So where has my library gone?

[QuirkBit]

Updated Spotify desktop client yesterday (about says v0.9.8.258) and the 'Library' option has dissappeared and been replaced by a rather useless and blank looking Your Music > Songs / Albums / Artists. Also I cannot star anything, a plus seems to have replaced the star. The Library was my goto screen on spotify as it contained all my local files and playlists....Spotify has rendered itself rather useless for me in 1 update, unless I go and manually create a library playlist which I would then have to manually update each time I added new music.

Please advise how to get the library back or a suitable workaround which provides the same functionality. Also, why the hell were users not notified of this big change?

[LaRube]

Just NO! Wrong!

[LaRube]

Even if you try to do that there is a bug in the songs loading process so you will never be sure if you did what you thought you did and there is a limit of 10,000  songs... I tried to recreate everything manually... in good faith and it did not work!

[WColt]

Thanks Peter - see it, being dim!

[JairCrawford]

The problem with the current workaround is that there is a 10,000 song limit on playlists. I'm not sure this can safely be called 'Solved' just yet.

As of right now, if anyone has more than 10,000 songs in their entire collection, local and/or streamed, it is currently impossible to have them all in one place where they can be played or shuffled.

This really is something that needs to be looked into ASAP. And I've posted on and kudo'd all the applicable Idea threads related to this issue.

I do appreciate the feedback so far on the issue, and the acknowledgement of improving the new feature, but I've noticed the things I've mentioned above have not been addressed yet and are a major issue for many Spotify users.

[cookie]

@mdewater:

What would be the problem with keeping the Library function for all us weird people that you say is in a minority (um? look at the kudos only in this thread), who like to have our complete collection (music saved from Spotify, local files, unfinished job recordings (I'm a musician), audiobooks or whatever we have there) in a convenient and reliable catalogue where it's all automatically saved – being able to shuffle it sometimes if we want (there are moments when you have time and don't mind skipping songs now and then) or simply use it as a.... library (=an organized complete catalogue - that's what it's primarily for, in my opinion) ? If you have 'kiddy music' or crappy stuff in your library that you don't want to hear if you shuffle all your music (you don't seem to use the shuffle function at all anyway, so why did it bother you?) - well, create special playlists without them then, eh? I don't understand the function of 'Songs' if it doesn't include the whole library, it's just like a another playlist then (?). It should be the other way around- YOU and all the others who were so kind to test the new version for us all (thank you so much...), and all voted for starting from scratch and taking away the library  (which is the most important thing of all for all serious music collectors ,and not exactly a new idea)- YOU can sit there for hours and choose and manually drag tracks to 'your music' (oh, and remember to check that it's only 500 songs at a time, or was it perhaps 542), get surprised when it doesn't work, keep the 10000 songs limit or do whatever you want with it. If we at the same time could keep the Library function that worked perfectly, everyone would be happy. Best regards from a superpower user (who's been paying Spotify every month since 2008..)

[user-removed]

Maybe it is just me but I never really used the Library other than an overall backup resource. I have all the music I listen to from local and spotify tracks all built into artist specific playlists. My current library sits at 60226 tracks and would take me a very long time to listen to each and every track there. I do not think I have once searched through the library for a song, I go to an artist created playlists where I know I have put the track at and I find it just as quick.

[PaulRx4]

NOT SOLVED !

Never to be solved.

Does telling us solved make people go away???

Please!!!

[steve_sjbc]

if what you say is true then why do we even need to have playlists when we can simply search within spotify to find music we want to listen to.  The library was a truly convenient way to shuffle entire libraries and enabled users to have access to all their tracks in one place for when we do not specifically know what or who we want to listen to.

Spoitfy could at least allow a setting in the new 'Songs' area to automatically add any new playlists created into it.  Why do we have to add a play list and then at the same time have to add it to songs again.  It's counterproductive, illogical and plain stupid!

[clapton5000]

Well, that's good for you, but not everyone used Spotify the same way. I used to click the library on random, every day at work or at home, and I had a radio station of all my favorite music. This was my listening method of choice. All of a sudden, the very way I used Spotify was taken away. 

Imagine that Spotify all of a sudden decided to eliminate playlist functions and gave you only one large library to house your music. You would be pretty unhappy. Well, that's what they did to me. My favorite use of Spotify was taken away for no apparent reason.

