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.

[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.

[littlejimmi]

I live in an area with spotty service. Switching between standard and shuffle now takes 20ish seconds because I have to wait for smart shuffle to freeze everything in app. I often accidentally click through it a second time which doubles this terrible UI mess.

I don't want this feature to begin with so please at least make it a separate button or allow us to disable it completely. it's destroying the basic functionality that allows me to play music and for it to be a feature I don't ever want to use is extra frustrating.

[Smartshufflebegone]

Please add an option to disable smart shuffle permanently in the settings. I don’t need Spotify to curate my musical taste for me. Literally no one I know likes this (forced) feature. 

[Smartshufflebegone]

Dear Spotify Team,

Why are you so adamant in retaining this horrible and intrusive feature. I don’t need your algorithm to curate or add music to my playlist. Literally, no one I know likes this feature. Please add an option in the settings to turn this off completely! 

Sincerely,

An upset long time user of your app

[lucas9805]

Remove this damn **bleep** of a "function"!

[maksim013]

It sucks. Make it optional in the interface. 

[boring23]

Not only that, but it even crashes after turning it off, and when you go back into the app, it's turned again, and only then it will actually turn off without crashing when you press it again.

[arkanesky]

I switched to deezer after it became clear that this horrendous feature was here to stay. They let you transfer your library & playlists over and it only takes a couple minutes.

There are some features I miss from spotify, but the overall responsiveness of the other apps that I've tried so far (yt music, deezer, tidal) is MUCH faster. When in the car, spotify usually takes a couple seconds to switch songs when pressing the skip button, these apps do it instantly. Small things, but they add up.

[Purple110]

You guys have misunderstood how users see your algorithmic tools. They are nice for when we’re too busy or tired to make our own playlist and feel content to hear a bunch of vaguely related songs that are all just decent. They are NOT magical optimization that can find every individual user’s favorite content. I hold an M.S. in statistics and can tell you the latter is a fool’s errand because no model is ever going to beat the real thing (in this case, the user making their own playlist that they like). Keep your algorithms as a feature we can opt into but keep them away from our playlists or at least make them opt in instead of opt out. 

[Bree93]

I’ve been a Spotify user for years now, and smart shuffle is the most annoying feature I’ve ever come across, because it’s a buggy mess. Having no way to fully disable it SUCKS badly. If I didn’t already have so much music, I’d switch to a different service. If i can find an easy way to transfer all of my songs, I likely will. 

[stefan137]

I check this thread regularly to see if there's any sign it's getting fixed, but clearly it's not. I cancelled over a month ago after years of subscribing. I've gone to Apple Music and an added surprise was the superior sound quality, something Spotify have promised but failed to deliver... instead they're focusing on novel ideas like smart shuffle.

I used to love Spotify but our relationship has come to an end.

[jmcagle]

This blows. It’s super slow and screws things up when I don’t have service! Was there any user testing done on this because it clearly has incensed a lot of people.

Get your head out of the sand and allow this to be disabled permanently in settings. 

[Mattarut]

Please add a way too switch back to the Enhance feature instead, I know countless people in person and online who would rather have the "Enhance" feature instead including me, Please add this, if this is not added I will likely be switching to Apple Music because there recommendation system fits me a lot better, I used to love the Enhance feature, it was my favorite Spotify feature in the history of Spotify Features. PLS BRING ENHANCE BACKKK!!!

[c0rps3]

Hello, 

I'm a Spotify Free User and I've now come across a problem with this feature. 

It worked well, but when I decided to turn it off for a while and wanted to turn it on again. 

It now just doesn't appear at all; I can only turn the normal shuffle on and off, and I really want to use Smart Shuffle again. What can I do? 

[Tokiokioki]

Hey spotify! Kindly get rid of this feature and bring back enhanced shuffle. this sucks and everyone hates it. 

[Tokiokioki]

i genuinely cant believe we’ve been putting up with this feature for as long as we have been. i have literally never used it once.

[Fragment2222]

This "feature" is a disaster. I'm literally cursing Spotify fifty times a day. I should give up and just cancel but I keep hoping this company will wake up and make their products usable again. I need simple playlist shuffling in my car. One a week I'd like to listen to new stuff and thumbs up or down it. Good luck with either of those.
Instead I'm constantly either replaying the same songs without shuffle on or playing **bleep** I don't want thanks to stupid shuffle mode I cannot turn off. Don't even get me started on how broken offline playback is.
Please fix your products or a mass exodus will occur.

[1210378874]

This is the worst feature of all time in Spotify history. Allow us to disable it completely please. Randomly having songs still in the queue AND in my self curated playlists after I've gone through no shuffle, shuffle, and smart shuffle multiple times because the UI hangs on both the app and Android Auto/Car okay is AWFUL. 

[Mojjin]

If I’m using smart shuffle on a playlist and I want the playlist to have a specific feel and I hit the minus sign on a song I do like just not for that playlist will Spotify think I don’t like that song period or is it smart enough to understand I just don’t want that on the playlist and that it’s not a dislike of the song?

[JonasRietdorf]

Smart shuffle is the worst feature Spotify has added in my roughly 10 years using the app. It's so annoying it even made me login to Spotify community for the first time just I can post this comment in hopes the feature will go away/can be disabled at some point in the near future.

Why are u forcing us to use this feature. When reshuffling my playlist i don't want to go through smart shuffle EVERY time. Just give us the option to turn it on or off. When i want music recommendations im using discover weekly or release radar. I don't need a 3rd option being smart shuffle which disturbs my Spotify experience on a daily basis.

The recent price hike makes matters worse. If I have to pay more and more for a service, i wanna see increased customizability accordingly.

Whatever u introduce: don't force ppl to use it when it affects every day app usage!