What's up with this new desktop UI?

[tetre]

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

I don't know where else to post this, but the new desktop UI is terrible. I'm running version 1.2.7.1277.g2b3ce637 and have tried the methods to revert the UI I've found elsewhere in the community (like changing prefs file, which I had to dig for), but none have worked.

The UI is just the complete opposite of what I'd want on desktop- very noncompact, difficult for no reason, and generally looks to be modeled more for phones than for a desktop.

If anyone knows a way to revert the update, please let me know.

[tetre]

Hey folks,

If you need a familiar experience to help you get started with the new Your Library sidebar, here's how to get it as close as possible to the old sidebar that previously only showed playlists:

• In the left "Your Library" sidebar, click on the "Playlists" filter at the top.

• Then, in the sort options drop down menu select "Custom Order". You will then see your previous playlist order and be able to move your playlists and folders like before.

• Your currently chosen filters and sort options will be remembered across restarts of the desktop app.

• If you would like to only see text in the Your Library sidebar (no art covers), go to the Spotify app Settings ➜ Library ➜ and turn on "Use compact library layout".

• Flexible Sizing: You can drag the Your Library sidebar to different sizes. Fully expand the sidebar by clicking the arrow button at the top, and fully collapse the sidebar by clicking on the "Your Library" heading to see only art covers.

• At the top, you can scroll through the different filters with your mouse scroll wheel for faster navigation when the sidebar is set to a smaller size. 

Hopefully this info helps!

Check out my help guide for more help:

Desktop: New Your Library sidebar

[Ryanomalis]

The album art being small, low quality, unadjustable in size, with rounded edges is ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. The attached image is how I use Spotify, 100% of the time, and I have been a PREMIUM paid user since January of 2011.

People still using desktop computers in 2023 do so FOR A REASON. You MUST give us options. There is NO reason to force such a drastic change in UI with no alternative on a desktop application.

This update makes the desktop app unusable for 2/3rds of my purposes. Give me options or lose a loyal 12 year premium subscriber.

[tbowly]

i just updated my spotify through microsoft store and i can't find the previously added option which showed song's details and credits on the right side of the app, instead of friends activity list.

[Ellennst]

Dear Spotify Team,

I've just updated the desktop version and noticed that a feature has been removed, where you can see the album cover, artist introduction and their lastest tour info in a column placed on the right side of the app. If I remember correctly, it was possible to activate that column by clicking a button next to the lyrics button.😀

I personally quite like that layout, as I can read the lyrics while have a brief view of the basic info of the playing song at the same time. I do hope that this feature can be brought back in the near future! 😢

Cheers,

Luan

[lehons]

To the Spotify team: THANK YOU for listening (or ending whatever horrendous A/B test I was part of).

This morning, Spotify (Spotify for Windows 1.2.9.743.g85d9593d) looks like it should again. 

I hope it stays this way.

[Fuzziekiwi]

I do this but it resets when closing and opening the app and sometimes resets when navigating around the app. Annoying.

[joel2762]

New default layout is complete trash, but what else would you expect from Spotify at this point.

Luckily using the adjustments they posted in this thread, you can get it back to pretty close to how it was before. I'm sure a day is coming where they disable all of that customization and force us to use a terrible layout we don't want. 

[P0WERSLAVE]

Exactly, you cannot make the right hand window small enough, it's either big or bigger!

[P0WERSLAVE]

Just to add that I also HATE this new UI. I don't want that window on the right, I never used the home screen anyway because you couldn't edit any of the stuff on it. I want my library in the full screen again, like it was yesterday, before the thing updated itself. 

I listen to albums, full albums, not playlists, and I want to be able to just scroll through all the ones in my library in full screen again, not with some big redundant window taking up half my screen.

Just give us options which windows we want open. 

[astankan]

Why can't you remove a Playlist from a Folder? This is ridiculous. You have made everything worse, what is up with these Pins and then limiting them? I am seriously thinking of canceling my plan. You have made it so difficult to do anything and changes you made are not intuitive and no guide i could find out about all the changes. You ruined just simple things that worked? HORRIBLE and you should be embarrassed on how it looks and navigation is Awful.

Did you get a 4 year old to code it?

Fix it.

[stormy_weather]

Yet another longtime Spotify user chiming in to say that I absolutely despise the new UI.

I am primarily a desktop user, and as of today, it appears that the new UI has been rolled out to my account. The primary problem with the new destkop UI—and it's a big one—is that there is now NO WAY to look at your library in the right-hand pane that comprises the majority of the space on screen. Previously, you could open up and visually examine your library in this pane – looking at artists, playlists, or albums, arranged in a grid. If you had a lot of playlists in your library and had organized them into folders, selecting a folder in the lefthand menu would similarly open it up in the righthand pane so you could view just the playlists in that folder.

Now, the ONLY place where we can view any of this information is in the left-hand menu. And yes, that menu can now be expanded to use as much as half the screen width, but even if you expand the menu as far as you can, that's still a lot less screen space for this information than was previously available for desktop users (especially considering that the Home and Search fields take up vertical space above the menu as well).

