Desktop: New Your Library sidebar

[MattSuda]

Spotify is introducing a new Your Library sidebar in the desktop app and Web Player.

The new Your Library sidebar improves navigation and makes it easier and faster to collect and retrieve all types of content, bringing new features to desktop that you're already familiar with in the mobile app. The new sidebar is also more customizable than before to meet different preferences.

You can read more info about the new desktop experience in the Spotify Newsroom post:

➜ Spotify’s Desktop Experience Gets a Brand-New Look With Redesigned ‘Your Library’ and ‘Now Playing’ ...

This thread is your go-to destination for learning what's new, asking questions, getting help for issues you might have, as well as to share your feedback about the new Your Library sidebar for desktop. Also, do you have any tips for other users on how you are using the new Your Library sidebar? We'd love to hear them.

What's new in the Your Library sidebar?

• See your entire collection and all of the content types (not just playlists)
  
  
• Filters for your collection (Playlists, Artists, Albums, Podcasts) that can be combined with other filters (By you, By Spotify, Downloaded)
  
  
• Sort options for your collection (Recents, Recently Added, Alphabetical, Creator, Custom Order)
  
  
• Chosen filters and sort options will be remembered in the sidebar across restarts of the desktop app
  
  
• Search through your collection in the sidebar
  
  
• Pinned library items to find your favorites, faster – current limit is 4 (Playlists, Playlist Folders, Artists, Albums, Podcasts)
  
  
• Art covers are now shown in the sidebar
  
  
• Compact library layout (no art covers) is available as an option in Settings to increase content density
  
  
• Dedicated + (plus) button to create Playlists and Playlist Folders
  
  
• Flexible Sizing: A collapsed library view (with only art covers) to maximize the browsing area, a regular width view, and an expanded view for more focused library management and curation. (you can also drag to customize the size)
  
  
• In the expanded library view, you have options for list view, compact view, and a grid view. The list and compact views show you more details in 2 columns, Date Added and Last Played, and the grid view allows you to see larger art covers.
  
  
• Playlist Folders can still be expanded into the sidebar in a tree view, and now when you click on them, the sidebar only shows the Playlist Folder and what's inside for a more focused view.
  
  
• Menu option to move a playlist to a folder (with search)

Note: The Your Library sidebar experience will be the same for the most part in the Web Player. However, the Web Player does not support all of the features found in the desktop app. To be able to use all of the features, you can download the desktop app right here.

Tips to get started:

If you need a familiar experience to help you get started with the new Your Library sidebar, here's how to get it as close as possible to the old sidebar that previously only showed playlists:

• In the left "Your Library" sidebar, click on the "Playlists" filter at the top.

• Then, in the drop down menu select "Custom Order" under "Sort by". You will then see your previous playlist order and be able to move your playlists and folders like before.

• Your currently chosen filters and sort options will be remembered across restarts of the desktop app.

• If you would like to only see text in the Your Library sidebar (no art covers), go to the drop down menu and at the bottom of the menu click on "Compact" under "View as".

• Flexible Sizing: You can drag the Your Library sidebar to different sizes. Fully expand the sidebar by clicking the arrow button at the top, and fully collapse the sidebar by clicking on the "Your Library" heading to see only art covers.

• At the top, you can scroll through the different filters with your mouse scroll wheel for faster navigation when the sidebar is set to a smaller size. 

Walkthrough of the basics:

Sidebar List:

You can now see your entire collection and all of the content types (not just playlists) in the sidebar list. At the top, click on the filters to filter the content you want to see, and click on the drop down menu to change the sort order or view of the list. To create a new Playlist or Playlist Folder, click on the + (plus) button at the top right corner of the sidebar. To search through your collection, click on the search button.

Filter Options:

At the top, click on the filters to filter the content you want to see. You can scroll through the different filters with your mouse scroll wheel for faster navigation when the sidebar is set to a smaller size. 

To remove the filter, click on the X or the currently selected filter and then choose another filter to see another type of content. Having no filter selected will show all types of content mixed in the list.

