How do I prevent Spotify from using cellular data?

[rgames]

I have Spotify set to download my Playlists and I have "Download using cellular" set to off.  When I play music, I select "downloaded" from "My Library" and play the music from there. 

However,  my #1 data usage every month is Spotify at several GB.  And I keep getting charged data overage fees.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

[rgames]

Hi folks!

Here are some interesting insights from our tech folks on this that I'd like to share with you: 

"the way Spotify works is that it takes all data of a song while it's still being played. One of the things that the app checks is if the song's been scheduled to be downloaded (when on Wifi) and if it is, it will "download" it while on cellular, but with no extra data cost to the user.

In addition, the app will also prefetch data for the next 1-2 songs from the queue/playlist, and do the same thing there - if it's been scheduled to be downloaded, Spotify will put it in the downloads since it already has everything needed to "download" it.

If you're playing on shuffle, those songs could show up anywhere, of course, but shouldn't be more than two from the currently playing (and all the previously played) tracks."

So it seems that the app goes over a checklist during playback and if the currently playing song, as well as the next two songs from the queue have been marked to be downloaded, it will sort of resync them to your Downloads and prepare them for the next time you connect to a Wifi network.

Still, if you'd like to fully prevent the app from using cellular data, you can do so from your Android device's Settings > Apps > Spotify (depending on the manufacturer's ROM). Just note that this would make the whole app unusable when on cellular.

iOS users can find this in Settings > Cellular.

Hope this clears things up. The Community is always here if there's anything else you need assistance with.
 

Take care!

[JAPF]

Simple thing you guys at Spotify: While playing just don't download a song we already have downloaded previosly in our phones when we are not on a wifi network. Is that any difficult?

[Cullen36]

Replying to bump this once again since this is such a basic feature. To be abundantly clear:

We want an option so that mobile data is AUTOMATICALLY not used. Offline mode is not the solution because it requires manual switching every single time. Add an option to automatically go offline when not on wifi, so that only downloaded playlists can be played and ZERO data usage is incurred.

[CoMiGa5]

It's crazy that a second tier service like YouTube Music does this so well and Spotify the leader can't. 

[KMSongs]

Thank you for taking the time to read my question.

I have a Samsung Android phone and it seems that Spotify is playing songs on my phone when my children play songs at home on our Echo Dot.

When they play songs on the Echo Dot, I can see them playing at the bottom of my Spotify mobile app screen.

I purposely do not use my Spotify app with mobile data as I don't want to use up my plan. I only use it at home on our Wi-Fi, however I have 879MB of mobile data use this month already.

What setting do I need to change on my phone or account so that songs played at home on the Echo Dot do not play on my phone and use mobile data?

Thanks!

[criscable]

iPhone Spotify app will download content even when setting for "Download over cellular" is disabled. I saw saw similar posts about this and some guidance about performing a "clean" re-install of the app, which I did, but it did not fix the issue. Here is what I am seeing: 1) setting for "Download over cellular" off is confirmed, 2) I'm on cellular only (no Wi-Fi), 3) I select an album content to download, 4) I get a message saying I need to go to Settings to enable "Download over cellular", 5) I click out of the message, 6) content still downloads anyways. Very frustrating since it eats up my cellular data.

[criscable]

Hi Kiril, I know you posted this almost two years ago.  I've never had an issue with the "Download using cellular" setting off to prevent downloading content over cellular.  However, the last few months this has not worked as intended; content will still download over cellular even if this setting is 'off'.  So what should be an obvious simple fix via the setting isn't currently a workable solution.