Finding spotify equivalent for local file

[sseppo]

There have been few questions about this, but I found no answers.

The situation: I have multiple "mixtapes" made years back. I have uploaded some of these to Spotify through local files, and thus have them in playlists normally. This is Ok.

However, what would be more practical is that after loading a set of local files, one could run a "match" for the songs to find equivalent in spotify database. This in order to replace the local copies with the spotify-one when available. This would end up having only few local songs per album, and thus saving space from mobile devices when playing those albums there. Also, one could then have the metadata (artist, album art etc) included for most of the songs. Leaving out only those that does not exist in spotify, to be used as local files.

For now, one can do that manually, trying to find correct version of the song etc. This is timeconsuming and would be likely easily automated, considering cddb-datas everywhere and shazma-type applications etc.
Does spotify provides such option and if not, is there a plan to add that option?

Also, to report few very annoying things figured out during this:

1. When adding local files, the windows application at least does not provide possiblity to arrange the files by folder. Thus making it harder to pinpoint new songs added. Or at least one needs to delete the old local folder before adding new one.. cumbersome while it could be much easier with little bit of coding (if nothing else do not lose the old folders when using the on/off switch and then adding new one)

2. This form for adding a message. The reCaptcha module have asked restating that I am not a robot (by image selection or pressing button now maybe 15 times during I have written this. Actually, now that I was writing these lines it does not allow me to even press that anymore. Either it is a bug at google for their reCaptcha or it is a bug at your form. Anyway, it is very annoying as I need to press it every few sentences written. And now I think I need to copy the text, exit this, come back and then paste he same question in order to send it before that reCaptcha breaks the sending again (Browser, Firefox). Now I even forgot the Title of the page. Very annoying having to do these when trying to report something.. anyway this is secondary, the main question above, this is just to report bugs/feature requests at same time

[Alex]

Hey @sseppo,

Thanks for sharing your feedback on the local files system and the posting process here on the Community!

We'll do our best to address all your concerns 🙂

1. Regarding the local files matching system - this feature has been discussed, however Spotify has no plans to integrate it any time soon, as it appears to not be very popular with many users. You can read more about it here. I personally feel that such an option would make managing playlists way easier.
2. Regarding the local files folders - you can add your local files to multiple playlists, which you can place into folders.
3. We are aware that issues sometimes occur when writing longer messages on the Community and we know that it can be annoying. When it comes to the Captcha, we'd recommend clearing your browser cache and making sure you're running the latest version available. Corrupted browser cache can sometimes cause issues like this.

Hope you find these answers helpful. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[sseppo]

Hi Alex,

Thank you for prompt reply!

1. OK, good to know it has been on the table at least. Anyway, as a comment on to its popularity: It might be due to fact that adding music from your own collections is not that straightforward, specifically if you are not that tech-oriented person. Still, I guess also many non-tech persons have many own collections from past, and would love to have them at Spotify too. But since it is "hidden" feature, which needs some digging to find out how to do that, most of them just drops the issue thinking it is impossible or too hard to find how to do it. At least I would suppose there would be larger need for that. Maybe growing feature, as more and more "older" people also get used to Spotify.
Anyway, regarding that just to let you know if it would require some improvement: I did not find straight guidelines at Spotify -pages. But this is how I did it: Before Spotify part, one would need to rip the cd's (nice if this would also become part of Spotify destop-app). While relatively easy, it requires some technical knowledge. Then to add them to spotify: 1) install windows/mac/linux app 2) add new local files folder 3) create a playlist for those files 3) go to your library and find there the local files-icon 4) copy those files to new playlist. (now, regarding my point nr 2 - if one would repeat the process for the next cd, the old ones are here in the same list, without folder separation which makes it difficult to spot only the songs from the second cd, or another local folder. To make sense of it, before adding new one one needs to disable the old local folder at Settings, and then add the new one. Though when doing that, the old ones are not accessible anymore, so one needs to re-add that folder after all cd's are added..). 5) with mobile phone, make a local copy so you can listen to that playlist also on that mobile phone.
Now, adding to that last part: If one would do as regarding to original request: to replace songs with their matching equivalent from Spotify (to get metadata, graphics and save space on mobile etc), the download files locally -option loads not only your local files, but also the spotify-ones. While this is good for offline usage, it does not help to save space at mobile phone, as if one would like to download only those that does not exist in Spotify databases (that is, thos of your own local files that does not have equivalent at spotify).

Anyway, as it requires that many steps it could be just too hard for people to find instructions how to do that. But maybe it improves over time 🙂

2. Comments above, at step 4. Maybe the earlier description was unclear, but that part above maybe makes it more clear. The problem can be easily duplicated. Just try to add songs from 2 different cd's / folders, and then at My Library->Local Folders, try to make out which song belongs to which local folder (there, they area all in one long list without any separation possibility like folder etc)

3. The Firefox version was newest. Could relate to cache, but just as information in case someone responsible of the webform tests it.

[MrMark1]

It is nice to see that I'm not alone in this desire. I've hundreds of albums ripped over the years from CD to iTunes library locally on my PC. I don't have an "Apple Music" account or anything. I wanted to add the albums to Spotify so that I could listen to them on my PC or on my phone when away from home.

I agree this is not a trivial thing to try. I'm a fairly tecchie person and I've only part of the answer sorted.

Eventually I discovered how to "show Local Files" via the settings and I could create playlists if I wanted, album by album, so that I could have a playlist for a given album. Even that doesn't allow me to create a playlist that I could play on my iPhone when I'm away from my computer because they're all local files that area being referenced. Doing that for 300-400 albums isn't going to happen anyway!

As an old guy I really just want to put a favourite album on and play it end-to-end.

It would have been so nice if Spotify could have identified the albums that are in my iTunes folders and matched up with the ones it has in the cloud.

[johnstavola]

At one point I hooked up my old hard drive from my downloading music days and added several thousand songs to my "Local files" playlist on Spotify.  I know most of these songs are legitimately now on Spotify and that harddrive is long gone.  Is there a way for Spotify to recognize the songs that are in their catalog of music and make them playable as a non local files?