• Playlists
• Artists
• Albums
• Podcasts & Shows
• These can be combined with other filters: By you, By Spotify, Downloaded

Sort Options:

At the top, click on the drop down menu to change the sort order of the list under "Sort by".

• Recents
• Recently Added
• Alphabetical
• Creator

When the "Playlists" filter is selected, you have the option to see your playlists in your own custom order.

• Custom Order

When the "Podcasts & Shows" filter is selected, you have the following option:

• Recently Updated

View Options:

At the top, click on the drop down menu to change the view of the list under "View as".

• Compact (view text only without art covers)
• List
• Grid (bigger art covers)

Flexible Sizing:

You can hover over and click on the right edge of the sidebar to drag it to your preferred width. You can also fully expand the sidebar by clicking the arrow button at the top, and fully collapse the sidebar by clicking on the "Your Library" heading to see only art covers.

In the expanded library view, you have options for list view, compact view, and a grid view. The list and compact views show you more details in 2 columns, Date Added and Last Played, and the grid view allows you to see larger art covers.

FAQ:

This section will answer your frequently asked questions and will be updated with the latest answers.

Related help articles on the support website:

• Your Library   • Sort and filter   • Keyboard Shortcuts

Can I view the Your Library page in the main browsing area like before?

• Unfortunately, the old Your Library page in the main browsing area is being discontinued with the release of the new Your Library sidebar. You can adjust the size of the Your Library sidebar to be bigger and you can also enable the "grid view" if you would like to see bigger art covers.

How do I see only my playlists in the sidebar like I used to be able to, I can't drag and move my playlists or folders anymore?

• In the left "Your Library" sidebar, click on the "Playlists" filter at the top.

  
  Then, in the sort options drop down menu select "Custom Order". You will then see your previous playlist order and be able to move your playlists and folders like before.

  
  Your currently chosen filters and sort options will be remembered across restarts of the desktop app.

I don't want to see art cover images in the sidebar, how do I turn them off?

• If you would like to only see text in the Your Library sidebar (no art covers), go to the drop down menu and at the bottom of the menu click on "Compact" under "View as".
  
  

How do I get the album art to expand in the bottom left corner like before? When I try to expand the album art, it opens the Now Playing View sidebar to the right.

• Unfortunately, that is no longer possible. When you expand the album art in the bottom left corner of the app, it will no longer hover over the Your Library sidebar. Instead, the new right sidebar will open up. You can resize the Now Playing View sidebar to your preferred size.
  
  

  You can read more information about this by going here.

How do I play or shuffle play a Playlist Folder now? (I don't see dedicated pages with play / shuffle options anymore)

• Right click on a Playlist Folder and select the "Play" option. To shuffle play, make sure to turn on the shuffle mode first before selecting the "Play" option in the right click menu.

How do I get to my Local Files now?

• In the left "Your Library" sidebar, click on the "Playlists" filter at the top.

  
  Then, in the sort drop down select "Custom Order".
  
  The "Local Files" playlist will be near the top of the list under your pinned items (if any).

Feedback:

Where can I give my feedback about the new Your Library sidebar in the desktop app?

• We welcome your feedback about this change. The best way to share your feedback is to comment here in this thread.

[Letterblak]

It's not just your opinion mate... It's anyone who can objectively look at the product.

[vpieter]

What. the. …

[petehuf]

It is harder for me to get to my saved albums and have quick access to my playlists. I'm not able to expand the view of my albums to more than half the window. I liked having the playlists pane visible at all times.

[coyotepunk05]

This new library sidebar is awful. It is incredibly cluttered and feels like it has been directly copied over from the mobile version with no accomodations for the different user interface inherently on a desktop computer. It is easy to fall down a rabbit hole of folders and when you try to use a hardware back button to return to where you were or close a submenu it instead targets the main screen area of spotify moving between home and different playlists/albums/home page and such. This is so incredibly more difficult to navigate that it should be rolled back immediately. It is no longer possible to quickly double click on a playlist to play it in the default setup so you have to go into the settings and change it to be more like what it was before anyways. AWFUL, JUST AWFUL ALL AROUND.

