Downloading music on Apple Watch

[Hubo]

Hey folks!

Here's a few tips & tricks to share about downloading music from Spotify on your Apple Watch! - If you're looking to get started, check this out!

Not seeing the 'Download to Apple Watch'-button yet? Make sure your Spotify app is up-to-date the Spotify app is installed on your Apple Watch as well! 

To download music, you'll need a Apple Watch Series 3 or newer on watchOS 6.0 or higher (7.1 or higher is recommended).

Want to download Liked Songs? Just add them to a playlist and use the steps from this page to download them to your Apple Watch. 

Downloads keep stopping? Make sure your Apple Watch is on and the Spotify app is open on your Watch. After a bit of time, your Apple Watch might suspend the app if you're not using it actively so be sure to keep it in focus.

Downloads not working? Your Apple Watch battery might be a bit too low to download. Make sure your Apple Watch is charged or on a charger to start downloading. 

Want to check (the status of) your downloads? On your Apple Watch, swipe right to Your Library and choose for 'Downloads'. There you should be able to find everything you've downloaded and the status of your downloads.

Got any more tips to share? Post them here!

If you're looking to get help with downloading music from Spotify on your Apple Watch, create a new thread on the iOS Help-board.

[Hubo]

Hey everyone,

From the comments here, we can see that many of you experience different types of issues.

In order to avoid potential confusion we've summed them up below.

Keep in mind that there is a limit of songs per playlist (50) that you can download on the watch. If you try downloading a playlist that contains more than 50 songs, issues might occur. In order to avoid that, you can divide the songs in to different playlists.

In case you've added new songs to a downloaded playlist, you'll need to redownload the playlist to your watch so the new songs can be included.

If you try downloading a playlist and it gets stuck at the first song, we recommend that you follow the steps under the Status Update in this thread.

If you've downloaded a podcast episode or a playlist and you can't play them, you can give the steps below a go if you haven't already. In most cases they resolve such issues:

• Restart the watch
• Re-pair the watch with your phone
• Reinstall the app on the watch
• Reinstall the app on your phone
• Try a different internet connection

If you still experience one of the above mentioned issues or another type of an issue, you can write in the relevant Help Board. That way we can look into them separately.

Be sure to also check out @Hubo's tips and tricks regarding this feature.

Thanks!

[viclins]

It just appeared to me the Spotify version number 8.6.42.835 Jeremy.

I downloaded and it worked perfectly.

Thank you very much!

[vlopddap]

Oh well, I just discovered a new (huge) bug this morning on music download for the Apple Watch. I just discovered while jogging that despite my Apple Watch (Serie 3 LTE) shows 50/50 downloaded songs for each of my playlist (3x yet), only the first 7-8 tracks from each playlist are actually playing!! After reaching the 8th track (or so), Spotify starts to quickly skip the remaining tracks until returning to track #1. This is the same behavior for each playlist! I tried random playing and ended with same result (obviously).

As working myself in IT for 20 years now, I must say that I am a bit disappointed when I see a large and reputed software publisher like Spotify releasing to public a new version with that much bugs, pretty much not working in fact. The long time beta testing is the key guys and you missed it!

[Jeremy]

Hi again @viclins and @vlopddap,

Thank you for your replies.

@viclins - We're really glad to hear that everything works as it should for you again 🙂

@vlopddap - can perform a clean reinstall of the app? This will make sure there's no old cache files causing this. 

After that, repair the watch with the phone and then try to redownload your songs.

It would also be great if you can let us know the following so that we can report that it only downloads 50 songs:

• OS version of your iPhone
• OS version of your watch

Keep us posted.

Take care!

[vlopddap]

Hi @Jeremy

I have and iPhone 12 running latest iOS 14.6 and Apple Watch Serie 3 (LTE) running latest WatchOS 7.5. I also ensure to run latest Spotify app version.

I just uninstall Spotify app from my Watch now and then redownload it again. After doing this I re-initiated the playlist download from iPhone App and so far I can already say it's only downloading 50 songs again while my playlist have 300 songs inside it. Now I need to wait for a WHILE to download again and see if only 7-8 songs are working or at least the 50 songs are working now.