I am astounded that this redesign even made it to the point of A/B testing. As a desktop user, and as someone who primarily uses Spotify to listen to my own curated library of music rather than as a music discovery tool, this makes Spotify nearly unusable for me. Clearly, judging by the number of comments in this thread, I am not alone in that.

I have been a premium Spotify subscriber for over 8 years. Spotify has made UI updates in recent years that I didn't like, but adapted to. This update is in a whole different category, though. It BREAKS A CORE FUNCTIONALITY of the desktop app. Honestly, if Spotify rolls this out as the permanent, default UI for desktop, with no ability to revert to the old UI or at least to be able to view your library again in the right-hand pane, I will almost certainly end up canceling my subscription and migrating to a different music app—one that doesn't insist on pushing poorly-thought-through, mobile-first, usability-breaking redesigns out to desktop users every few months.

[atomlehman]

on Feb 16 I complained about the terrible TikTok layout that was rolled out to the iOS app.

today on my desktop there was an auto-update for the Spotify app -- and i see yet another terrible UI decision that is getting evicerated here.

Why do you insist on making these significant layout updates that are absolute garbage?

[jonstaudt]

The only playlists I can move and order are pinned ones. Of which you can only have four. Why include this as part of the update?

[theodosiaprevost]

Ok, genuinely asking in good faith: how, in this new UI, do I organise my playlist folders? I used to open the 'my library' screen where I could see all my 'loose' playlists that weren't in folders. I could also click on a folder and that would bring me to a full-screen list of all the playlists within that folder. I use folders within folders a lot, so this was super useful to me.

What do I do now? There's no way to easily organise my playlists, which is the main draw of spotify for me.

Also why should I not be all about "my playlist, my Spotify, my experience"? I'm paying €10 a month for this service. Of course I want it to able to do the very basic things that it should be able to do. Also I'm not a designer, idk why you brought that up. I don't know anything technical, all I know is that the new user interface will now no longer allow me to do what I want it to do. Of course I'm frustrated.

Also I am HOPING its a glitch but I had three playlist folders pinned, along with one playlist. The playlist is still there. The playlist folders have vanished, both on desktop and on mobile. (Not vanished as in no longer pinned, but vanished as in the folders are no longer there. If I want to use a playlist I have to search for it which, 90% of the time, doesn't bring up the playlist.)

Edit: This was addressed at a person who posted yesterday. I clicked 'reply' on their comment thinking that it would reply specifically to their comment, not the whole thread 💀 Points still stand though

[Aktvst]

This latest UI update to the desktop app is absolutely horrific... And I didn't think the desktop Spotify app could possibly get any worse. My Library, with all the artists I follow is the MOST important page in the app for me, scrolling through my different artists to see what I want to explore and listen to. Now, I am UNABLE to even see my Library or the artists I follow. Just a stupid sidebar with maybe 5 artists, out of the hundreds that I follow. What on earth were you guys thinking? This is a disaster. I'm cancelling my Spotify subscription right now. I can't deal with the frustration anymore of seeing both the phone and especially the desktop app just continue to get worse and worse every time I open them.

[lavegacerveza]

It's so incredibly BAD! Browsing the library is clunky and confusing. The frames and content fonts are too big, so too much is hidden and you have to scroll and click all over the place to try and find/see things. I'm a paid member but now I'm thinking about switching to another service. Whoever came up with this should be fired.

[ray3452]

This is the worst windows 10 update !!!!!

I want the old UI back.

[TLMuse]

Please either restore the appearance of the playlist sidebar to pre-1.2.10, or let the user have some choice over the font (even just "small/large") and ability to toggle icons on/off.

I'm utterly bewildered (and frankly really frustrated) with the interface changes in Spotify 1.2.10 for macOS, which largely make the app harder to use, at least for those of us who heavily use playlists.

Most annoying is the large font in the playlist sidebar, along with each playlist getting an album cover icon. The large font means fewer playlists are visible, and the user has to scroll much more. The icons are too small to be useful (esp. when they show 4 microscopic album covers), and waste space. The playlists have names; I don't need or benefit from the icons. And playlist folders don't have album cover icons.

These changes make it harder, not easier, to navigate playlists, and they give the new interface a toy-like appearance, when the previous one was at least a bit classy looking (at least by comparison). Please restore the better look and functionality of the earlier interface, or at least give users a choice for the font size and whether to use icons.

[henneberg]

probably the worst update in the past couple years to any services i use, the library was the only tab i ever used and now its gone.

the UI/layout of the Spotify app has changed around 3 times within a week and it's gotten worse each time. bring it back to its regular state, or at least stop changing it every. single. time. i open the app.

[P0WERSLAVE]

I can't even bring myself to use the desktop app today. As soon as I opened it and remembered how bad it was I just closed it down again. It's like I had a house with five bedrooms and now I've been moved into a single room with no windows. I hate it and would have already cancelled my subscription if I didn't have the family account.

[alb10]

this new UI is trash is the worlst thing that spotify could have come with
what the **bleep** were they thinking? intead of i proving they just made it even worst!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM MAD

i am considering all options to leave spotify after this