Why is Spotify scanning my media library

[Pr6]

Hello, I've noticed that while listening to music via the Spotify app - it scans my other hard drives contents. 

1) Why is the application doing that?

2) How and where is the application using/sending this data?

[Dreadlord · Accepted solution]

Hey @Pr6,

Welcome to Spotify Community!

It looks like your Downloads folder is checked as a local files source.

Go to edit-> preferences ( or ctrl + P ) and check if Downloads is selected under Local Files category 🙂

[imzumek]

I'm new to Spotify and just realiased that it's been scanning all my drives. This is a VERY UNACCEPTABLE INVASION OF PRIVACY! 

It should only scan any folders that are specifically added. 

God knows what else is being scanned or dumped on our machines! Tantamount to a trojan! Very dissapointed this has been known for so long and not addressed. 

Do you care SPOTIFY??

I'm on Windows 7 and it wouldn't even let me uninstall the app - kept crashing everytime I tried to uninstall?! Had to manually remove the thing + it doesn't even install in the usual programs folder! darn virus - don't install!!

[Homsopty]

I totally agree to imzumek. With the "local files" setting to "off" still spotify scans my drives (I can tell, because it forces onedrive to download files). 

That is not acceptable!

[jake109]

This is an old thread but I feel Spotify's "solution" here was seriously insufficient. I have recently observed spotify.exe scanning locally (downloads, email archives) and most worryingly at various SMB share locations on my network (a NAS). I have never had the "show local files" toggled on in Spotify and have never pointed the application at any of these locations on my computer or network. It's extremely shady behaviour and I have to agree with the original poster here that this is malware behaviour and must be addressed.

[djahren]

Looks like we're able to turn off scanning but it is unintuitive. In your settings, you need to turn on Show Local Files and then uncheck all the locations. I verified that it does indeed stop scanning using ProcessMonitor.