Liked songs are not showing properly on Windows and Android.

[Tsanguine]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Multiple computers running Windows 10 and 11 and an Android Flip 3. 

Operating System

Android 13, Windows 10, and Windows 11. 

My Question or Issue

In every playlist I've checked, all the songs in those playlists are liked. The only exception is my Discover Weekly Playlist where none of them are liked. I have many playlists, and several are with songs that I have not liked yet. In all but my Discover Weekly those songs are showing up as liked. 

I'll pick one song for the sake of conversation. Flightning by Too Many Zooz is in a playlist and shows as being liked. 

If I then go to see what Too Many Zooz songs I like, Flightning is not in the list. It is also not in my Liked Songs playlist.  

I use the ability to like songs to add to my library very extensively and would like this to work correctly. Screenshots are from a DIY build running Windows 11. The same behavior is present using my Framework Laptop also running Windows 11 and my nightstand PC which is a first gen Microsoft Surface running Windows 10. My phone running android 13 shows the same behavior. 

Surprisingly, the Spotify Web Player is behaving correctly. 

[Tsanguine]

It is also weird that you only see wether a song is liked or not if it is selected or moused over. I'd much prefer the previous view like in the Web Player App where you can see all songs liked in a playlist at a glance. My guess is it's a bug with moving from the old system to the new and the web player seems to still be on the old system since they are representing liked songs with a heart still. 

[Eni]

Hey there @Tsanguine, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this here in the Community. 

Just to confirm, is this happening on all your playlists or only on your Discover weekly? 

We'd also like to know if the issue is that you try liking songs and they show as "Liked" in the playlists, but they don't appear in your Liked songs playlist/on the Artist's page. 

If so, we suggest that you try logging out and then logging back in to your account twice in a row on your affected devices. This will trigger a sync between your account and devices.

If this doesn't do the trick, could you ask a friend or a relative to log in to their account on one of your devices and check if they can replicate this behavior with their account? 

We'll be waiting for your reply.

[Tsanguine]

Maybe this is just part of the change to liked songs from the green heart to checkmark. If that's the case, I hate it. 

My Discover Weekly allows me to add a song to Liked Songs. I also used to be able to click it and remove it from Liked Songs. Previously I could do the same for songs in other playlists. 

Now it shows a green circle with check that I first interpreted to mean that it was already added to my library and therefore Liked Songs. Am I to understand that even though all songs now have that checkmark they are not in my Liked Songs?

In the above example, I have not clicked to add it to my Liked Songs. I'm now understanding that it isn't in my Liked Songs but this is counterintuitive for anyone used to the old system. Why not leave the same circle with a plus symbol like what is available on my Discover Weekly playlist? I now can't click this button to add it to my Liked Songs. I have to click it and then add it to my Liked Songs. I really don't understand the need to change this when right next to it is the three dot menu to add a song to a playlist. It would be slightly better if the same circle with plus symbol was used for all playlists. It shouldn't have a green check mark unless it has been added to your liked songs. Is this intended? I want to see a playlist at a glance to see what songs I've liked. 

The directions online still show the Heart icon. And using the Web Player still has the old behavior using the heart to like songs. Maybe I just need to uninstall and go to an older version. 

[Tsanguine]

Here is the web player showing me the hearts and the songs that I have already liked and added to my Liked Songs. 

The same playlist on desktop and I can't see what songs I've previously liked. Maybe this feature isn't working as intended because I'm sure they don't intend to go back even if the previous system was better. At least let us see at a glance what songs are liked. It should also show the circle with plus sign icon until it is added to the Liked Songs or maybe any playlist. What I like about the Liked Songs list is it shows everything I've liked. I can't always remember what playlist I've added a song to but I can always go through Liked Songs if I really have to in order to find something I otherwise can't find. 

[Ky9432]

Yea, that's a design decision, they've decided that liked songs are a part of playlists and now I cannot see what songs I liked even when I hover on them. Imagine putting a button that shows only checkmarks because that's your playlist, so every song in there are "in your playlists".

So this is how I think it works:
- The checkmark only shows when you hower on a song instead of always showing it. (that's bad)
- If there is a plus button instead of a checkmark, that means it's not in any of your playlists, and you can click on that to add to "liked" playlist. That part works as same.
- That checkmark is not as same as the old heart. It doesn't show "liked", it shows "its in your playlist" or not. That is not useful at all for the users that mainly use a playlist instead of discovering new stuff. An absolute downgrade, and it's not even in the settings.
- If you are on your playlist, every song will have a checkmark because they are on your playlist. That makes it just dumb btw, why have that checkmark if I am already on my playlist? What purpose does it have anyways?

My desire is to either be able to turn it on/off from the settings or have both "heart" button and "add to playlist" button there. The change is just inconsiderate and disrespectful to playlist-only users.

[MattSuda · Accepted solution]

@Tsanguine 

For more info on this change and to post your feedback, check out this post:

➜ The ♡ Heart button is being replaced with a (+) Plus button

When you click on the (+) Plus button on a song in the desktop app, the song will be saved to your Liked Songs. The only difference is that now you can quickly tap the (+) Plus button again to add the song to your other playlists too! When you tap the button again, you'll also see the other playlists that the song has already been added to with a green ✔ Check icon.

• The green 💚 Heart icon has been replaced with a green ✔ Check icon
  
  
• The green ✔ Check icon shows up next to the songs that are saved to Your Library on Album and Playlist pages. The green ✔ Check icon will not show up next to songs when you view your own playlists. However, if you hover over a song in your own playlists, the green ✔ Check icon will show up and you can click on it to add the song to other playlists.
  
