Spotify is making my private playlists public

[Josh125]

Plan

Premium

Country

Malaysia

Device

Samsung Galaxy S8+

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

Spotify keeps making my private playlists public. I make them private and listen to my music but later when I'm back on my account my playlists are public again. I've made my playlists private tens of times now and it's getting annoying at this point. Could someone help me with this issue please. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Xenia]

Hey @Josh125,

Thanks for reaching out here and welcome to the Community!

That doesn't sound right. Could you clarify if you're talking about playlists you have created yourself or the ones you are following? Can you give us an example of a playlist that you've set to private and how it shows up on your profile? It'd be helpful if you could also share the link to your profile with us so we can see how it looks on our end.

Keep us posted!

[Josh125]

Dear @Xenia ,

My profile link is as follows: https://open.spotify.com/user/dmzhiibe2atu9vj6yvfhjk3g1?si=jruBjowrQr6PNfS1Y8t8yw&utm_source=copy-li... 

The playlists that I am talking about in the issue are playlists created by me. I look at my playlists and it says public so I then change it to private. But after a few hours my playlist show as public again so I have to make them private again. This has now been happening for about 4 days and I can't seem to figure out what is wrong. I have tried restarting my device and that didn't work so I deleted spotify and reinstalled it, but that didn't seem to help either so now I am completely clueless to what to do next so I came here for help.

[CarlosE]

Hi again @Josh125,

Thanks for your reply and that info.

We've just took a look at how your profile looks like on the app and there aren't any playlists shown there, so we can confirm that they are private. If this happens again, could you let us know immediately without changing the settings so we can confirm if they do appear on your profile or if there's only some sort of visual issue with the settings on your playlists.

We'll be on the lookout.

[Josh125]

Dear @CarlosE ,

I just opened my account and haven't made any changes to the settings. I have attached 2 images to show you what my spotify screen looks like. It looks like some sort of visual issue.

[CarlosE]

Hey @Josh125,

Thanks for your reply and the screenshots.

We've just checked your profile again and can confirm that there aren't any playlists showing there, so rest assured, even if you're seeing the option to make the playlist private, they're still private and not visible to others.

We'll make sure to pass your feedback about this on to the right folks. In the meantime, make sure to keep the app updated.

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

Cheers 🙂

[Gleslie]

The same issue happened to me. Either an event took place that made certain playlists public or there’s a bug in displaying playlist privacy in the spotify app. I think it’s the latter but please verify

[Alex]

Hey @Gleslie,

Thanks for the post.

A few updates back a new private-public system was introduced for playlists. The easiest way to check which playlist are visible on your profile is by opening it on the Desktop app. You should see a count of all your Public and visible playlists.

If you're unsure if a playlist is public or private, check this Support Article. If you see the option "Add to Profile" when you open the settings for a playlist, this means it is currently private and not visible to other users.

Hope this helps 🙂

[Gleslie]

Is it that hard to add a tag on playlists that says whether playlists are
private or public? It seems like a slight security risk..

[Eni]

Hi there @Gleslie, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us and we'll make sure to pass it onto the right team, as we always strive to improve your experience.

Additionally, it seems also that some other users feel the way you do and went ahead and posted this idea. You can add your support there by up-voting the idea. We'll inform on any developments there, as soon  as there are any.

You can read more about how your feedback reaches Spotify here.

 The Community is here in case you have any questions.

[Spotter9]

Hello,

This issue has still not been solved, neither on the app nor on desktop. It's the year of 2021 - I've never heard of "don't mind what it says on your screen, something totally different is going on behind the scenes!"...kinda irresponsible way to handle things - I assume we are all valued user to you around the world, premium or not.

Kind concerns from Denmark

[MafeG]

Hi @Spotter9,

Thank you for sharing your post on this thread. 

As of now, the way you make a playlist public/private has slightly changed. In order to hide a playlist, the option that needs to be selected is Remove from profile:

After selecting it, you shouldn't be able to see it. If you still do, please send us the URL of your profile so we can take a look at it.

Keep us posted.

[Spotter9]

thanks for replying i’ll check it out hopefully it’s just as easy to make a playlist public again 👍

[CarlosE]

Hey @Spotter9,

You're welcome!

That's right - to make them public just follow the same steps but select the option Add to profile.

If you need anything else, the Community is here for you.

Cheers.

[NoriMori]

All of my previously private playlists are saying that they're public. (And contrary to an earlier answer on this thread, I don't see anything on my desktop app that shows a count of how many of my playlists are public.) So either all my private playlists have inexplicably become public, or the app is misrepresenting whether they're public or private. Either situation is very bad and should be a high priority for being fixed.

[monomarket]

This is my situation exactly and I have been forced to manually make all my (many) playlists private. In addition although I have my default set to "create new playlists as private", my new playlists are STILL being created with the "make private" option displayed - this important privacy issue needs to be sorted, a work around is not acceptable and the "add to profile" option just makes things more complicated. "Create my new playlists as private" should mean one thing and one thing only.

[Yordan]

Hey @monomarket!

The Make my new playlists public option on the desktop app actually has to do with the playlists showing up on your profile or not. If toggled on, all new playlists will be automatically added to your profile, so when someone opens it, they'd show up. If toggled off, they won't. But all new playlists are made public by default, so one has to manually make them private.

We get how this creates a confusion, so we've reported it to the right folks, who'll look into it. In the meantime, make sure to always keep the app up to date.

Take care.

[johnzdebest]

This is not solved, why has this been marked as solved? If you create a new playlist it is public by default with no warning. The option to make playlists private DOES NOT WORK

[Kiril]

Hey @johnzdebest,

Thanks for your post in the Community!

The privacy settings for playlists have been reorganized recently and you can read the updated details about this here. Also all playlists can now be shared with collaborative privileges and this is explained in greater detail here.  

Hope you find this useful. Keep us posted if you have any questions.

[gabohuerta]

I've just noticed all my playlists are public, and have no idea when Spotify made them so. I've always only had a couple playlists publicly available, but I've noticed that Spotify tends to sneak in other adjustments to (very) personal preferences surreptitiously during updates to the app. I must say I loathe this about Spotify and am very close to ending my use and subscription to the app. Spotify has a lot to be ashamed of when it comes to how it treats artists; this kind of behavior towards its customers is unfortunately wholly consistent with that, and instead of improving as it endlessly claims to be doing, it apparently only gets worse.