Sigh!

[user-removed]

So, are we any closer to knowing whether we will ever get this back?

It was a very useful resource, what happens if you're not in any particular musical mood and you just want to have it on in the background?

Also, I used to search for a specific song in the search area (while in Library) and play it, delete what I had typed in, then click the album art in the bottom left hand corner, and it located it in my library. Very handy.

Now it's useless.

If it is definite that we won't get it back, I'm cancelling my subscription.

IF IT AINT BROKE DON'T F**KING FIX IT

[user-removed]

There is a fix for those who just has to have their library back. Users who want the library back will have to search for a spotify app version prior of it being removed and replaced with Your Music section of the newer apps. For example I am still running for my every daily needs Spotify desktop app 0.8.5.1333 for Win 7 64 bit. Once you have found the app of your choice you will probable have to do a clean install first, but before you launch the app for the first time after reinstalling you need to follow these instructions below.

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Horrible-update-0-8-8/m-p/280204/highligh...

Using those instructions to prevent the auto updating featue in the desktop app will ensure users stay at the version they wish to. It is as simple as that.

[cookie]

@luciantenebrae: As I said before, the library was not only/primarily used for shuffling music or to 'listen to each and every song there'. (Yes, it would take a very long time to do that- who has asked for this?lol)  It was also used as a complete catalogue of your stuff. I think I have about the same total amount of tracks as you (or probably more) but I don't know anymore, as it doesn't say anywhere (I spent a whole day dragging all playlists into this darn 'Songs' but I have no idea if that means all my saved tracks are there- I can't see anywhere how many tracks are in it). If I used your idea with special playlists for each artist- omg, that would be a lot of playlists. I do have artist based playlists too, but most of my playlists are genre based.  For example, in my playlists called 'soul',  'gospel' or 'blues' I've put songs with Ray Charles, but not ALL songs I have with him in every list, only the songs that fit in each genre. In the library I could check the total list of songs I have with him. With some artists/music I don't even know in what playlist I've put them. If I want to listen to a rare song I know I've saved, but I'm not sure if it's in..let's say, the 'chill mix', 'June15', 'summer', 'check' or in one of 5 other playlists - am I supposed to check through all of them to find it? Before I could just go to the library and find it very quickly. I want all my saved tracks transferred to 'Songs' (if that's what the library nowadays has to be called), why isn't it done automatically??

[user-removed]

@luciantenebrae

Why should we have to do that? It's completely unnecessary bother. Some of the updates will more than likely be worthwhile, appearance and other such features, I don't want to miss out on these just for the sake of Spotify removing my most used feature.

It took me 90 minutes to select every playlist (which I have a lot of, as I save all artists under the artist name into a playlist, no specific genres etc) which meant I had to click the playlist (artist name), select all, then add to another playlist which I named ALL. This was a ridiculously long winded way of doing it, they haven't made it easy for us at all. And every time a new artist is added to my collection, I'm going to have to add it to 'ALL'.

Frustrating as f*ck.

[steve_sjbc]

I agree, why is it not done automatically?  Having a three or four step procedure to add music to our collections (library would probably be a better phrase for it) then whats the point?

I contacted spotify directly and got a very polite but thoroughly useless reply from them.  They say they have forwarded my comments to their design team but no solution was suggested or even implied.  So I get the feeling that absolutely nothing will be done about it.

Should I be happy that they were polite when telling me that no plausible solution is in the pipeline?

[user-removed]

No I don't think you should be satisfied with that!

A huge change like this is going to prompt people into downloading illegally, and playing the music through another program where a LIBRARY is available. I for one regularly used to do this until I found Spotify, and I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that.

They must have had a lot of complaints about this directly to themselves. Surely it can't be that difficult to reinstate the library function..?!?

[user-removed]

I do by the way have allot of playlisys 416 to be accurate it is the quickest and the most organized way I have used. I know which artists the songs are at in which playlists, I am just like that, my iPod and iTunes are set up that way and have gotten used to it for my access to music. Also I have done things that way because all of the streaming services are constantly changing how music is structured and presented, but playlists always seem to be there as a standard. I see why everyone is freaking out a little about the library going away which is why I made a post on how to roll back to an app version which still has the library function in it and how to stop the auto update until the Your Music section is fully sorted out by spotify I figure a few things will happen. Spotify will remove the track limit in this section or allow a folder structure to exist within this section to allow for more songs and/or more music. Or spotify will create something different altogether. We the users are really at the mercy of whatever spotify develops.

