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.

[killerday97]

Why was I forced into this? I detest this "feature" and would at minimum like the option to enable or disable this feature. Strongly considering switching to Apple Music or Tidal due to this inconvenience.

[AG006]

I want to be able to permanently disable Smart Shuffle - I want to listen to my playlist in the order I created it.

Smart Shuffle is buggy, and when I turn it off, it just turns itself back on.

[ConnyLindquist]

Well, I made some 2 posts or so here before. I still like the idea of Smart Shuffle as long as I can control when and where. However, as it still, one year (almost) after release is still broken and dont actually work I am considering closing my subscription and finding a new streaming service. This is so **bleep** awful its beyond words... ffs.. solve it! 

[2020comm]

Smart shuffle is an unwanted feature which is better known as a bug.  I don't want smart shuffle as an option when enabling and disabling shuffle.  I want to be able to quickly enable and disable shuffle without enabling smart shuffle.  It's obvious to me why Spotify created the smart shuffle bug.  They are trying to recommend music that the user will like in order to keep the user engaged and using their app for a longer period of time.  Spotify already has features for discovering new music.  I don't need their suggestions thrust into my personal playlists.

Every time I turn around, I find another service trying to artificially drive user engagement by designing their service to work best for the company and not the user.  If you would like to increase user engagement, focus on improving your service for the user.

[cameronporter89]

Smart shuffle should be able to be disabled permanently. I hate how it defaults to on every time I tap a specific song in my playlist. Then I have to remember to go back and turn it off after selecting the part of the playlist I want to listen to. It's deeply aggravating.

[dfadsfadsfadsf]

I want to turn Smart Shuffle off ENTIRELY. I hate that Smart Shuffle is my first shuffle option, and I find that Spotify is slow to make the switch between my shuffle and Smart Shuffle, so I end up having to loop through shuffle options 1-3 times to accommodate the lag. I also don't like that if I accidentally put on Smart Shuffle and my playlist is downloaded, it'll download automatically ALL the Smart Shuffle recommendations, which takes up space on my phone. It's infuriating. I just want the option to turn it off for all of my playlists.

[thebigbonginatron]

i am now so sick of the smart shuffle feature i went to the website to complain about it. let us disable this stupid feature please i dont want to switch to apple music 

[Crimsonwing16]

Thanks for this feature, but it's annoying AF when I just want to turn off my shuffle and it keeps the "smart shuffle" songs on my playlist when I'm in a particular mood. Honestly, just give us the option to enable or disable it. If I want new or random music recommendations, I'll go to Pandora. I like Spotify because it enables me to make playlists and pick my music, but if every time I turn on or off shuffle I have to jump through extra hoops, I'm just gonna get **bleep** and stop using the app. Just bring back Enhance, or allow us to disable it.

I miss the old Spotify where things were simpler to find and choose and didn't push you to explore weird things.....

[12123738117]

smart shuffle makes me want to punch a small child , since that’s not socially acceptable I’ll settle for being able to disable the feature. K thanks ✌️ 

[Lillian95]

I literally have never posted here before so please take what I am about to say with the gravity that entails. I detest smart shuffle. I create thematic playlists to enjoy while gaming or to soothe my anxiety while out and about. The thing is, I know ever song in the selected list. The single worst thing for my anxiety and myriad other mental issues is for unexpected songs to appear in my carefully curated lists. Please either remove this abysmal rot in what is otherwise a nice tool for me or give those of us who passionately despise it the option to permanently disable it in settings. Honestly it seems like whoever decided to add that did not take any sort of accessibility or marketing courses as I personally did not intend to enable the smart shuffle, I just set my playlist to shuffle per usual and oops it was actually smart shuffle.

With Displeasure,

Lillian

[ronanski]

Absolutely detest this feature! Please allow us to disable. I cannot even switch off, even if I am on normal shuffle it will keep switching to smart shuffle without pressing anything, and even when it doesn't it still litters my playlist with the same unwanted songs over and over again!

[LoneWolfREV]

For the first time in 6 years im researching other options than Spotify. I really don't like forcing me to using "smart" options, and I cant pernamently switch it off. I have MY playlist, I use premium account and I would like to listen to MY music. But each and every time Spotify changes my shuffle to "smart". Apart from that the "recommendations" became absurd in the last year. Even if I mark recommendations as unliked I still keep getting music genres that I don't ever listen to. I really tired with Spotify, its getting worse with every update. Why forcing me to listen to music I dont want and dont like seems like a "smart" choice for Spotify? I just dont get it.

[carinsved]

Even if we're (apparently) not getting the option to disable it, could you please at least fix this horrible thing so it doesn't turn itself back on after I've changed my playlist to non-shuffle? This is one of the most annoying so called "smart" features ever.

[luciana_42]

Not only is this a very annoying "feature", but it's also buggy, at least on Android. If normal shuffle is on and I want to disable it, I have to first go through the Smart shuffle option, to finally reach the disabled option. But for whatever reason that gets completely ignored, and it starts Smart shuffling anyways. Only maybe after two or three tries it finally stays disabled.

[lpdot]

How can I turn off this recent plague of 1-2 minute tracks that have polluted literally everything - radios, autogenerated playlists, Autoplay? This horrible joke of an improvement has utterly ruined the listening experience with Spotify and lets me seriously consider giving my money to Qobuz or Tidal.

[RZA24]

@spotify read the darn comments

[lpdot]

Spotify has always been positioned as having a better suggestion algorithm than other streaming services. Ironically, now they seem stubbornly intent at ruining this competitive advantage.

[lpdot]

Interesting how my comment was glued to the shuffle topic. Is the horrible 1-2 minute **bleep** really related to smart shuffle? 

[madjames05]

Recently, every time I put on smart shuffle (iPhone with the latest iOS and PC) for all my playlists, it plays the exact same songs. Whether I redo it in the same session or a few days later, the same lineup plays every time. Obviously, I use smart shuffle to expand the playlists that I'm listening too and discover new music, and it sucks that I can't do that.

[HelenaNy]

Aside from adding the recommended songs, does smart shuffle play the playlist at random? I feel like listening to the same 20 % of the songs in my playlist all the time.