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[All Platforms] Option to have a true shuffle

So I’ve been noticing more and more recently that Spotify’s default shuffle feature doesn’t fully shuffle your songs. It does some sort of grouping to try to get similar songs together based off of what I’m sure is dozens of factors. Every time I shuffle a playlist (the one I noticed this with the most is ~100 songs and 6 hours of mostly full albums) it will group the songs mostly or completely together by album/artist, and given the number of times I’ve re-shuffled and checked the order there’s no way it’s just a coincidence. They also generally seem to be in the same order as well. If I hit shuffle play on a playlist it’ll generally put the same artists at the beginning every time.

 

With larger playlists of albums I am really not a fan of this shuffling method. If I have 6 hours of music on a playlist I will hardly ever have 6 hours to actually listen through the whole thing, but when I do listen to it I would like to hear all of the music on it equally, and not just the artist or two your algorithm likes to shuffle to first.

 

Anyways, I’m a reasonable man, all I’m asking for is an option to have a true shuffle (take all songs in the list, put them in a random order, and once they’re all played reshuffle them and play them again). Make it premium only if you want. I don’t think you should scrap the current shuffle algorithm because it sucks. Looking at some of the suggestions on here it seems like some people lobbied hard to have it that way. Just add an option for a true shuffle for those of us that don’t care about potentially getting the same song twice in a row.

Updated on 2021-09-14

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for your votes and for bringing us your feedback in the Spotify Idea Exchange.

 

As this idea has gathered a fair amount of votes, we've discussed it with the relevant team once again. We actually want to take a closer look at what you're experiencing and get some of you in touch with our devs.

 

@jonathanleyerle- since you initiated the thread it would be great if we can have you on board.

@j4m1eb, @PrestonSale@decker12@jules99- what you mention is particularly interesting, so we'd like to have you on board as well.

 

We'll send you more info via Community PM, so please make sure they're enabled in your Community settings.

 

If anyone else is interested in participating, please let us know in this thread. We'll reach out to you, should we need more folks.

 

Thanks!

Comments
Guido
Status changed to: Up for Votes

Updated on 2020-01-07

Hello and thanks for bringing your feedback to the Idea Exchange. We've marked this as a new idea. We also changed the title slightly.

 

Spotify Staff will look into this idea once it reaches the necessary amount of votes. More information about how the Spotify Idea Exchange works can be found: here

delelise

This is really important to me! Whenever I shuffle a playlist (almost every one of mine is 100+ songs) it’ll play the same songs every time and only like 20 of them before repeating which is really annoying. There are songs on my playlists I never hear because of this, which kinda defeats the purpose of a playlist. Shuffle should just be a true shuffle and shuffle ALL songs and play ALL songs before repeating. 

gillesburnand

Indeed I would really like a true shuffle option. When I'm working out I like putting  a couple of albums in a playlist and then shuffling the songs... unfortunately when the algorithm thinks the songs are too dissimilar it plays one album after another without shuffling from one to the other. This is quite annoying. Another example, today I shuffled three albums that had some upbeat tracks and some slower tracks: it first played ALL the slower songs first and then ALL the upbeat songs. This is exactly what I didn't want. I wanted variety.

israelbarros

I'm very keen to a true random mode. I've noticed that in some automatic playlist as On repeat and Repeat rewind albums are put together.

This is very annoying, because if my will is to listen an entire album, I will do it by myself. I don't need a playlist for that. It is enough to put the albums in the queue.

nbondoc

Has the shuffle feature been fixed yet???? I've been waiting years!

r_e_d_c

How can this be a "new idea"? It is a major flaw that should be fixed.

nbondoc

Spotify, why aren't you listening to your paying customers>

This shuffle problem has been going on for years....WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!

omperer

spotify, please, please, pleeeeease finally listen to your paying customers and implement  a shuffle that actually takes all of your songs in a playlist (be it user created or favorites), shuffle them like cards (truly randomly) and discard them from the queue once they're played. My experience is that it takes only the latest~100 songs (out of my 3500+) of my favorites and shuffles these. and it doesn't seem random.
I myself listen a lot to my favorite songs. the older, long ago saved songs are lost all the way down in the list. I never get to hear them. just scrolling down, clicking one, then hitting shuffle does not do the trick. it just puts my first 100 songs in the queue. it's been like this for years for me now. why do you keep trying to help with "oh, maybe turn shuffle on and off again and it will reshuffle the queue." yes, but only those newest ~100 songs!?
PLEASE CHANGE THIS!!!

zakrom

I don't understand why this isn't a feature, honestly from a developer side it shouldn't be that difficult to implement. Please do this!

nbondoc

This is not a new idea.....the question is why won't Spotify create a shuffle of our music list. This complaint/suggestion has been going on for YEARS! Tell us the real reason you are not doing this.