New Your Library view (iOS & Android)

[MattSuda]

Spotify is introducing a new version of the Your Library view to mobile users of the iOS and Android apps. When you open up the Spotify mobile app you will see this new view. 📱

Check out this Spotify news article for more information:

Listeners Can Explore Their Spotify Collections Faster and Easier With a New ‘Your Library’

This thread is your go-to destination for getting an overview of what's new, asking questions, getting help for issues you might have, as well as to share your feedback on this new version of Your Library. Also, do you have any tips for other users on how you are using the new Your Library? We'd love to hear them.

What's new?

• See your entire collection in one simple list
• Dynamic filters and better sort options for your collection
• Pinned library items to find your favorites, faster
• More control at your fingertips with a new grid view
• Universal search allows you to search through your entire collection and see your recent searches
• Faster settings navigation allows you to tap on your profile picture to get to settings faster
• Get to your downloads, faster

Here is a walkthrough of what's new:

One simple list:

Your Library is now one simple list. At the top, tap on the filters to filter the content you want to see and tap on the sort options to change the sort order of the list. To create a new playlist, tap on the + (plus) symbol at the top right corner.

Dynamic filter options:

At the top, tap on the filters to filter the content you want to see. Tap on the X and then chose another filter to see another type of content. Having no filter selected will show all types of content in the list.

• Playlists
• Artists
• Albums
• Podcasts & Shows
• Downloaded

Sort options:

At the top, tap on the sort options to change the sort order of the list.

• Recents
• Recently added
• Alphabetical
• Creator

And in the "Playlists" filter view, you'll have this option to see your playlists in your own order like in the desktop app and web player:

• Custom order

📌 Pinned library items:

If you tap and hold on the screen on any item in the Your Library list or swipe right on it, an option will show up allowing you to pin it and it will stay at the top of the Your Library list.

You can pin anything in Your Library such as playlists, playlist folders, artists, albums, and podcasts. The limit is 4 pinned items. You can unpin "New Episodes" to free up a pin and still get to that using the "Podcasts & Shows" filter or by searching for it. Same with "Liked Songs", you can unpin it and still get back to it at the top of the "Playlists" filter when it is sorted by "Custom order" or by searching for it. You can also pin the "Your Episodes" list to the main library view in addition to the "New Episodes" list if you also want to be able to access "Your Episodes" from the main library view without having to filter to "Podcasts & Shows" first.

To pin more playlists when you run out of the 4 item pins, you can make a playlist folder in the desktop app or web player and then move multiple playlists inside it and then pin the folder in the mobile app. Then tap on the folder at the top and there you go, easier access to all the playlists in that folder and that can be your 4th pin. However, you can't pin a specific playlist if it is in a folder, so you will need to pin the folder instead. Tip: In the desktop app or web player you can also move playlist folders inside of another playlist folder. That means you can pin a playlist folder that contains a whole bunch of other playlist folders if you want to get super organized.

To easily find the item you want to pin, the best way is to use the universal search. At the top of Your Library, tap on the search icon and search for the item you want to pin. The universal search searches your entire library for playlists, playlist folders, artists, albums, podcasts and also shows you your recent searches.

Grid view:

Are you a visual person? You're in control. With the new grid view you can view Your Library with bigger artwork if that's your jam. This is great for when you're on the go or in the car so you can find what you're looking for faster. To switch to the grid view, tap on the squares icon to the right. Tap on it again to go back to the list view.

Universal search:

The new universal search can be accessed by tapping the search icon at the top right corner. The new search allows you to quickly search through your entire library for playlists, playlist folders, artists, albums, and podcasts without having to go to a specific content section.

Recent searches:

The new universal search also shows you your most recent Your Library searches so you can quickly get back to what you previously searched for.

Faster settings navigation:

Tap on your profile picture in the top left corner to get to settings faster.

Downloads: (Requires Premium)

When you are in offline mode you'll see your downloaded content faster upon app launch in the home tab.

In Your Library, tap on the "Downloaded" filter either in the main list view or after tapping on a filter to view your downloaded content.

How the new version of Your Library (iOS & Android) evolved over time during testing:

When the new version of Your Library on mobile was being tested with users, a few of the main points of feedback were the following:

• Add a custom sort option for the playlists filter like in the old library view
• Add a way to see a feed of new podcast episodes like in the old library view

These two options were added during the testing phase. Other points of feedback were also made by users during the test, but Spotify is always looking to improve the app so hopefully the new library experience will improve over time.

