Android

[Yokocho8]

People delete downloaded songs to free up disk space IMMEDIATELY. We don't do it to free up disk space in the future. A message confirming "Delete downloads? Yes - No" would solve the problem of unintentionally toggling the download slider, don't you think? If we click Yes and change our mind later, then we're just going to have to re-download the songs. 

[hb94]

Same issue on Moto G, songs stored on 32GB Samsung microSD thought it was worth noting that the 'logic' behind this issue isn't even valid, as toggling the switch back to downloaded does NOT make songs available again.

My issue is further compounded by the fact that my phone sometimes takes a bit of time to discover the SD card, by which time Spotify will 'lose' my downloaded songs, and deleting all data will not free up any space.

[J805]

Same issue on my new Galazy J7. How can they ignore this issue for so long and not provide a solution? As many mentioned, a simple prompt saying "Are you sure you want to permanently delete these songs?" would be sufficent.

Or change the download message to say "Permanently download these songs for ever and they cannot be removed unless you delete everything"

What a joke...

[caitcollins]

when I clear space up on my phone i generally have to go into settings>storage>used space>applications click spotify and clear data and cache to clear space. This may solve your problem!

[Jay456]

Im having similar problem and I randomly notice my download slider being over and then when I click it back on it has to go through re downloading everything again and now my phone has maxed out memory. If I undownload the app from my phone will my playlist stay in my account? That way I can start fresh in a sense

[Vanyo]

Five months later the problem persists. It is not true that the space will eventually free itself or allow to be reclaimed by other Android apps. Undownload the albums or playlists and the used space actually increases. We want to be able to choose exactly what offline files are stored, and we don't want to have to delete the whole cache. Now I understand what had happened to my Moto G3, I could not release space in my internal storage no matter what I did. Now I see it was Spotify!

This thread comes from 2012 or something... shame they can't seem to solve it yet. Must be a basic architecture thing.

[DonBlakie]

I'm having the same problem and it is very frustrating, especially as it is a subscription I am paying for on the understanding that the software should work the way Spotify claim it does. I contacted support about this yesterday, here is the transcript in case it should be of use.

The following is a record of your online chat.
General Info
Chat start time June 1, 2017 9:04:26 AM EST
Chat end time June 1, 2017 9:39:15 AM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:34:48
Operator Abdulla S
Chat Transcript
Info: Thanks for choosing to chat with us. An advisor will be with you shortly.
Info: Hey there! Thanks for contacting Spotify Support. You're chatting with Abdulla S.

NOTE: So we don't get disconnected, please do not navigate away to another browser or app during this chat.
Info: Hi. I got message that I'd reached download limit. Since then I've deleted about 100 tracks but it still says I've reached the limit. I tried logging out & in again but it has not solved the problem.

Info:
Abdulla S: Sorry to hear that you're getting that download limit message. No worries, I'll look into this for you
You: thanks
Abdulla S: Are you only using one offline device?
You: yes
Abdulla S: Do you happen to know the exact numbers of your downloaded songs?
You: No. I looked for this information but the android app doesn't seem to provide it.
You: that would be a useful feature to add
Abdulla S: Thanks for that feedback. I'll make sure to let the right folks here at Spotify know about it.
Abdulla S: You have a total of 8 playlists. Right?
Abdulla S: Are all those downloaded?
You: yes
Abdulla S: Let me just check into this. Can you give me a few minutes?
You: OK
Abdulla S: Thank you for holding on a few more minutes. Please don't go to another app or browser window or we could become disconnected.
You: I won't
Abdulla S: Thanks for waiting. I'm just manually counting all the songs on your playlists.
You: thanks for your help
Abdulla S: I can see that you have a total of 3,225 songs on all your 8 playlists.
Abdulla S: Normally a device can hold up a total of 3,333 downloaded songs.
Abdulla S: However, that's not always the case. Sometimes if it reached near the limit, it gives that message.
You: Hmm. Why might that be?
Abdulla S: Right now, the only option to add new songs is to remove other songs.
Abdulla S: Songs that you don't usually listen to can be removed on your playlists.
You: It seems to me that the software isn't working.
You: It should be able to count the number of tracks.
Abdulla S: We can also do a reinstall of the app. Might be other cache of the songs you've removed is still on the device that's why it's getting that message.
You: OK. If I were to go for the approach of removing songs, how many would I have to remove?
You: What about if I just clear the Spotify cache without uninstalling, might that help?
Abdulla S: That would depend. I can't really guarantee any specific numbers. Because once you remove a downloaded song, the cache might still stay in the storage that might also be the cause of you getting that message.
Abdulla S: Let me jsut coordinate this one for you here on our end. Can you give me a few minutes?
You: Yes, of course.
Abdulla S: I'm still working on this. Please bear with me a little bit longer, and stay on this screen so we don't get disconnected.
Abdulla S: Thanks for staying.
Abdulla S: I just confirmed it on our end that if you clear the Spotify cache, it will also remove the data of your current downloaded songs. I also confirmed that once you remove a downloaded song, the cache of that song doesn't get deleted automatically.
Abdulla S: The best thing to do is to reinstall the app. It will also give the app a new lease of life removing any common issues that may occur.
You: OK, but how will that solve the problem?
You: Will it not just reoccur?
Abdulla S: It will delete the cache of the songs that you've removed. Giving your new songs space for download.
You: Wouldn't it be better for Spotify to address the issue in an update of the app?
Abdulla S: It may or may not reoccur. At this point, we can't really say because that will depend on your usage. If you've reached the limit again, and removed a lot of songs. The cache might not be removed as well.
Abdulla S: But I'll make sure to let the folks here at Spotify to know about this so they can look into this issue.
Abdulla S: Apologies for the frustration.
You: OK. What about if I just wait? Will the app not remove the cached songs that were removed from the library, eventually?
Abdulla S: That I can't guarantee if it will happen.
You: OK. Thanks for your help. Hope this can be fixed in a future update.
Abdulla S: On our end, we really think that the best option right now is to reinstall the app.
Abdulla S: You're welcome. Would there be anything else I can help you with?
You: The thing is, I've only been using it a week. If I have to re-install and re-download everything every week or so, it will be tiresome.
You: That's all for now, thanks.
Abdulla S: Apologies again for the inconvenience.
Abdulla S: Thanks for chatting with me. Take care!
You: Have a good day.