[ollieSVK]

Terrible. The biggest mistake is removing library tab and making it into sidebar where at everything is cluttered, it clutters the homepage, the pill buttons are too mobile experience centric, unwieldy, hard to click and scroll through them, entire thing is just making library experience more complicated, you also need more clicks to switch between albums view and playlists view. By the way when you have album art of the song which you are playing enlarged, the art covers big part of the new sidebarized library. Bad move for you, Spotify, library deserves it's own tab, like it had, not just cluttered unvieldy sidebar.

[sognix]

Hi,

I know there has to be some development done. But the new User Interface which I got today via Microsoft Store update is not really good. The old was better. Now the most important information is a small bar on the left side, I have to scroll much more, per default the playlists are mixed with the artists...

Please go back to the old one or make something better.

[HugoParis]

wth ??

I have to read 3 pages of non-native language to try to retrieve the way I am used to sort my music before, for years now . 

I don't want you to impose on me the "dowloaded songs" on top so that you save communication costs on a service I am paying for.

I want to manage *my* playlists , I am forced to put them in folders that appears as ugly grey anonymous icons.

I don't want to see the artists I am following at the same level as my playlist

I want to be able to *exclude* some categories from my sidebar

i want to see the cover of the title I'm listening to in more than a thumbnail, without it being hovering over like an undesirable intruder  

I don't want to have tags presented on top as if I was doing my homework in excel

[HugoParis]

Seriously, what is the thinking behind this design ?

I've got ugly anonymous folders on the right, partially covered by the album cover, ...itself also covering the main page.

If I want to have a full screen of the cover, you know, some artistes put their soul in doing them, I need to click on the opposite side of the screen, (that's 55 cm away on my iMac), on a button which is labelled "full screen", though I am *already* in full screen; and if I want to go back to where I was before, I can't. I have to leave the full screen, which clutters my actual workspace then enter it again by clicking the top left green button of the window (another 80 cm).    

Are you trying to win an award for the worst design ever ? 

[ManMachine]

Just tested the web player, what's up with all the empty black space?     Would be nice if stuff in the list view would be laid out in a bit more logical way like one entry per row.     Doesn't have to be for everyone, but it should definately be remembered for each user so you don't have to click around like crazy to find stuff.     This UX is confusing at best.

[flashpoint]

Can I pay $20 a month to get the old UI back? Please?

[ManMachine]

... and how do I quicky switch to discovery pages for an artist like "Fans also like".  I can't seem to find the tabs anymore?

The information density is insanely low in this version of the UI, scroll, scroll click to find even the simplest thing...

You desperately need to add some configurability here.

[Whatisthisdesignfor]

I have canceled subscription over this new Desktop design - I don't know how to navigate or custom build. Please add to your feedback team that this is such a missed, and to force it on without instructions is so strange. 

[theodosiaprevost]

Double post by mistake, see below comment.

[theodosiaprevost]

Ok, take three submitting this reply since my first two were rejected by moderators and removed for spam.

I've been shouting into the void for the past week or so since this disaster of an update came out. My library is still empty, with all my hundreds of playlists having vanished unless I search for them individually by name. Was told to come and leave my "feedback" here, so here it is: this update has broken my library entirely and if it's not fixed within a week then I'm out. The planned product is beyond awful, but the update was so poorly tested that it broke my entire library. I've wasted hours and hours talking to various different customer support agents (because they all seem to disappear after 10 minutes and put me on to another one) and I've had enough.

I have stayed with spotify premium for so many years for one reason, and one reason only: convenience. I've disliked almost every single update they've released since playlist folders. Now, I have to jump through hoops to access my playlists. Even if the update worked as intended, I wouldn't be able to organise my playlists properly because the library sidebar is too small. I have ADHD and it sounds silly but I find it genuinely stressful and overwhelming when a screen has loads of visual clutter on it. This new UI is literally designed to be unusable for me. Companies usually love lazy customers like me because we stick around through terrible update after terrible update simply because of the effort required to switch. But there's a breaking point, and this is it. There's an excellent twitter thread about this topic (the "trust thermocline"):

Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won’t see that.

