Removing Tracks from History/Algorithms

[minormumbles]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

My wife (despite having her own spotify account) has been listening to thunderstorm tracks under my account for the past month.  These tracks are 2-3 minutes long.  And she ran them all night on repeat for several nights until I figured out what was going on.  80% of my "music" listened to is now nature sounds and thunderstorms.  

I realize that we are currently voting on the ability to delete items from our recently played.  People have been kicking around this idea since 2019 it seems.  This is a paid service for me.  The idea that a need like this is so incredibly obvious I find that in borders on insulting that you think this is an option that needs to be voted on first. Come on seriously.  What is the true reason this doesn't exist already?

Is it possible to at least designate tracks or songs that you do not want to be applied to your Top Tracks for 20XX?  Or my years in review? Or any of my listening algorithms?  

[Eni · Accepted solution]

Hey @minormumbles,

Thanks for reaching out about this and welcome to the Community.

We understand where you're coming from. However, song recommendations are based on your listening history and cannot be reset. This is because the tracks are now part of your algorithm and that can't be changed manually.

In order to prevent certain type of music to be taken into account in the algorithm, we’d recommend activating the Private session in the app settings before listening to that music. You can check how to do it here.

On another note, currently there are 2 live ideas about the possibility to remove songs from your listening history: 
 

• [All Platforms][Your Library] Delete Songs from Account History
• [All Platforms][Music] Remove items from Recently Played history

You can consider adding your +VOTE to the ideas mentioned above, if this is something you'd like to see implemented in the future. The Idea Exchange is a great way for us to see what our users are interested in and how many people like a certain idea. 

Check out this FAQ to learn more about it. 

If you have any questions or need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

[1217519741]

So any user that has a spouse, friend, family, or room mates that play music on their Spotify accounts when they come over now just have to have an algorithm that gives them bad suggestions because the algorithm can't be changed? I'm sorry, but customization is meant to be changed.  Spotify used to let you remove songs, and playlists from your recently played, and it didn't mess up the algorithm then.  Tell me again how having songs that someone else played on my account because they were visiting makes my experience better.  It doesn't now please get this feature restored.  I'm getting sick and tired of your company's shenanigans of not listening to their users, partners, or frankly anyone.  If you're not willing to let people remove music they don't like that was played on their account because we're accommodating to people that live in or visit our house or we own smart speakers or drive rideshare, or really any reason short of sharing an account with someone that doesn't live with you....  your algorithm is going to get worse and worse at suggesting songs that people actually want to listen to.  I don't know who sets these policies, but knowing they're a part of how Spotify operates makes me think that it might be time to move on to one of your competitors an cancel my subscription. 

[minormumbles]

I do not accept this as a solution.  I am not going to instruct my wife to create a private session.  I am going to tell her to use a different service that will accurately play the music she wants to listen to...and if that platform gets better at doing that maybe we will both end up over there.  I am just one person...well...a family.  But I am sure I could talk a few other people out of it....especially with this audiobook section.  Oof.  What a joke that is... and your devotion to Joe Rogan. How many more sandbags might I need to convince someone or myself?

[mgenie]

Definitely not a solution. To say we need to remember activate a Private Session whenever we**bleep** we don't want our recommended songs to be affected by is ridiculous.

I recently became a parent and we play white noise to calm down the little one sometimes. Now my Discover Weekly playlist is filled with nonsense recommendations that I can't use for ANYTHING, when before I used it to find new songs all the time. Both of our song recommendations are beyond useless now and all you suggest is "use a Private Session" - sure, I'll remember that every single time I put on some white noise...!

[Turanthar]

Completely out of the question... 

I use Spotify on my Alexa devices and sometimes my spouse listenes to stuff i'd never do. Yet this  (sorry dear..) **bleep** turns up on my lists as well and private sessions are a no go on alexa as far as i know.

So while it is true that we cant change the algorithm it sure must be allowed to change what is fed to it. 