  
• When you see a green ✔ Check icon on a song, it means that it has been saved to Your Library. A song added to either (or both) Liked Songs or one of your own playlists counts as being saved to Your Library. Before with the heart button, the green heart icon meant that the song was saved only to your Liked Songs.

If you are using the Web Player in the browser, you might not see the new (+) Plus button experience yet, but it will be rolling out to the Web Player soon as well.

[Tsanguine]

Glad to know I'm not crazy. I don't always have time to listen to my discover weekly so I have a playlist that is just my past discover weekly playlists so I can listen when I get a chance. These are songs I've not even listened to so I hate that they show the check mark because they are in a playlist since that playlist is of music I have never heard. I don't understand the thought process behind the need for this change. It's very frustrating. I currently have 5703 songs in my Liked Songs and they are essentially it's just another playlist now. 

I would typically listen to Discover Weekly and like the songs that sounded interesting. Then I would every three months I'd go through my liked songs and add the ones I really liked to a new favorite playlist. Doing this every three months kept me finding new music and avoided things from getting stale. With looking at a playlist and seeing at a glance what is liked and what is not, made it very easy to see where I have left off on listening to new content. 

[Tsanguine]

Thanks for providing this. I really hate this new system. I frequently have playlists that are a mix of music that I do like and don't like. I want to be able to see a playlist at a glance and know what songs I have liked and what ones I haven't. I have many playlists of music I haven't yet listened to so I don't know if I like them yet. I don't like that it treats them all the same. So if I add a song to a playlist that I want to listen to it may suggest more music like that in my discover weekly even though I haven't actually heard it or even listened to it yet. I want the music that I like to be more heavily weighted than the music that is on my list to explore. It's taken me years and their change with making individual playlists private to be able to get my Discover Weekly back to recommending decent music. 

[luisriga]

I am of the same opinion as Tsanguine.
I do not see any advantage in what Matsudda added as solution. This looks like a bug to me.
Showing  in the playlist at first glance the songs that I like and songs that I have not marked as "like" is a much better approach. Appart from the reasons given by Tsanguine, you can e.g. create playlists to add the songs that will be played on a concert, sometimes you can know that in advance. Some of the songs in that list would have a like and others would not. 

[slug_camargo]

What the **bleep** do they think they're addressing with this nonsense? Why do they keep trying to reinvent the wheel? I hate this app so f'ing much, goddamnit.

[Biggs]

With this change you are removing the Liked Track feature! The whole point of 'Liked' is to be able to tag a track within a playlist as 'Liked' to differentiate from the other tracks. This is an incredibly ignorant design decision indicating you have no clue how users actually use your app or how music lovers process playlists.

In my case, I fundamentally rely on this feature to be able to use Spotify. I process playlists by liking tracks and over time understand and curate my playlists.

This is a fundamental feature of any type of archival, multi-item application, for goodness sake.

[justmatt]

Great, another change that breaks a feature I liked just for the sake of changing something. Whoever is in charge of these decisions, get a real job where you make actual contributions rather than just making it look like you matter.

**bleep** this change and all the recent UI updates, DESIGN IS MY PASSION HUH

[Gruj]

Absolutely terrible design decision, which adds to a long list of absolutely terrible design decisions, and which makes Spotify simply not worth it. If anyone in the company reads this: liked songs are not only "liked" songs. For many of us, including myself, they are bookmarks. Not all of us mindlessly listen to music at random: we have extensive playlists that we need to organize, and as you really don't give us a lot of options to do that, the green heart icon was a option to do that. Mind you, it was a really subpar option, but better than nothing. Now you have decided this is better, God knows following which logic. Well, last year I was looking at other providers, and I stayed with Spotify because it was just bearable and moving was a chore. Not anymore. So bye bye Spotify, hello Tidal.

[luisriga]

If we do not make them revert back this horrible decision of removing the "like" I will also consider moving to another music provider. Before this change I had not even thought about it,I have been a Premium user in Spotify for the last 13 years 

[luisriga]

I have seen that there is another link in the spotify comunity where we can vote for the suggestion of bringing back the heart button (keeping the + button). I have already voted there.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Mobile-Change-like-button-back-to-a-heart-but-keep-the-b...

[luisriga]

I have seen that there are several posts in "Live-ideas" , with similar requests, where we can vote for bringing back the heart button. Apart from the one I mentioned before we have: 

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/RETURN-THE-LIKE-BUTTON/idi-p/5654309
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Add-remove-a-song-from-your-liked-songs-with-the-press-o...

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Mobile-Browse-Bring-back-like-indicator-on-album-playlis...
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Bring-back-the-heart-button/idi-p/5709907

[tmeffort7]

Why in the world would you remove the checkmark/heart from our own playlist? I have over a hundred playlists and listen to thousands of songs, some songs are copied or automatically added to my playlists as I am browsing new music. I use the checkmark as an indicator that I have listened to that song and want it in my playlist(s). Now that it is missing, I can no longer tell what songs I do not want in the playlist. This is one of the dumbest things that Spotify has ever done.

[TerrorMedia]

Still Bugging out. I hit the + and it says added to favorites but the song count on my liked does not increase and the song will act as if it is not in the liked list. Nothing is happening and I can no longer add favorites. I may have to find something more reliable I can just use without dealing with this...