Issue with storage option switching from SD Card to internal

[haydnrb7]

Plan

Premium

Country

US 

Device

Moto X4

Operating System

Android Pie

My Question or Issue

 This happened with my last phone, Samsung S7 running Oreo (or whatever the most recent OS is) but it was fixed when I got the Moto X4. I like to keep a lot of songs downloaded offline because my service is terrible and I also spend a lot of time in the mountains. Before I I update my phone to the new Android Pie OS there was no problems. Now everytime I reset my phone I think spotify cannot see my SD card at first and tries to download all the music to its internal storage and I have to go back in and tell it to store it in the SD card. That is extremely annyoing but not the end of the world. What is really frustrating is that I think all of the downloaded songs are still on the SD card and just keep redownloading and taking up space. Eventually this will cause me to reformat the card which will be a major pain for me since I store a large amount of photos on there also. Is anyone else have this problem? I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the application so any other suggestions or help?

[Ver]

Hey @peppito,

Thanks for posting here.

Just to double-check-are there any changes after trying the steps mentioned in the thread? Does another SD card make a difference? 

Keep us posted.

[capang9555]

It's almost 2022 and I am still having this issue. I just got a Galaxy S10 (went from a S8) the S8 has issues way back in 2017 but I fixed it by upgrading to a SD card with higher transfer speed... Well I noticed recently both phones are having the issue. Both phones have high spec SD cards so that rules it out. Very very frustrating. S8 runs Android 9 and the S10 runs Android 11... This is unacceptable, as it transcends different Android versions. Spotify I've been a user for almost 10 years now. Please get on this. It's very frustrating when I'm in a place with spotty coverage and I have offline music on my computer that I need to transfer over each time too... 

[michele86]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE

Operating System

Android 11

My Question or Issue

I'm going through the same issue as everyone else here, I change the settings to save my songs on Micro SD card, but after a restart my songs are being downloaded again on my phone's internal storage.

BTW clearing cache and data, logging out of all my devices (through the web option), and reinstalling the app doesn't work at all.

So @Spotify please finally fix this issue! After all I pay for this service!

[wanderlust1985]

I'm having the same problem as well with a Samsung S20 FE

If you do a google search this problem has been around for over 7 years and it seems to be due to Spotify forgetting that the SD card exists after a reboot. It's an issue with the Spotify app that they need to fix.

[ajvollmer]

I've been dealing with this for years. I can't count how many times I've found my phone internal storage is entirely full because Shitify has defaulted to internal storage. Waste of data, electricity, everything. FOR SIX YEARS they have failed to address this. I'm officially out. That spotify doesn't fix something that causes android users to have a terrible experience is immensely dumb.

[RaphyBear]

Same things here. 3 years dealing with this problem. Now i tested with 3 factory reset of the phone and 3 microSD and i have a Galaxy Note 20 ultra. 

[swiftymusic]

Same problem here on a Samsung Galaxy S20. This phone has no option to require a PIN at boot which was one suggestion to fix the issues. I'm amazed Spotify has allowed the problem to fester for years now.

[swiftymusic]

Shameful that this has been marked as solved when the issue has never been solved and is negatively impacting millions of customers.

[Tink3rb3ll]

As spotify has still not seen fit to FIX THIS ISSUE which has been ongoing for 5+ years, here is a workaround I found on reddit. (I cannot post the link, but just Google search Problem with spotify downloads on sd card (android))

Spotify could easily fix this issue by adding a delay which will wait for the SD card to be mounted first before downloading ALL songs again (as suggested by MULTIPLE people and completely disregarded by the moderators continuously posting the same trouble shooting that doesn't work), the only viable option is to do something with the app that spotify themselves does not normally allow.

The solution is to install the app on your external storage.

This way the background process of the app is delayed to load.

• Enable the developer options on Anroid
• Enable Force allow apps on external
• Move spotify to external storage and then download all the songs/podcasts you want

Since doing this I've successfully restarted my phone without spotify moving the storage back to internal, which has been a big pain in the past as this happened once on a hiking trip when my phone ran out of battery and all downloads were gone afterwards with no phone reception...
One thing to note: You will have to repeat this process every time you update the app, as apps are generally moved back to internal storage after updating.

[Renler]

My god, thank you for the solution! I've restarted my phone now 5 times and still everything is on the as card. Regarding updates I'll have to see, if only Spotify will be moved back to the internal storage or the songs too