[pjago]

I did a clean install and now I no longer have the option to download music to my Watch. It completely disappeared from the options menu. Very disappointed with the roll-out of this feature!

[CarlosE]

Hey folks,

Thanks for your replies.

@vlopddap, regarding the 50 downloaded songs cap, we've already reported it to the teams in charge and as soon as we've got an update, we'll let you know. We'll be looking out for your reply regarding the watch only playing 7-8 songs out of the 50 that were downloaded.

@pjago, try logging out, restarting your device, and logging back in. It's also worth a try restarting the app a few times.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[pjago]

Yes, now the feature is back, but when I try to download music to the watch, it says “Downloading” with no indicator whatsoever. It seems that this feature was not ready for a wide roll-out.

[vlopddap]

@CarlosE

After deleting Spotify from the Watch and then reinstall and resync music, it appears to fix the issue where it only played 7-8 songs. I can now play the 50 synced song.

May I ask you to report something else to your developers team please? I would like to know why we can't simply sync (download) the integrated "Favorite Songs" list to the Apple Watch? This doesn't seem possible yet as the option to "download to Apple Watch" is not available in the integrated "Favorite Songs" playlist... so I had to create a new playlist and drag & drop all of my "Favorite Songs" titles inside this new list, then sync this list instead. This is a bit annoying and not making lot of sense.

[CarlosE]

Hi folks,

Thanks for keeping in touch.

@pjago, give the suggestions in this thread a try. Those should help with the downloading on your Apple Watch.

@vlopddap, it's good to hear that all your downloaded songs are playing correctly. Could you let us know the exact Spotify version you're running? This is so we can further look into what you mentioned about not being able to download your Liked Songs playlist.

We'll be on the lookout.

[vlopddap]

@CarlosE

I am using latest version 8.6.42.835 of Spotify. As I mentioned, the "three dot" (...) icon where you have the option to download songs in Apple Watch aren't present in the default "Liked Songs" playlist so I can't see how I can download it to my watch.

[pjago]

Thanks! That surprisingly worked.

[CarlosE]

Hey there,

@pjago, glad to hear it worked!

@vlopddap, thanks for sharing that info. We've gone ahead and forwarded it to the teams in charge. We'll let you know as soon as there are any news about it.

In the meantime, don't hesitate to reach back out if you need anything else 🙂

[jcburtt]

I tried to add a playlist over a day ago and the watch still just says “downloading”. Tried removing and adding it again, reinstalling the app, just get the same result. what gives?

[Jeremy]

Hi @jcburtt,

Thank you for reaching out in this thread.

Can you confirm that you followed the steps that's provided in this article? There's some more steps to help thoroughly uninstall the app from your phone so if you haven't, we'd highly suggest it since the steps will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

It would also be great if you can confirm if you're watch running Watch OS 6.0 or a newer version?

We also suggest that you make sure that your OS is up to date.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[user-removed]

So far it works. Really slow, but it works.

But I noticed one thing which is really annoying, but maybe I just do something wrong:

I downloaded my playlist to my Apple Watch. Now I've added one more song to the playlist on my iPhone, but this song is not automatically downloaded to my Watch.

I have to delete the whole download on the watch and re-download the playlist... just for one song.

Did I miss something?

I'll test Apple Music now for a month. Let's see if I go back to Spotify.

[vlopddap]

I agree that my overall experience with the Spotify app on the Apple Watch (3 LTE for me) is also very slow and sometime unresponsive if I compare to other apps. In some situation the Spotify app even look like it crash (quit) and automatically reload on my watch, but it's still usable, just not a smooth overall experience.

[dgreenspotify]

This feature is not ready for prime time. I spent a ton of time trying to download a playlist. It never moved past 'downloading 1 of x' so i followed the suggestions of a clean install and now the feature is gone. 😂

[dxnnyzz]

Hi, you should remove the 50 song limit. A lot of people including me have playlists with more than 50 songs. I don't really see why that should be a problem since Apple Music has a 250 song limit. Maybe as competitive feature you could make the limit 300 or no limit if thats possible.

[AgentMax]

Will the playlists be updated on the Watch after they got new songs or have been updated, example track id playlists? Or do I have to delete them from watch and start a new download?

[AgentMax]

Ok, it will not. You have to delete and Download every playlist again to get it updated.