I personally like being able to see my playlists in the same custom sort order I have them arranged in the desktop app, so I was glad to see that issue was addressed. A bonus feature was also added which is the ability to pin a few of your favorite items to the top of Your Library. I really like being able to have my favorites one tap away at the top of my library. A few other new features that I like are being able to quickly search through my entire library, being able to see my library in a new grid view, and being able to get to settings right from the library view.

Feedback:

Now that the new version of Your Library on mobile is rolling out to all users, what do you think? You can leave your feedback as a reply in this thread. If your feedback is suggesting certain changes, it is best to also post each individual idea in the Community Idea Exchange where users can vote and comment on your ideas and it'll be easier to track each idea. You can read more about how your feedback reaches Spotify here.

[itsjustchris]

Hey Spotify,

since I can neither vote for new ideas/suggestions nor comment them from my Safari app I’m writing my own post regarding the new Your Library design now!

First thing that is really annoying:

if filtering my library (eg. Playlists) all other rubrics (Artists, Albums, ...) disappear. So if I want to switch to a different filter (eg. podcasts) I have to remove the currently active filter and apply a new one. That’s not neat!

Above that the Library with no filters applied is just a mess and of little use for me and I guess many other users too. In my opinion a Library should bring more order rather than more disorder😉

Better would be if either I could switch between filters by just one tap

or the filter become more like sections, like in the old design.

Second point is:

I want to be able to arrange the order of my playlists which is sadly not possible... Please make this possible again! Drag and drop would really uncomplicated the whole procedure. Same goes for the order of songs in a playlist. On the other Hand I like the ‘pin to the top’ feature. To combine these three would be awesome. 

Third thing is:

if there are filters now, why not giving me the opportunity of creating my own filters. Makes these self-created filters connected to tags which I can attach to artists, songs, playlists, albums, podcasts... 

This would have some advantages. 

1. differentiation between albums and audiobooks
2. filter songs or albums by genres, publishing labels, composer, songwriter etc. apart from creating a playlist

Nevertheless😉: all the best,

Chris

[SnowLeppard]

If you're going to release such an over-engineered design could you please QA test it first? The list doesn't load half the time and often has the wrong sorting. What was wrong with the tabs we had before?

[injijoji]

Yes please provide revert option! Friends activity is gone, interface is not useful, just dont like it at all!

[AeroZ]

I think this should be improved and pinning playlists that are in folders should be possible. If you want to organize your playlists in a neat way then you add them into folders and you still might want to have some such playlists pinned for quick access.

[krimi1]

This is waaay too cluttered. I see how putting everything in on list can SEEM like a good idea. But when everything is in its own category it is easier to fing exactly what you are looking for.

As it is now I have to scroll through podcasts and artist I follow to find that one Playlist I want to listen to. If I want to not do that I have to make Spotify filter these out instead of just having these separate. I sometimes name my playlists with special characters infront so they showed up on top of the old list I now have to go find and rename them since the new list apparently doesn't consider special characters while sorting alphabetically.

I just spent the last hour unfollowing artists and podcasts, and renaming playlists just to try to clean it up a little. It's horribly tedious work since I have pretty serious adhd and I still don't know if I can still use Spotify since I keep struggling to find what I want even after doing all that.

Please, is there a way to reverse this change? At this point Spotify is becoming practically unusable for me with this change. 

[ToxicPhenix]

Yes! This is exactly what i was thinking too! Would be a lot easier to navigate the Library if these suggestions were to be implemented. 

[AlexBurda]

I have the same sorting problem like other users with this new look of the library. For me is logical to have playlists and artists sorted alphabetically and albums by author (the same way I sort my records and CD collection). Now I have to keep changing the sorting every time I am changing the view.
If those who conceived this new library like this sorting mess they should at least introduce a secondary sorting criterion. Like when I sort my lists by author they should be sorted alphabetically for every author. And vice-versa for author primary sorting.

[Sannejelier]

It requires a lot of interaction to find the right playlists. It is also very unorganized looking. I heavily prefer the previous layout. I wish there was a way to pick your preferred layout

[D3SOX]

I only use playlists in custom order and for me this new library is a pain to use. With the old one I could simply open the app and select the playlist in my library. With the new one I always have to tap on the small playlists button after every start of the app.

[rranger]

I often download podcasts to listen to offline.  This update has made that impossible to do quickly, and almost impossible to do at all.

When I go to library then downloads, I can see the podcasts that I have downloaded episodes from, however when I click on it, it won't load because I'm offline.  Why can't I get to my downloaded episodes from my downloads?

This also only shows podcasts that I am following.  It does not show any podcasts that I don't follow but have some downloaded episodes.

I can see all of my downloaded episodes from the home page, but I cannot see which episodes I have played without click on each individually.  I scroll right, click, see that I have played that episode, then go back, and I am back to the beginning of all the downloaded podcast episodes.  I have to scroll right again if I want to check if I have played the next episode too.

