[All Platforms] Option to have a true shuffle

[jonathanleyerle]

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.

[Giaan]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

Iphone 13

Operating System

iOS

My Question or Issue

Please, please, please can we have a feature where spotify gives us a true shuffle of the playlist. Perhaps something to enable in settings, or for a particular playlist, similar to turning off Automix but more extreme. There are so many posts online from people who want this. I've had to resort to this tool [external link removed by Mod] to actually allow me to hear the songs that Spotify wants to hide from me using its "smarter" (but in reality, worse) shuffle algorithm.

[JosefDeKrita]

If this really is a money issue, I see no reason why it couldn't be a feature available to Premium users. The only reason I stay on Premium is because someone in my family pays for the family plan, otherwise I would be wary of spending money on a service that doesn't give its users a basic feature such as random shuffle.

[dank13]

If you listen to this interview podcast on Hard Fork podcast you can understand why Spotify will NEVER do a true shuffle for us.

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/hard-fork/id1528594034?i=1000689951216

basically it's all about money... and the way Spotify pays artists for listening hours on the platform.

for starters there is a minimum cap an artist needs to get before he gets paid, so if you are an artist you only get paid once you reach the minimum threshold. So Spotify will tend to favorite artists that are less played so they don't have to pay them.

Also there are artists that get paid once and they will lose rights for the song, so no matter how many plays they get, they won't get paid, Spotify will favorite those again.

There is a bit more to it but yeah it's pure money...

worth listening to the podcast...

[pooyair]

@Moderators or Admin or Administrator 

why are you ignoring my request. I have started this post myself and this post get more than 4500 likes. Recently i notice someone remove my credit for sharing my feedback.i already have shared a lots more interesting feedback for Spotify.This is really your last chance to add my user beside the first post and shared the credit for both. Other wise i leave here and I won’t waste my time and energy anymore.

Cheers!
Pooya

[pooyair]

Seems really nobody cares about my valuable development feedback so now time to change.Such a shame. Bye Bye everyone from Spotify forever.
Pooya 

[Jpsoares7]

Please make this a "thing" ASAP.  What's the point of a "shuffle" feature if it just keeps playing the same songs in the same sequence every time I listen to a particular playlist? I added songs to a playlist because I like them and want to periodically hear them again, not because I want the same sequence to come up again and again.

[zx6dude]

They haven't fixed it in over 5 years, I don't think that they will - It would cost them money. 

Greed is such an ugly thing.

[Parmida_Kazempour1]

Suggestion for a "True Shuffle" Feature on Spotify

Dear Spotify Team,

I have been using your app for a long time and have been a Premium subscriber for several years. However, there is one issue that keeps occurring over and over again—the way Spotify shuffles playlists.

The word "shuffle" means to mix things up, but on Spotify, it seems like this meaning has taken a different turn. I have a playlist that is 83 hours long with over 1,000 songs, yet for some reason, Spotify keeps throwing the same songs at me repeatedly, and it’s becoming really frustrating.

I’ve also noticed that if I listen to a specific song for a week, Spotify keeps pushing that same song in my playlists just because I liked it for a while. But at some point, I don’t want to hear it anymore. Users expect the shuffle function to actually shuffle songs. I don’t use this feature to listen to my most-played songs or the ones Spotify thinks I still want on repeat.

I understand that Spotify uses algorithms to determine what songs to play, but I believe it’s time to give users the option for a “True Shuffle”—a shuffle that is not based on:

• Most played songs
• Most played artists
• Spotify’s personalization algorithms

Instead, a shuffle that is purely random. This is not a difficult feature to program, and I don’t see what Spotify would lose by implementing it.

Before anyone suggests that I take steps to achieve a more random shuffle myself—trust me, I have. I have spent hours talking to customer service and browsing different websites, searching for settings that would give me a true shuffle, all without success.

Today, I’m writing this in the hope that we can get a feature for users who want to listen to their long playlists without being interrupted by the same 10 songs, for those of us who enjoy exploring our full playlist, and for those who simply want a real shuffle.

It’s a simple request, and I genuinely believe it would be a small but impactful change to give back to the users who spend so much money on your app every month. This would require minimal effort from Spotify but provide maximum value to users like me. And I can assure you—there are plenty of users with this exact same issue. Just check Reddit, memes, Twitter (X), and more, and you’ll see how many people are frustrated by this problem.

Please consider adding this feature. It would make a significant difference for many of us.

Best regards,

Parmida -A Concerned Spotify User

[Parmida_Kazempour1]

**bleep** YES I HAVE MADE A SIMILAR COMPLAINT

[mick-borneo]

Remember: there is a workaround that has been previously been posted. It's not perfect but it mostly works.

Randomization with Shuffle can be achieved by going to Settings —> Playback and setting the Automix toggle to OFF. 

This absurdly stupid setting, when ON, tells the Spotify algorithm to play “similar sounding” songs in your playlist, meaning some songs will likely play twice or more.

Turning it OFF tells Spotify to simply apply a random() function to your playlist.  Crazy!!