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.

[ManMachine]

Spotify version 1.2.11.916.geb595a67 black screen on Ubuntu due to bug in auto-login.

See here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux/spotify-not-starting/td-p/5603801

No response, so I'm reposting it in the official thread about the new post april 2021 re-write.  Did it ever work?

[Jordan575]

Hey @Spotify, 

Could you please consider the responses from your community to some extent and admit that the new interface on the Windows application is a complete disaster?

Allow us at least to choose which display we want! I have looked at subscriptions from other providers, and Qobuz seems very interesting to me.

[xkx]

We have to go deeper

album covers

[ManMachine]

---

Hey @Spotify,

Could you please consider the responses from your community to some extent and admit that the new interface on the Windows application is a complete disaster?

Allow us at least to choose which display we want! I have looked at subscriptions from other providers, and Qobuz seems very interesting to me.

---

At this point I'll settle for somebody at least acknowledging that they read the feedback.    It's kind of crazy to tell the users to post all bugs and malfeatures that have appeared after april 2021 in the same thread.

Also, when I encountered a clear bug with the new login procedure and emailed support about it, they were very responsive and helpful in the beginning until it was apparent it was an actual bug. When I then asked them to escalate it to the dev team they just said it was impossible and I should post here.   There response times here on bugs is extreme to say the least. 😕

Must be one of the worst customer support flows I've seen.  It's like screaming at a wall.

[Chuck2389]

But MihailY already said that all our comments are being read and directed to the right departments! That was only a month and a half ago. I'm sure within another two months someone will post another "official" response.

Since we are almost out of room for new side bars, maybe they can introduce top/bottom bars for the next update! Think of the helpful possibilities. We could have one bar for band merch and another could display critic reviews. You are welcome for the free ideas Spotify!

In case anyone can't tell...    / s

[TonyBalls]

As someone who works in UI/UX I really wish that Spotify (who has an INCREDIBLE design team) would think through these decisions a bit futher. This sidebar redesign was a user experience failure and I won't detail the reasons why that is without some form of compensation. It's not my job to tell this company where they have failed.

But my god, sometimes they truly impress me while other times I'm slackjawed at the unforced errors happening on the design and experience level. Just speechless.

[TonyBalls]

Actually I'm not done here. I'll give a free partial consultation.
1. You now have TWO content areas. Someone hits the back button (desktop/mouse) and which area does that control exactly?
2. Why is the SIDEBAR being reengineered versus the "HOME" page (if you could even call it that) which has sat stagnant for years now and is incredbly cluttered and unuseful.

I know your employees use Notion... AirTable... Monday... how have lessons on a user dashboard not been learned by now by a company of this scale with so much talent.

Sorry. This is getting obnoxious but needs to be said. You have my contact info. Email me if you want to discuss further.

[pit1288]

You have got to be kidding me. I have 7 songs in the release radar that are not available!

[ABNT]

Let's get to 1000 replies

[ManMachine]

The original thread already contained 2290 posts before this one was started.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/The-Blog-Vault/The-New-Desktop-App/bc-p/5175848

[ManMachine]

still no reaction regarding the current black screen auto-login bug, what gives?

See here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux/spotify-not-starting/td-p/5603801

[Autonomous123]

To be honest, this is I think my first time posting here in these forums (typically I avoid them) and the reason for this is due to this odd UI update.

I'm one of the fortunate ones who uses Linux and thankfully the maintainer for spotify on my distro has yet to update the package, so I still have the old UI, but I went ahead and downloaded a flakpak version of Spotify with the updated UI (for curiousity purposes), and wow it is horrible.

The biggest reasons why I dislike the new UI is due to how small the playlist covers are now with the screen sizes I use. The covers are custom images of mine that I tend to look at from time to time when listening in Spotify, and it serves as a good coping mekanism that works well in my life. For it to forcefully be decreased in size is extremely unfortunate for me.

Another reason is how these panels cannot be forcefully closed or hidden. It would be a delight if the right-side panel can be hidden or any panel for that matter.

But who am I to speak of the problems with this update? Like countless other companies who start off as caring and listening when it comes to their users, they later on grow to become the opposite. Spotify is one of those companies now. 

Unfortunately, I will be looking for a replacement or most likely, will be switching to a more physical format in terms of listening to music. I don't expect Spotify to very much listen to their users and honestly, this post itself is probably useless to anyone who reads it. The only thing I can do is simply move on instead of hoping for better changes.

[TonyBalls]

@Autonomous123 to be fair, there is still a way to browse your custom playlist art at larger sizes. The design does not make this obvious, but if you drag the sidebar as wide as it will go (and then pull it even further to the right) it will change from list-view into thumbnail-view.

You can also drag it super thin and switch to an icon-list-view. This seems quite pointless though for an app that doesn't allow custom artwork for playlist folders. Forces you to rely on hover for any information.

The whole thing looks quite strange tbh. And goes back to a point I made in my previous post about how it's bad user experience to have two content areas which each have < back + forward > interactions.

thumbnails

icons

 

[hans-jürgen]

Wrong thread.

[takesan]

Why can't we just click on a playlist folder and have it take up the entire screen? Is it really easier to scroll through 20 playlists in a sidebar than it is to have a grid on the main page for the same?

This is the biggest thing that annoys me about this UI change. And the thing is, if someone prefers to do it in the sidebar they still had the choice to do it in the old UI by clicking the > at the playlist folder. But the reverse is not true.

We can figure out where to click, please understand that.

[GordotForrot]

Is there any chance of bringing back the old library page? Browsing on the main page is so much more intuitive for me, I don't get why I have to enlarge the side bar every time I want to browse my albums in a *somewhat* comfortable way, when the previous solution worked so much better!
I don't think the new sidebar is necessarily a bad addition, but I'm definitely sure that discontinuing the old page was a mistake.

[takesan]

you can download 1.1.94 from uptodown if you really want it back, that's the latest (available) version that doesn't have this UI change. 

[ManMachine]

what is up with this complete lack of official response to issue?   is the company about to fold?

[Preved]

I have really been trying to live with it, then for a while, spicetify provided salvation. But I just can't deal with the sidebar. It makes playlist management almost impossible, it is infuriatingly bad. Going into the playlists, instead of opening them as a folder tree? I bet whoever greenlit that change has at most two playlists that they edit once a year at most. And nothing against changes in general, a filter function is surely useful, but at what cost? Now that spicetify can't revert the library X anymore, I have to give up. I'm going to have to use deezer again, and I don't even like them. I think the feedback here was overwhelmingly negative, I'm curious how Spotify is going to react on it. Will they listen to the community or are they too proud? So far, they seem to ignore the main complaints and focus on a minority of people with actual bugs, pretending those are why people are mad. 

[#21]

My playlists used to appear in list form on the left side of the Spotify window. Now only a few of them show up in the middle and I can't figure out how to access the rest of them. Please put it back the way it used to be or at least offer that as an option.