[fabik]

I have completely uninstalled Spotify from my Android phone, but it didn’t clear any space. I was running out of space (95% utilized), and after uninstall it, it still shows 95% utilized, and I am having problems with some functions due to the fact that I don’t have enough space! Does anybody know how to fix this? It said that Spotify was taking 2GB of space off my phone, and after removing it completely, my space is still at 95% capacity. What shall I do?

[eskhn]

I'm having the same problem. I shouldn't have to work around it with a method that clears your login info and un-downloads all your playlists automatically. That's not something anyone should have to do, just to get back free space that we should already have anyway, and the fact that this still hasn't been fixed, or even acknowledged, for years, is just unacceptable. Please fix this as soon as possible.

[NickM3]

An absolute joke, they are taking money for a service which fills up your phones memory and you have to uninstall the software and start again from scratch to resolve the issue. Clearly they do not care about sorting the issue as it has been going on for so long. TIme to look at other streaming services I think.

[eskhn]

Actually, I managed to clear the cache with CCleaner, getting back 7GB that Spotify couldn't free up on its own. Nobody should need a third party app just to clean up after Spotify, and a fix, or at the very least, an acknowledgement from the team, would still be very much appreciated to say the least.

[DonBlakie]

This issue seems to have been fixed in the latest update of the Android
app. I have noticed that changing downloaded playlists to online only or
removing tracks from them now frees up space and allows new downloads. A
big improvement!

[cuchullin34]

I went through all my downloaded albums one by one removing them. I switched my tablet off and on. Still 13GB of storage used up. I then uninstalled spotify. Still 13GB of storage used up. I eventually had to do a factory reset, and restore from my amazon account to get back the space I had used in spotify downloads.

I have a fire tablet. If I go to settings-storage-internal storage-miscellaneous there is still 1.47GB of storage in others which I can't get rid off because there is no check box next to it. Does anybody know how to free it up. Is it possible? I tried using clean master selecting junk clean. But this doesn't work.

Brian McGill

[Joe]

Why not use the file explorer to see what's taking up space and delete files you don't want?

[cuchullin34]

Hi Joe,

My Fire tablet doesn't have a file manager, so I downloaded the amaze file manager, which was first on the list of a web page of the ten best android file managers. Unfortunately I couldn't read the reviews because of an advert blocking the page.

I looked in /sdcard/android/data/com.spotify.music and there were no files in 'cache' or 'files'. Unfortunately this particular file manager doesn't tell me how much space is used in a particular directory. Could you suggest a better one.

I don't know where else to look since apart from spotify virtually the only other apps I have downloaded are board games apps. I am planning to switch to apple music, so it would be good to free as much space as possible to take advantage of the 100 000 download limit, which is the main reason I am switching.

settings-storage says there is 24GB of 26GB free, but this is a 32GB tablet, so already there is 6GB used up for internal use which I can't make use of. It would be nice to free up this 1.47GB I have already mentioned, but I am not an expert when it comes to file managers.

Hope to hear from you soon, I'm going to bed now.

Brian McGill

[Joe]

The operating system takes up some storage for essential system files. I think you're fussing about nothing but performing a factory reset will reset your device to a factory-fresh state. It doesn't sound like there are any residual spotify files so you should go to one of the android/kindle support forums if you still need help.

[user-removed]

Hi,

I found an article that had the same question and was given a solution.

You can find it here:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/HOW-TO-DELETE-OFFLINE-SONGS/m-p/1419726

Hopefully this works for you too.

Don't forget to accept this as solution if this solved your problem and give me a thumbs up.

[Vanyo]

This solution (deleting the whole cache, essentially) is what I did not want to do. It's like using a hatchet to remove a blackhead.

[user-removed]

Do people actually read the first post before posting these useless advices? We don't want to clear the whole cache, that's really simple and there are multiple ways to do it.

Instead we want to get rid of all songs which are no longer selected as "offline" (but Spotify still keeps them in cache for some reason) while keeping the rest of the offline songs intact...

[Joe]

Has anyone tried moving the cache to internal/external storage to see if it's consolidated, freeing up wasted space?