Ability to Download to Apple Watch Missing

[KeithAbb0tt]

Plan

Basic Family

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 14, Apple Watch SE (1st Gen)

Operating System

Latest for both devices

My Question or Issue

Within the past week or two, the "Download to Apple Watch" link disappeared from my iPhone Spotify app.  The Spotify Basic Family plan is supposed to include offline downloads.  But the documentation for Spotify for Apple Watch says that Premium is required.  Which is correct?  Do I have to upgrade to Premium Family to get my "Download to Apple Watch" link back?

I did follow the instructions to remove and reinstall the Spotify app, but the "Download to Apple Watch" link is still missing.

[Novy]

Hey @KeithAbb0tt,

Thanks for reaching out!

We've checked and your current subscription shouldn't be affecting the ability to download to Apple Watch. We understand you've already tried reinstalling, but jut to confirm, have you gone through these steps for a clean reinstall? 

In addition to that, it'd be helpful if you could log in to another account (such as a friend's or relative's) to see if you can replicate this behavior. 

Lastly, make sure to send over the exact OS version and Spotify version running on your device.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[KeithAbb0tt]

Thank you for confirming that downloads to Apple Watch should work with the Spotify Basic Family plan.

Even though I pretty much followed the steps before, I followed them again verbatim just now.  When I initially bring up the app on my iPhone, a screen asks me if I want to download the "Gym Hits" playlist to my Apple Watch.  I reply yes.  The playlist successfully downloads, but then when I bring up an album to download and click the three dots, there is no "Download to Apple Watch" listed.  The "Download to this device" link is displayed, but that downloads the album to the iPhone, not to the Apple Watch.

I do not know of any friends or relatives that use Spotify and have an iPhone and an Apple Watch.

Here is the exact OS and Spotify versions:

Iphone 14 - iOS version 18.5, Spotify version 9.0.48.415

Apple Watch SE (1st Gen) - watchOS version 10.6.1, Spotify version, not sure how to display

Awaiting further instruction...

[Novy]

Thanks for getting back to us and for the extra details, @KeithAbb0tt!

If possible, would you mind sending over a video where we can take a better look at this behavior? You can attach it to your next response or upload it to another platform like YouTube or Google Drive and send a link to it. Make sure to hide any personal or sensitive information, and to give it the relevant permissions if you decide to upload it somewhere else.
 

Keep us posted.

[KeithAbb0tt]

Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-N3NqGzrx_orFJaxu6Vjtj4IfTyEdgfu/view?usp=sharing

[Ivelina]

Appreciate the cooperation @KeithAbb0tt!

You mentioned that you were able to download a playlist via the mobile app on to the Watch, but with albums you weren't able to. 

We had another look and actually, downloading albums for offline listening is possible via the Spotify app on the Apple Watch itself and that would explain why you don't see the option directly in the mobile app. 

Could you please check directly on Spotify on your Watch and let us know if you're able to download your desired albums from there? Spotify > Scroll left to Your Library > Albums > open the specific album > click on the arrow button which should start the download (make sure you've got a stable network connection).

A workaround that should also do the trick is to copy the album tracks into a new playlist and then you should be able to download the playlist via the mobile app on to the Watch.

Let us know how it goes 🙂

[KeithAbb0tt]

Thank you for your response, and for providing me some temporary workarounds to being able to download albums to my Apple Watch.

To answer the questions that you posed:

• When I scroll left within the Apple Watch Spotify app, there are quite a number of lists containing 6 items each.  These lists are named "Good morning", "Jump back in", "Your favorite artists", "Recently played", etc.  There are no options that I can see to display my entire Spotify library.  However, the albums that are listed appear to have an icon with an arrow inside of a circle, which appears that I would be able to download those albums to my Apple Watch.  At least for those six albums..
• I have also checked, playlists displayed on the iPhone Spotify app have the "Download to Apple Watch" link available.  So right now, the best workaround option would be for me to use my iPhone to search for an album that I would like to listen to, create a playlist with the contents of the album, and then download that playlist to my Apple Watch.  An extra, seemingly unnecessary step.  But at least that gets me downloaded music that I can listen to while I am working out at the gym.

The option to initiate the download from the Apple Watch, in my opinion, is an option of last resort.  The form factor of the Apple Watch is not very user friendly, let alone the fact that there is no search option.  Close to unusable for this purpose.

So bottom line, I appreciate that you have provided me a workaround, but I would still like to be able to download albums directly from the iPhone instead of making the extra step of creating a playlist.  Please keep pursuing this option for me, it had been working (reasonably) well for months.  Thank you.

[Eni]

Hey there @KeithAbb0tt, 

Thanks for your reply. 

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

You can also have a look in our Idea Exchange to see if someone else has already submitted an idea about this. If not, you can you can submit your own. 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 need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

[KeithAbb0tt]

The last post sort of implies that the ability to download albums to an Apple Watch from the iPhone Spotify app was intentionally removed.  I know for a fact that that functionality existed for many months.  So either it was intentionally removed by the developers, or that feature is currently broken for me, or that feature is currently broken for all users.  If it was intentionally removed, I don't see the point in submitting an idea.  If the feature is just broken for me and maybe others, then it needs to be fixed.

I'm sure there are a lot of good people working for Spotify.  But coming from a user perspective, this is by far the flakiest iPhone/Apple Watch app I have ever used.  It will work fine for a couple of months, then something breaks and I have to go digging for the solution.  Rinse and repeat.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of choices for playing music from an Apple Watch offline.  So it looks like I am stuck with this for the time being.

[Maria]

Hey @KeithAbb0tt, thanks for following up!

The download option you had access to sounds like one of the few changes we've made recently and it is a feature we were trying out. As we're always testing out new app experiences, you might see something your friends don't or get a brand-new feature for only a temporary period.

Thanks for letting us know your thoughts on this and we'll keep our fingers crossed that the option to download albums to the watch directly from your phone will reappear in the future 🙂

Should anything else pop up, just let us know and we'll see what we can suggest.

Cheers! 

[KeithAbb0tt]

Hopefully "Download to Apple Watch" for playlists isn't a feature that is being tried out for only a temporary period. 😟   Are any of these changes documented anywhere that a paying customer could view?  As a paying customer, should I expect to be notified of upcoming changes to Spotify similar to most software companies behavior?  Maybe this information is available somewhere that I am not aware of.

[KeithAbb0tt]

Just when I had resigned myself to having to download playlists to my Apple Watch, this morning I see a new "Download to other devices", which lists my Apple Watch as available to download to.  So I am happy about that; hopefully, it will be a permanent addition and not temporary.  Time will tell if the Spotify app remains flaky or not.