Introducing Smart Shuffle!

[Joan]

Introducing Smart Shuffle! 

We know that our users love creating their own playlists to capture key moments in time – in fact, playlists created by users often become their most-streamed playlist for the first several months but listening to these playlists slowly fades overtime, and users are eager to discover new music.

With this in mind, we’re excited to launch a new play mode called Smart Shuffle that keeps listening sessions fresh and provides personalized recommendations that perfectly match any listeners’ playlist vibe. 

This update will roll out to Premium users on mobile devices starting today.

How does Smart Shuffle work?

• You can use it in any playlist created by you, and your Liked Songs.
• To activate it, just use the Shuffle button to switch between regular play, Shuffle mode and Smart Shuffle.
• When Smart Shuffle is on, recommendations are added to your session automatically. You can find all the recommendations sitting in your queue.
• You will be able to recognize the music we are recommending with the sparkle (✨) symbol next to the track. For a playlist with more than 15 songs, we’ll recommend one song for every three tracks.
• And the best part, your original playlist remains untouched, so you can add any new track that catches your ear.
• If you like a specific recommendation, just save it using the plus button in the Now Playing View. If that song doesn’t hit right, just tap the minus to remove it from the recommendations. This is then used to better adjust the suggestions we put forward.
• Every time you turn Smart Shuffle off, a new mix will be available every time you activate it again.

Introductory pageHow the queue will look

Adding and removing recommendations.

Different playback options.

FAQ

What about the Enhance feature?

For now, Smart Shuffle will replace the Enhance feature.

What will happen to Discover Weekly and other regularly updated playlists?

For the time being, no changes to those will be made. Smart Shuffle aims to improve the listening experience for user curated playlists.

Does this mean that using Smart Shuffle will cause my carefully curated playlists to get cluttered with new recommendations?

No! Your original playlist remains untouched, so you can add any new track that catches your ear. Smart Shuffle won’t change your playlist without your explicit permission. What changes instead is what you'll hear during each specific listening session

🌟 I would like to disable Smart Shuffle permanently. Can I do that?

Yes, you can! Just go to Settings and privacy and then to Playback and toggle the option Enable all play modes to off. This will mean you will only have the regular shuffle. 

Note: This option is for Premium users only.

We hope you're as excited as we are about this new play mode. The official Newsroom announcement is out, you can check that out too. For any and all feedback on the matter you may have, you're more than welcome to comment in the thread below.

[Corbsha]

Why isn't smart shuffle an option? I want to shuffle but only the songs I've put on my Playlist.  I strongly dislike that I if I want to shuffle then I can only smart shuffle.

[danjusti]

There needs to be an option to permanently disable this feature. The delay to add songs to your queue when you switch to smart shuffle can take frustratingly long on anything but high speed data/internet. I have playlists I sometimes shuffle and sometimes play straight through. I sometimes unshuffle and reshuffle, and this intermediate step with delay is very annoying for something I know I will not use. It's not an inherently bad feature, but it absolutely needs to be taken out of the shuffle button or given an off switch.

[ockyy]

just received the update with this feature on the pc app and i am now unable to shuffle playlists on either shuffle setting.

[ockyy]

i just received this update for the pc app on windows and i am now unable to shuffle playlists on both the regular setting and the smart shuffle setting

[YZ_Brian]

I regularly switch between shuffle and no-shuffle in my 1000+ songs playlist. I more or less know the order of songs and if I know the next song in the order is cool I quickly disable shuffle for a song and turn it back on after. The problem is that now Smart Shuffle was added it takes a while to load and I cannot switch quickly anymore. What's worse is that I always skip the smart shuffle in the rotation but I am forced to wait because it's programmed on a single button. I get why this feature is added but either make it a seperate button or give users the freedom to turn it off completely. Now I am forced to deal with the loading times 20+ times a day. 

