How does last.fm retrieve a user's full listening history?

[jverma]

From all the API calls available, I could find I got get recently played but that can retrieve at most 50 recently played songs.

[Rubysmusic]

it’s because you need the premium on that app to retrieve further data.

[Naianasha]

Are you paging correctly? It is possible to get as many recent tracks as you need if you are paging correctly. If it would be helpful for you to see this being implemented in Python, let me know and I can help you. 

It is documented here:

https://www.last.fm/api/show/user.getRecentTracks