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.

[gab_mcg]

needs a disable option! i made my playlists with the songs I wanted in the order I wanted!!

smart shuffle is so annoying that I've literally dusted off years old CDs. at this point, paying for premium every month, I could just be buying CDs and supporting the artist lol

[Citronnee]

@spotify please please please bring back enhanced playlists. It’s so much more useful and more enjoyable than smart playlists. It’s easy to turn off if you don’t want it, and it’s superior when you do want to build a playlist because it’s so easy to add the suggested songs. 

[Rudeybum]

I am new to Spotify, and I have just read two page  OUT OF CURRENTLY 40 pages (I expect this number will keep growing), of users myself included who DO NOT LIKE OR WANT this new Smart Shuffle.  As a paying member and I suspect the majority of folks who have voiced their dislike of this feature,  why will Spotify not listen and remove it, or at the very least remove it from the same button the shuffle is on and make it an option in settings?

[CharlieFoxtrot]

This is a terrible "feature" on mobile. At the least the way it was implemented, it should have stayed as a standalone Enhance button. The dang thing has a tendency to cause bugs and annoying extra steps, especially annoying since it's used on the road every time I drive

1- it bugged out my created playlists so it was permanently turning on Smart Shuffle every time I started that list, every time I would disable it while playing the list it messed up my song order. The only way I could fix it was to completely uninstall it and redownload 1000+ songs from multiple playlists all over again

2-sometimes it takes forever to disable, sometimes it bugs out and says it's disabled but I look again and it's still enabled

3- now the most annoying new bug that's unfixable even with a reinstall is that it freakin wipes my non-Spotify songs (downloaded from PC) from the cache altogether whenever it cycles through the shuffle modes which is completely unavoidable if I'm trying to go from normal shuffle to ordered.

Please stop trying to re-invent the wheel

[KyleRamsey5]

Smart shuffle is a garbage feature. Bring back enhanced playlists and dump smart shuffle. We already have Spotify DJ why do we need another feature to impose on our personally made playlists?

[Fukko]

I figured out a workaround. My Spotify lives offline now. Smart shuffle or whatever this awful idea is called won’t work offline. When I want to add music I add it and download it. I don’t these yahoos tracking me and my preferences anyway. And one thing I’ve found about Spotify app on iOS is that it never actually closes. That’s why “autoplay” has been such a hassle for folks. Automatically playing music loudly when you connect something Bluetooth. Also a **bleep**ed idea. 

[Fukko]

Funny how the system doesn’t like it when I say **bleep**. **bleep**. **bleep**. How about **bleep**ant?

[Fukko]

Don’t really think **bleep** is bleepable. Guess it is. Just another way of saying something is stupid. 🤷🏻‍♂️ sorry/not sorry

[VicL1]

Please bring back Enhanced! I abhor the Smart Shuffle. I decided to go with Spotify because of the Enhanced feature. I'd rather go back to Amazon music than deal with Smart Shuffle. 

[Ivr]

This function is a big source of frustration for me. It keeps switching on or defaulting to it, making me lose control over the content of my playlist until I manually switch it off. This is not how I discover new songs, for me the 'discover weekly' and 'release radar' playlists serve that purpose just fine.

I would like to be able to switch the option to even have this option, permanently OFF in general settings. 

Moreover, the word 'smart shuffle' has a different meaning to me. To me 'smart shuffle' means a form of randomization that ensures that songs that have been relatively underplayed (due to true randomness) will be corrected through having higher odds of being played next, giving better distribution of play frequency on a playlist. I'm not sure if Spotify actively pursues this. But that's the type of 'smart shuffle' that I would love to have. 

[Crob7]

PLEASE let us disable this option!!!

Why would I want your recommendations to a playlist I CREATED!?!! Humble yourself and give a disable option PLEASE!!

[Risho]

Hi guys, I'm trying to enable somehow the smart shuffle feature, but for some reason I was not successful. I tried to uninstall and install the spotify app to my android phone, also I tried to update it to the newest version and it still don't work. I'm a premium family member and maybe the only one who can't use this feature. I tried everything and don't know what else I could try to make it work somehow.

Phone: Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S, Android version 13, MUIU Global 10.0.4.0

Also I noticed that from the upgrading the system on my mobile phone, when I connect my phone to the car via Bluetooth the songs start to play faster for few time and it's doing weird things. When I'm on android auto it works perfect, but via Bluetooth it's doing the weird stuff.

Thanks for help.

[zaythealchemist]

Smart shuffle is trash. It astounds me how Spotify users have been complaining about it for over a year now and Spotify still hasn't gotten rid of it. I'm about to switch to another music platform because Spotify is devolving.

[TubeDog]

Please in the name of all that is holy if you want to test out an unneccessary feature that introduces unnecessary problems that could be avoided in the first place, make it that people can opt-out from it, disable it, or have it on a different button or better, first run it on a public beta or something. This makes everyday listening much more difficult. I have to completely close the app and relaunch just to be able to switch off of it because it loads so slowly and the button is unresponsive in the meantime to regular shuffle or disabled shuffle. 

This is like when the toilet paper's every other piece is sandpaper. If I need sanding i go to a sandpaper roll and if I need to do a number two I will go to my 3-layered strawberry scented roll.

This is just outrageous.

I am using iOS 17 on a iPhone 12 mini but iOS 16 had the same problem.

[arte_nm]

Why the **bleep** is this thing on by default.
Why does it keep switching on even when I minimise the app and then go back to it.
Why the **bleep** there is no option to disable it completely.
Why on earth is this integrated in normal shuffle button.
Why do I have to wait for this **bleep** thing to stop loading before I can switch it off why changing from non-shuffle to shuffle and back. 
Why is even coming up with ideas like this?

[XxKor3anxX]

Greetings Joan, I hope that your day is going well. I would like to inform you that, this feature, aptly named "Smart Shuffle" is not so much smart, as it is annoying. I would like to politely ask that this feature is reverted to what was originally "enhance." That feature didn't cause me as much pain as Smart Shuffle has in the past months that I have used it.

Signed,

Paying Spotify Customer

[NightOwOl]

Plan

Premium

Device

Samsung Galaxy S21

Operating System

Android 13

My Question or Issue

Smart shuffle keeps playing songs in the same order. I expected the order to be somewhat random, like with normal shuffle except there would also be songs not in my playlist. But no matter what the ordering is always the same

[Carkent7]

Please can you give us an option to permanently disable smart shuffle. It constantly seems to end up on. Please allow me to permanently switch it off. 

[TORHusky]

This feature needs to be able to be disabled. Every time it cycles through and adds a bunch of garbage to my offline playlist, it starts auto-downloading those added songs, wasting data if you don't have cell downloads turned off.

This is a **bleep** of a feature miss, and an even worse rollout. 

[heykaley]

This smart shuffle feature should’ve received its own button, not be merged into one with the regular shuffle button. I like both features, I just don’t want to be waiting 10 seconds before I can switch to regular shuffle or just straight up turn it off. As a UX Designer I’m disappointed that the UX Designer in doubt hasn’t done its job in protecting the user’s experience. Sad.