404 for private playlists – expected?

[johanbrodin]

Trying to fetch a playlist I get different results based on which token I am using – 404 or the actual playlist. Using our developer token (granted by the Client Credentials Flow) I get the 404, but using the token of the user owning the playlist I get the content of the playlist back.

Is this the expected result? My understanding was that you could use https://developer.spotify.com/console/get-playlist/?playlist_id=5mY4AWi4riiJFYqMFT61YB&market=&field... to fetch any playlist, regardless of public/private? 

To fetch private playlists using ID has been part of the API for the past 5 years, any recent change?

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5mY4AWi4riiJFYqMFT61YB?si=43b8ca3c42f84ed6&pt=95136ecd08d5a3752dc8...

[Ximzend]

With a token granted by the Client Credentials Flow you can only fetch public playlists.

[johanbrodin]

Thanks for your answer!

This is what I suspected, but this was not the case previously?

I wonder if this change in access was communicated somewhere that I missed? 🙂  

[Ximzend]

I don't know when it changed, but now you have an extra option to set a playlist to private. Now a playlist not showing on your profile is not the same as a private playlist is. Playlists that are not showing on a profile, but aren't set to private, you can still access with Client Credentials.

You can read more about it here: Playlist privacy

Edit: I think it changed on 17 May 2022, because that's the the date after "Last updated" on the bottom of the article, archived by the Wayback Machine.