__]

I don't work for Spotify, so I can't comment on what "the plan is" but in my opinion its probably unlikely.

As the Spotify library grows, local files become less important in my opinion. On my laptops and smaller computers, I don't have any local files at all - everything is just streamed from Spotify. Almost all content I have as local files is available on Spotify anyways.

If you want to suggest it as a future feature though, suggest it over on the Ideas Exchange for review:
http://community.spotify.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideaexchangepage/blog-id/ideaexchange/tab/popular

[huckx]

I have the same problem, as Spotify always tries to read those files from the external hard drive, although sometimes it isn't connected. This is very annoying, as most of my music on the hard drive would be available for streaming, so I would prefer Spotify to stream the music. Is there any way to tell Spotify "if local file does not load, stream it"?

[Peter__]

You could unlink the tracks (right click > unlink track), then if you search and play it from the Spotify catalogue it should stream it.