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

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.

[noxere]

so at what point does spotify actually start caring? 1000 complaints? almost at 800 now, should get there soon. sadly I doubt it'll change anything. 

[jjf46n2]

Not with tencent owning them

[a_random_user777]

The new feature is very annoying. There's literally nothing good about it. I just want to listen to my playlist not some other songs. Please get rid of it asap, it's ruining the experience on spotify

[naigewron]

Just echoing what others are saying: Please let us disable this feature, or at least MOVE IT TO A DIFFERENT BUTTON.

For 35 years, the shuffle function of any media player (physical or digital) has had two states: On or off. Please don't try to change this and expand it with a feature most people never asked for or wanted.

I switch between shuffle and regular play constantly, making the smart shuffle feature an added annoyance I now have to deal with several times a day.

[eatsleepfish1]

trying to turn this function off when in any area with subpar service is impossible. When I click to turn off shuffle, it just spins for 10 seconds, trying to load in this useless function, times out when it lacks the bandwidth, and then reverts back to shuffle. It is now impossible for me to listen to any of my playlists with the shuffle setting off at my work. Thanks spotify

[Camillece]

Please vote here if you want this gone : https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Mobile-Other-Smart-Shuffle-toggle-setting-in-settings-me...
We need all the votes we can get!

[LemonfaceBeats]

I don't know about you guys but this appears fixed for me? The shuffle button now just turns on, or off, and no longer toggles on Smart Shuffle (Hallelujah!)

[chilldude23]

Not for me. It is faster cycling through the 3 options but I am still cursed with smart shuffle.

[LemonfaceBeats]

iOS or Android? I’m on iOS 

[wrighteau]

Well for what it’s worth I love smart shuffle. I love new suggestions. Perhaps this isn’t the right place to write this 

[vithevee]

1. how can we remove this from happening permanently? it's so god damn annoying whenever i just need to reshuffle my playlist. i miss the old button that shuffled automatically.

[Jackystaff]

Y’all need to add a way to turn this off. I’m so sick of waiting for smart shuffle to load just so I can go to no shuffle

[SG111]

Really not liking this feature. It also seems to randomly jump to this smart shuffle even though Ive been playong on normal shuffle for a while.

Having a complete turn off option would be great as im very confused at the shuffle options as the symbols look very similar.... Hate having to close and restart just to get rid of a random added song.

[SG111]

Thats great you do. For us who dont we just want an option to turn it off permanently. Just like we can with Autoplay, means those who enjoy it can use it and those who dont arent bothered by it randomly starting up again. 

[auxty]

please give us the option to disable this permanently. i am never going to want this. at best it adds ten seconds to what should be simply turning shuffle off, because this stupid thing takes its time, irritating me to no end. but not uncommonly, it crashes the app on my phone! not at all interested in troubleshooting that, i just want it gone so it's never an issue to begin with. shuffle needs to go back to being a simple binary on/off switch, at least as an option.

[sophia_co77]

This is so unnecessary and in all honesty stupid annoying. I just want to listen to my playlist that I made the way I did for a reason without songs I don’t have in there, again, for a reason. It keeps playing songs I don’t want to hear one after another and if honestly sucks. And as someone who doesn’t have the money to get premium and be able to have some sort of option to turn off shuffle as is it sucks even more. Please fix it or get rid of it because it seems as if majority of people don’t care for it or just straight up hate it, especially if they’re in the same boat as me.

[nerdy_n_pink]

Smart Shuffle is terrible. Please create a way to completely disable it!

[waterfow]

Smart shuffle is not good. I need a setting to disable it completely, like canvas. You have to cycle through all three options: shuffle, smart shuffle, then unshuffle every time. If I make the mistake of leaving the house (and my wifi connection) with my playlist shuffled, and want to unshuffle it, I have to wait for smart shuffle to load FIRST before I can turn it back off. Without internet, this takes forever or doesn't happen at all! Effectively making me unable to toggle shuffle on/off at all. It really defeats the purpose of downloading playlists. Can't listen to my music on the music app, big problem.

[Sky1991]

Absolutely rubbish 'feature' especially when it doesn't have the option to disable entirely, now I have to wait for it to lag from shuffle before I can go to my standard playlist. Really dropped the ball on this "update"

[Beesoup]

I have had problems where my playlist gets stuck with "smart" songs when on regular play after turning off. It has been very frustrating to not have the option to fully disable this feature without cycling through, because the cycle doesn't work. The 5 recommended songs at the bottom of a playlist are enough - not inserting them into my chosen listening. I hope you take this feature away or at least let us turn it off from the play/shuffle button in Settings.