Spotify gets worse by the day and this is one of the few things that really drive me mad. 

[ahmetoo]

This is actually a real problem for the platform. Can we up this thread?

[richtelf]

That's not a solution. This is a huge oversight. You can't easily start a private session when using spotify in the car, I now have an algorithm full of sleeping bunnies nursery rhymes after a road trip with the kids...

[Jalfredlee]

My account was hacked back in 2019 and one song was played for a couple days. Now, I have a third party app that shows my lifetime stats and it is still my number one song as I listen to a wide variety. I understand it may not be easy to remove a tracks history, and may not be worth all the hassle if someone is sharing an account with a spouse or family, but there simply must be a way to scrub history data. I'm not worried about suggestions for playlists, that is recent history. I'm a bit of a stats guy and it irks me this one song I would never listen to is still number one. I will eventually surpass it, but would be great if I could Just. Remove. One. Song.

[Rufusjcat]

This is... well it's stupid, but it's also incredibly lazy. Spotify must have some lazy-ass developers. I mean there's no value to Spotify from forcing users to keep and use whatever random **bleep** was played, so it's either that they are too stupid to figure out how to do it, or they are too lazy to do it. I had people at my house, let them choose songs, now that's forever part of what I'll have to listen to despite my active dislike for most of that music? Stupid. Lazy. Lame.

[ringob]

Guys, where is all the hate coming from? Nobody is forcing you to use Spotify. There are loads of competitors out there. 

You go around calling people lazy and stupid, but still you keep paying them. Evaluate some other options and leave Spotify if that's what will make your situation better.

More love, less hate please.

[Foxxie68]

We used to be able to delete. And some of us pay for Spotify so we expect to still get what we signed up for. I don’t want random numbers played in my own playlist. If I didn’t pay for my account I could see why they do it. I didn’t sign up for that. And to change platforms, which I actually wouldn’t mind doing because of this change, is a huge hassle when one has 100’s of albums. 

[ZeroFlame007]

It's not perfect, and I still want the ability to remove played history, but Spotify did start to roll out a "Exclude from your Taste Profile" feature today. It looks like it's only available to playlists at the moment, but it's a start and hopefully it continues to expand.

[Mridge]

THIS. It’s driving me nuts seeing my top two artists on my lifelong stats are JAZZ FOR BABIES and BADANAMU. Like please Spotify, have mercy. 

[AustinAngela]

Agreed! An ex-boyfriend played his music on my account and now it comes up as suggested so I'm not only irritated at the music, it brings up bad breakup memories. Thanks. 

[bine-tfn]

I am 99% sure this feature existed in the past - why was it ever removed?! Whenever my Google Home fails to understand me and starts playing random artists/songs (most recently, "Stop" by Spice Girls, even though I just want to stop a timer...), they show up on my Spotify history. Please, for the love of whatever, reactivate that feature!

[Ecology11]

I often listen to music while I am writing papers and reports at work. During this time I listen to coffee table jazz, something that is easy listening without words. While I do enjoy listening to this while at work, I wouldn't consider this my style of music and would not listen to this on my own time. I would like to have the option to listen to this music without it affecting the Spotify algorithm that develops playlists for me.

[Ecology11]

I found this workaround from another thread that may help with your particular circumstance. I just found it today and am giving it a try, although I assume I will need to burn up hours of listening to my preferred music until the algorithm resets.

[flood123]

At very least there should be a “soft delete” option in the backend service that hides the content ID number from your history instead deletion. 
if you say it’s too difficult, just give me repository access and I’d be happy to do it for you.
Also, Figure it out,  project managers. This should be priority on your roadmap. 

[Trekari]

You want me to pay for premium so that I can *pay* for music I don't like to be added to my playlists, just because I allow others to play their music through my spotify when they come hang out? LOL.

It's 2023. If you people can't figure out how to remove a song or artist from the algorithm, then you don't deserve your jobs.