But they’ll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they’d made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.

I had initially included a link to the thread but I suspect that's what caused my reply to be marked as spam on this godforsaken and totally functional site, so to find the thread you'll have to google it yourself.

Off topic but does anyone know what spotify has to gain from this update? Most of their awful decisions it's pretty obvious they're trying to push podcasts or whatever, but I don't see how they're even profiting from this. It's just so aggressively anti-user for seemingly no reason.

TL;DR My feedback is to listen to your customers for once and undo this update. Spotify is very, very rapidly approaching the Trust Thermocline.

[vaajy]

With this update it's clear they want to make mobile and desktop experience similar.

I think eventually there wil be bell icon as well.

Problem is, this view is even on mobile cluttered, so they should exclude some categories within settings.

Some may want to clear they big list from podcasts or artists for example.

The best design, even on mobile, would be excelent tab design for anything else, playlists on main level.

I tried all streaming portals and I listen over 200 000 minutes a year, so for me unlimited liked tracks is must have.

So far couldn't find it anywhere else.

I am glad someone reverted tiktok view on mobile, because that was reason enough to press a button...

But now I will not. With this desktop view I can live, but it's too informative and this way messy.

[Alex_113]

change the UI so that the lyrics bar is turned into a tiny button beside the cast or queue buttons. The bar is ugly looking and I constantly touch it on accident when trying to press something else. PLEASE FIX THIS

[Lord-AJ]

I dislike the trend of desktop applications being designed as if they were mobile. It's not the same thing and they shouldn't strive to be similar. My library is what I care most about, yet it is confined to a small portion of the screen even when extending the sidebar as much as possible. Everything is cluttered there, as if it were neccessary to keep it compact, when it really isn't. I simply do not understand why the new UI removes useful features that I've grown to rely upon. I want to be able to click on "Albums" and see a nice fullscreen overview of all my saved albums, same for Artists and Playlists. I don't mind the sidebar, it can certainly be useful. But what I really care about is the ability to browse my library on the big screen.

Quite frankly, this is the worst UI update I've ever experienced. I realise many people don't like change in general, but here the direction of the change is the main problem. Re-add the library tab in addition to the new sidebar. That way people have options. Or simply allow us to change back to the old UI. At this point I'll just look for an alternative that doesn't seem to hate the idea of wanting to look at your music library.

[meshumo]

how do i change it back

[meshumo]

in all seriousness im seriously considering ending my premium subscription and switching to a different music service. what was wrong with the old layout?

[CL415]

I am sorry you are experiencing this forum where the only "help" coming is from some of those contemptious "stars" that believe they are inheriting the company or something if they keep d***riding for so long, and I am very sorry you are experiencing all those problems with the playlists. They will not listen and will close any thread asking for help as solved once they get tired of you, sadly.

I was already very setback when they started this awful "new desktop experience" and I was chosen without my consent to be among its first users; while I understand that it was necessary to build a new dektop app from scratch —from what I understood, the old desktop app code's was basically unupdatable—, I just wonder how they managed to consistently choose the worst decissions possible in their new designs, and entering this forum to see what was going on with so much changes back then was orwellian, with literally mods gaslighting thousands of angry customers and no improvements whatsoever. Seeing how much they chose not to care about all the feedback I understood that the execs and UI designers of this company have their heads up their lower backs so I simply chose to abandon my subscription, and after exporting my playlists, to switch to YTMusic.

Today I decided to redownload the app and enter here again just to see if after a whole YEAR there has been any improvement just to find my issues unsolved and your post among the thousands of other angry users — this company is rotten, I hope more people abandon them and the shareholders start to get more nervous. They need to keep losing money until everyone responsible of this is either fired or the company fails altogether.

Maybe I can start a thread about the problems I had with the app, see which excuses those "stars" throw up now instead of working hahah

Good luck solving your issue.