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.

[Joan]

Hi there folks,

We're here to say that we've taken your feedback into account and you will now be able to disable Smart Shuffle from the app settings, as described in this now implemented idea! 

The steps are as follows:

1. Tap your profile picture at the top.
2. Tap Settings and privacy.
3. Select Playback.
4. Switch Enable all play modes off.

This is for Premium users only and is only available on mobile at the moment, but rest assured it will be coming to desktop in due time as well.

Cheers!

[DoomNation]

Nope.

Smart Shuffle = Kerfuffle

bring back enhanced feature and playlist radio

[jdcollins]

Please allow us to permanently disable this feature or unlink it from the shuffle icon. It creates unnecessary friction and renders some playlists un-shuffle-able because of how long it takes to add music that I DO NOT want to listen to. I have been a Spotify user since its beta days and this update has been so terrible that I am exploring other platforms. Placing this on top of the shuffle button was a terrible UX decision. 

[meeshbird]

Request to remove “From Smart Shuffle” in title display when using that feature. The problem is the phrase is shown on the same line as the artist, and is so long that you can’t read the name of the artist. Isn’t the point of using Smart Shuffle to discover new music? Thanks for reading. 

[AshKetchum_Official]

PLEASE MAKE THE SHUFFLE FREE ALL THE LISTENERS WILL BE THANKFUL TO YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[M139381]

It’s horrible. Can never go from shuffle mode to normal anymore because of this feature.

It makes my Spotify app freeze up, I have to close it and open it again every time. 

Makes it impossible to conveniently switch between shuffle and normal. Might go Apple Music if they don’t fix this. 

[GalacticaSample]

JUST. REMOVE. THIS. FEATURE.

Or at least add an option to turn it off completely 

[aaronbirkholz94]

Smart shuffle may be the single worst thing Spotify has ever done to their app. It’s getting close to the point of me wanting to cancel my subscription all together. It’s a waste of time, it totally ruins my playlist and it skips songs without me wanting it to. 

PLEASE. For the sake of all of your subscribers, please. Get rid of Smart Shuffle or at a BARE minimum, let us disable it in the app. 

[oneframe]

Vote with your wallet. The single worse thing Spotify has done is not listen to the people who pay their existence. As long as people pay with bad features, they won’t change.

[chilldude23]

I want smart shuffle to be an option to permanently disable. I do not like the feature at all, everytime i want to swap bewteen shuffle and non-shuffle i have to wait for my phone to contact your servers, just to add songs i do not want. It is irritating, i was on the subway without strong service and my phone just sat waiting for the smart shuffle to communicate with you. I had to go into airplane mode to get around the bad connection. Please make disabling smart an option.

[Thedapperdagger]

The previous enhance feature did all these things while still shuffling like normal and not repeating songs. The new “smart shuffle” feature is not smart at all considering it he fact that every time I play a playlist I uth this feature on it starts on the same song as last time and plays the same handful of songs in. What seems to be the same order even. It plays the suggested songs more than the actual playlist songs as well. Altogether this is a fail and a complete waste of time. Is this what we are paying more per month for? Fire people that present worthless changes like this and pass on the savings to the consumer who was satisfied with the product they were paying for in the first place. 

[Thekidisalright]

F your smart shuffle. Test it on the freeloaders who doesn’t pay for premium. 

[Jasonbeh1]

I hate smart shuffle. Let us disable this!!! I’m going back to Apple Music. 

[Synrdark]

This feature is just not useful when you have big playlist and want to switch. I don't see how this is an improvement. Getting to the point where its becoming a hassle just to maintain playlists and use features, like a simple shuffle, and when I would like to add new music "suggested" by what I am listening to when I want.

At this point, might be more useful to purchase other apps that will allow me to play my music and that as I like instead of features being removed that were quite useful.

[Maksym1000]

Ended up switching to Tidal. Their cost is the same, they actually have HiFi (and above HiFi, for an addition cost), pay out significantly more per stream (about x5.5 more), and above all else has a shuffle button that turns shuffle on and off instead of reloading smart shuffle every time you try turning smart shuffle off.

[yy711]

BRING BACK PLAYLIST RADIO!!! Smart shuffle is not an adequate solution! #

[Noorah]

Give us a setting to permanently turn off smart shuffle! I hate it! I hate it with every fiber of my being! How is it IMPOSSIBLE to disable a feature I don't like. App development is a mature field. You geniuses should be able to give us an option to disable sh*t we don't like! wth am I paying you for. I don't want to be a test subject for whatever coked up executive thought this was a good idea. Get rid of smarth shuffle or make it possible for me to turn the stupid thing off.! Do your god damn jobs.

[Gofl321]

The 10-20 seconds it takes when it gets stuck buffering the smart shuffle editons is infuriating, especially when you’re data is slow. I want to turn it off permanently like canvas

[Gofl321]

Additions*

[netabend]

i hate smart shuffle, the most stupidest feature you could have added. at least give us an option for disabling it permanently.

im paying for this service and getting features pushed down my throat without choice. horrible

[Lletsplay4you]

I hate the new smart shuffle. The UI is quite unresponsive as it takes a moment to load new songs which doesn't seem to synchronize that fast with the UI. I sometimes switch from continuous play to shuffle play and suddenly realize that I'm getting new songs.

I do not want to discover new songs constantly. I do discover lots of new songs constantly (in 2021, according to my wrapped, it was 154 new genres, 685 artists, 2012 different artists in total). But I do so using my Discover Weekly/Release Radar and Mix Playlists as well as the Recommended at the bottom of my playlists.
The enhance feature was nice from time to time but I do not always want to discover new songs. Sometimes I just wanna listen to my playlists, either in order or on shuffle. The enhance feature was at least togglable. I always disable auto play in the settings. And now I'm getting the smart shuffle which I cannot disable so I keep landing in the smart shuffle settings when in reality I just wanted continuous or normal shuffle playback. It's frustrating and honstely makes me consider trying out other streaming services or switch back to keeping songs on my devices.

Either make the smart shuffle deactivatable in the settings so it cannot be set unintentionally, or remove it and keep the enhance feature.