Album art not appearing on Local Files

[0e61_nqyw-5tj]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

(iPhone X, and Mac Book Air)

My Question or Issue

Attempting to transfer local files on my laptop to phone, but the album art is absent once on my phone. The art is shown on Spotify on my laptop but only once the Spotify on my phone is closed, when both my laptop and phone are running Spotify the art appears as a black screen. I'm not sure what the problem is, I have transferred numerous other files without this issue of the album art not appearing. 

[Ivan]

Hey there @0e61_nqyw-5tj, 

Thanks for reaching out to us about this - we'll be glad to help you out here.
 

To confirm, have you tried changing the source location of the local files on your laptop?

You can do this by creating a new folder in a different directory on the MacBook and moving your local files to this folder. Then you'll have to delete the old folder you originally created for the local files.

Once you're done, try importing the files to the iPhone again and check if now you see the album art properly.   

We'd also suggest you check out this help page for further tips on how to tackle issues with local files. 

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes. 

[Onewave]

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@Ivan wrote:

To confirm, have you tried changing the source location of the local files on your laptop?

You can do this by creating a new folder in a different directory on the MacBook and moving your local files to this folder. Then you'll have to delete the old folder you originally created for the local files.

Once you're done, try importing the files to the iPhone again and check if now you see the album art properly.   

---

I wonder, how creating a new local folder will help get album cover art images from Spotify servers? Every album has its own link to cover image, local files don't have such link, that's why covers are missing for local files.

[DJCarlos]

I have the same issue. And after scrolling around in here for a while, this seems to have been a problem for years.

To mess around with iTunes's cataloging system does not seem optimal to me. Won't that cause problem with the local catalogue? And it's not a few files we are talking about either. Isn't this a bug in the app that Spotify needs to take care of?

[Novophoenix]

I'm facing the same problem. For some reason, the album art will only display on whatever device is playing the song when the app is open on both devices, connected to the same network.

[Ver]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for reaching out to us 🙂

We'd suggest you start off by restarting your devices. Then you can log out and log back in again.

If that doesn't help, you can give these steps a go. That way you can make sure the app is up-to-date and the cache is not causing any issues.

If the issue persists, you can send us a screenshot of what you're seeing. We'll investigate this further.

Let us know how it goes. If you have questions, you know where to find us.

[JackHedaya]

I tried clearing my cache, the app, and restarting my phone. For some reason, the icon for the album cover is being loaded but for the actual song it appears missing.

Attached is my sample.

[Alex]

Hi there @JackHedaya,

Thanks for the info.

Can you try deleting those local files from your PC and reuploading them. Keep in mind that both the app on your phone and your PC should be turned on and connected to the same Wi-Fi when you reupload the files for best results.

Let us know how it goes.

[JackHedaya]

The issue seemed to have resolved itself this morning. Thanks anyways!

[Alex]

Hi @JackHedaya,

Thanks for getting back to us and letting us know.

Glad to hear it works fine now.

Don't hesitate to reach out again if it comes back or you have other questions 🙂

[Jordan_ol]

Changing source location doesn’t work. What else can we do? Or will Spotify actually just fix the issue?

[Alex]

Hi, there @Jordan_ol,

Thanks for the post.

The issue with the album art on local files is related to the track metadata. Some files can't be read properly by the Spotify app. 

What you can do is the following:

• Change the file format - .mp3 works best.
• Make sure the album art image is 300x300 px. If it is smaller or larger it might not get displayed.
• Try altering the file metadata with third-party software. You can search online for one that suits your needs.

Note that Spotify only supports music files obtained via legal purchase or copyright-free download and can't guarantee that illegally downloaded or converted music files will work as expected with the app.

Cheers.

[Jordan_ol]

The issue is, these solutions don’t work either.

so what now? Editing metadata externally doesn’t work, making artwork 300x300 doesn’t work…

[Yordan]

Hey @Jordan_ol,

Could you confirm that this issue occurs when you're listening to your local files on an external device via Spotify Connect? Could you share a screenshot which captures how things look on your end?

Keep us posted.

[DJCarlos]

Looks like this…

[MihailY]

Hey @DJCarlos,

Unfortunately, we can't see the screenshot in your comment. Can you try uploading it again?

Cheers,

[DJCarlos]

Here it is…

[camcantdrum]

I have a local file on my Android phone that I've edited the album cover and artist for, but when I open it up on Spotify, there is no album cover or artist for the song. What's the fix for this?

[Convoy501]

So I synced some local files from my PC to my iPhone. The music has artwork that I added that shows when the song is in a playlist, but when I click the song and pull it up, there's no artwork.

[Convoy501]

So looking at the song "Crisis", the artwork is there. This song is in a playlist and the artwork is visible. But when I click on it and pull it up, the artwork is no longer there.