[YZ_Brian]

I regularly switch between shuffle and no-shuffle in my 1000+ songs playlist. I more or less know the order of songs and if I know the next song in the order is cool I quickly disable shuffle for a song and turn it back on after. The problem is that now Smart Shuffle was added it takes a while to load and I cannot switch quickly anymore. What's worse is that I always skip the smart shuffle in the rotation but I am forced to wait because it's programmed on a single button. I get why this feature was added but either make it a seperate button or give users the freedom to turn it off completely. Now I am forced to deal with the loading times 20+ times a day. 

[niccom1]

Give us an option to permanently disable this garbage in the settings. Smart shuffle is trash

[scubaphil99]

GET RID OF IT! We don't need it and it's annoying. In Android, it's hard to get back to regular play mode. It just switches from regular and this SH!T mode.

[frutson]

Having to wait for smart shuffle when you just want to switch from shuffle to no shuffle is terrible UX. 

[cjermc]

Quite literally one of the most baffling and thoroughly useless UX changes I have seen across all platforms and apps I use. The purpose of the shuffle button has been established since before many Spotify users were born, and yet your Weenie Hut Jr. designers have made it a 2 press, 10 second (on a good day) operation to toggle it. Your incompetence is baffling and your resistance to over 30 pages of negative user feedback is incredible. Let us toggle Smart Shuffle from settings, or better yet, eliminate it entirely. I’m giving it a few more weeks and then I’m off to Apple Music where basic functionality isn’t sabotaged on a regular basis.

[pallas84]

Well said @cjermc

[kbeats210]

Just installed the latest update on Android, sad to report that smart shuffle behavior is unchanged. C'mon, Spotify... Please?

[a-ak]

Quite possibly the most annoying update of any app ever. Why try to fix what's not broken? The fact that you can't permanently disable it makes it so much worse. If you guys really have to have it then let us permanently remove it and just have it back to when clicking the arrows once would enable our regular shuffle and clicking it again would disable the shuffle and thats it... why would you guys make us wait a couple of seconds extra to disable shuffle and have us go through an extra step?

[vernerkeel]

Why is the smart shuffle turning on each time a open a playlist? What is the point of that? I don’t want my playlist to be turned into a radio. I’m considering switching over to a different provider because of this.

[martinweiss]

This feature is absolutely awful. I've been a Spotify Premium user since 2016 and have been seriously considering canceling. The damn thing doesn’t work and is awful. Why am I PAYING to have this? Shouldn't I pay to REMOVE IT? Please answer me, and if not, I'll promptly cancel my seven-year running subscription and move to a competitor.

[jjf46n2]

You can downgrade to version 8.8.12.545 released Feb 22, the last version before they came out with**bleep**. If you break that version on purpose Spotify, I will jump ship immediately.

[MikeMusic1]

Oh man, i’ve been on vacation & haven’t had the chance to complain about this in a few days.  Remove this feature!   the delay is horrible & the songs you try to push onto us are even worse!!  #ThisAppSucksA$$

[getridofsmartshuffle]

Look it is fine to add new features to your app, but give people a choice. Its not that it ruins a playlist or song, it ruins the app experience when you are super inconviencenced by having to wait for the shuffle button to load back up after suggestions are added. Plus the fact I have to cycle through it everytime I want to shuffle or unahiffle. Its a bad idea and from a developers perspective to not have ability to disable or to give it a separate button from regular shuffle. Wreaks of a lack of user acceptance testing, this wouldn't fly in most development teams. Its an enormous oversight at a minimum to add such a new feature without the ability to disable it. Just one man's opinion, sure, but anyone who knows what they want to listen to and not be told is going to hate this. Idk about you but I got spotify to have control over the music I listen to. Otherwise its glorified AI radio... no thank you. Please revert back.

[andrewtknowle]

I like others don’t want smart shuffle. Why can’t I just disable it. Currently it seems I can’t take shuffle off to play through an album that I want once it comes up 

I am on iPhone 

Andrew 

[PeteySoTight]

I want to PERMANENTLY DISABLE this dumb feature. I honestly hate it.