It takes so much time to find which episode I want to listen to next.  It used to be easy.

I don't see a way to delete downloaded episodes without clicking on each episode individually.

Please making listening to podcasts offline functional again.

[zappa73]

Completely agree - who thought this update was a good idea?  It made finding playlists and subscribed Podcasts so much harder to organize/find!

[orphanpog]

It appears a majority of the artists and labels I follow have been lost in the shuffle of this new rollout.  I previously had several thousand follows, now this looks to have been truncated to 1000.  I'm hoping this can be restored so the "New music from artists you love" emails and Release Radar playlists are not negatively impacted.

[Mitchman72]

The new update with podcast and music all mashed into one heap is a complete mess! Theres too many steps to sort through anything....it was way better before! They can never leave well enough alone! Seriously thinking about switching services....spotify has their heads up their ass. 

[Harriet96]

Yes!! One of the worst parts of this is that it makes the way you sort your library the same across all mediums - artists, playlists, podcasts. Its nearly impossible now to just look for the podcasts that were uploaded today and download them for listening. I listen to a handful of different news podcasts every morning on Spotify and every time they make it harder to find them, I'm more likely to stop using what was once a very streamlined organizational system.

[violetcities]

Logging in for the first time in years to say that I really don't like it. Having to filter and unfilter and sort over and over just to see my playlists in the order I put them is not the improvement you think it is.

[highlight]

Without the ability to save a default filter setting, this update makes navigating to my playlists a very frustrating experience. Awful. It is literally impossible to click the filter button while holding the smartphone in one hand. Do all of Spotifys UX-Designers have an iPhone SE?

[Lpole2]

I used to be able to keep track of all my podcasts so easily, now all I can find is new podcasts. Once my podcasts are no longer new they disappear. Why would Spotify make it so much harder to use their tool???  I have to look through every show I follow to find the no-longer-new podcasts I want to listen to. So frustrating!! Not happy with the changes Spotify just implemented. They should have user-tested them first.

[MattSuda]

Hey @orphanpog 

Looks like you're having the same problem I am having. It's an issue if you follow more than 1,000 artists. The follows are still there in the system (but you have to follow new artists in the desktop app only, mobile app won't save any new follows). When I go to artist pages I am following in the desktop app, the page still shows that I am following it, however it won't appear in my following list on my profile or in the artist tab on my library. The new desktop app makes the situation worse by capping your following count to 1,000 even if you follow more.

I have a thread dedicated to this issue here:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Your-Library/Artists-section-of-Library-no-longer-works-after-follo...

[Lezza111]

With the latest update, since this week, I cannot filter the podcast episodes that I have downloaded. I can only filter downloaded podcasts AND shows. 
I used the previous filter to select and quickly find episodes I still want to listen to. Now I have to scroll down the entire list of episodes of a podcast to see which one I once searched & downloaded. It makes the entire podcast feature useless to me. I want to have preselected podcast episodes at hand quickly. 
I much prefer the previous navigation (separation of music vs podcasts).

[Inudesu]

@mattsuda
Thank you for your contributions to this conversation. No reason for anyone to comment on your music tastes.

But whether actual Spotify employees are reading this every day or not, the fact is that there was tons of negative feedback (in general and specifically about some of the same common complaints in this discussion) from the testing period. And yet, here we are. So it's not all that comforting to keep getting the reassurances from Spotify (officially or unofficially) when it's unlikely to change anything in a meaningful way.
The testing feedback on this was pretty negative (just like it was for the new desktop update, which I don't personally feel as strongly about, but many clearly do). And now you've got pages of complaints here and in the desktop discussion. Not to mention really long Reddit threads about how much people hate this. And the Spotifycares twitter replies are chock full of "I hate this" with a copy and paste "thanks for your input, we think it's an improvement but we'll tell the right people" response. Go look, there are a million.
So my practical question (and it's in good faith, I'm not trolling here I'm legitimately curious) is whether the Idea Exchange would be helpful in this case? I know we're not supposed to suggest "complete rollbacks" but if users went through feature by feature and requested things like "what if the search bar was on every page?" Or "what if music and podcasts were split into two static pages instead of the dynamic bubbles?" Would those kinds of things get any consideration or be scraped immediately? Or get lip service with no real chance of being corrected? Would that type of specific suggestion (which you'd think would enjoy a lot of support based on these discussion threads full of complaints) be considered requesting a roll back and closed? Would there be a chance for improvement over this awful downgrade?

I'd really like an official spotify answer to that (because who would want to waste their time otherwise) but I'd be curious about "rock star" input as well.