Edite to add: I think it was posted earlier I think when this feature was beta tested the testers said that everyone wanted to start from scratch, as it would put everything into a jumbled mess. Also there was also a 10k track limit and I believe a bug that also was causing problems with adding more than 500 tracks at a time. The general user is the open public testers for what is released from beta. always has been from OS development to apps being used, probable always will be.

[cohenfs]

Some may be interested in a related post of mine. Look for "cohenfs" post: "YOUR MUSIC" V. "LIBRARY." IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE

[mike4321]

If the library function doesn't come back soon I think I'm going to quit paying for Spotify.  There are too many good music options out there for me to pay for a service that willfully becomes less efficient.  I shouldn't have to maintain my own "Library" playlist and put every song in it.  Not only is it absurd to act like that's a reasonable alternative to the fully automated library that's been part of Spotify since I started using it, but it leads to having multiples of the same song on your library playlist since many songs I like are on more than one playlist (and the suggested method of creating the DIY library list is to put all of your playlists into one folder).

Spotify is one of the rare web-based services that I pay for, like Hulu and Netflix.  I expect a premium product for the price, not a less effective one and instructions on how I can work around losing functionality that we already had.

[user-removed]

I hope Library gets back soon.

It's the thing i use the most on spotify! With more than 11000 musics both localy and online, this is must have feature and the most important for me. (I dont get it why dont they focus on impotant things like music generes and proper shufle with queued songs...)

I'm on Linux Mint in a 32bit version, and luckly they haven't made the last version avaliable for it. So i was fine till now...

But i'll install a 64bit Distro of Mint 17 and on the repos, for 64bits, they only have the last version without "Library" .

So after a search on google i've found the the previous version with "Library" for 64bits (and also 32bits) here:

http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/pool/stable/s/spotify/

Hope it helps for users that use Linux (Debian based ditros anyway) 🙂

[meahtenoha]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all your posts and feedback. All of your comments are making it back to the right people at Spotify headquarters.

Secondly, as this thread has become a home for numerous different questions, we're going to close it and direct you to specific threads for each specific question. You can then go to those threads for updates on each individual query around Your Music.

If you want to continue the discussion or show support, please go to the corresponding thread or idea.

1. Static Saved Symbol

We hear you guys. We plan to improve the design of the "Add to Your Music" "+" sign by adding it to every view. Please watch this idea for updates.

2. Start a Radio station based on “Songs”

The best place to show support for this is the Radio based on “Your Music” idea. As this gains kudos we can provide specific status updates.

3. Make "Songs" offline

We’ve taken this feedback on board and we’re working on it as we speak. Android users on the latest update (1.0.0) can make “Songs” available offline. Keep an eye here for updates on other platforms.

4. Importing from Starred to Songs

Thanks to your feedback we’ve introduced the Import button. This tool preserves the “date added”.

If you're one of the users who have more than 9000 songs in your Starred, this won't be available for you. But fear not, we'll reach out to you as well. 

5. Add/ Remove songs and albums separately. 

Some users have noted that when you save an album, all those tracks are added to Songs too. The place to watch for updates on this is right here. 

6. Subscribing to your friend’s “Songs” playlist.

This idea has been posted right here: “Subscribe to other people’s Your Music songs list”. Please add your kudos and watch here for updates.

7. Saving local files in "Your Music"

The best spot for this feedback is the "Add Local Files to Your Music" idea here. Local file support will be on the way--we'll make status changes when we can there.

8. Sorting by Genre

 This idea also already has a home in the Ideas board: "Organize YOUR MUSIC by GENRE"

9. Make the Save button colorful

A few of you have noted that the gold color of stars make it easier to see in playlists, artist pages, etc. If you'd like to see more color please add kudos to "Green checks". 

Other Your Music ideas

Community Rock Star Marco has organized the main Your Music ideas here. If you don't see what you're looking for in this post, check out this list to see if your Idea has already been posted. 

Please continue to give us feedback on each of these points in their respective threads. We'll then be able to provide more accurate updates when we can--thanks everyone.