Help with Switching from iTunes Music to Spotify on iPhone and iPad

[nayuan01]

Hi all! I just registered for Spotify Premium with the following crazy idea in mind. I currently ave quite a large iTunes library of approximately 40GB or more in music. I am also registered with iTunes Match to ensure that my music is available to all my devises at will. I have catalogued all o my songs into different Playlists and download those Playlists I listen to more frequently to my different devices (iPhone has 6 playlists, iPad has 2). 

In an effort to cut down costs on my music purchases (I spend $200 or more on music in iTunes alone), I decided to give Spotify a try. The ideal setup is as follows: (a) import all of my iTunes playlists to Spotify; (b) be able to download those Playlists (and all their songs) to my iPhone and iPad. That way, whenever a new album or song that I like is available on Spotify, I just simply add that song to my corresponding Playlist, it gets downloaded, all for $10 a month! I would then like to delete my songs in iTunes Music on my devices in order to make space for the Playlists to be downloaded through Spotify.

Sounds reasonable, right? The question is as follows, is this doeable?

I have been working for many days on the import and purging of my playlists in Spotify. I noticed that some songs appeared as "greyed out" and have been working for the past 3 days on identifying Spotify replacements. Even with this purging, I still have certain songs that are not yet available in Spotify and would have to sync them from my local files. Once a download the playlist, will it download the Spotify replacement songs and those local files that are unavailable, or will Spotify only proceed to "sync" my local files only?

Second, how does "offline mode" work? I plan on having constant internet connection even with the downloaded playlist. The idea, however, is to be able to listen to my downloaded playlist (just as I would do with iTunes) without having to waste unnecessary data on my cell phone. Is this possible? What happens after 30 days? Do my downloaded songs get deleted?

Will this crazy idea work or should I just stick with iTunes?

Thanks for all your help!

[user-removed]

Hey, so it sounds like you've at least successfully transferred all your iTunes library songs and playlists into Spotify at least, which is pretty much the only hard part of the process I think.

Are the greyed out songs that are not available in Spotify's catalogue saved locally? If so, it should not be hard to be able to save them onto your devices at all. So long as your music playing device and your computer with all the music files on it are connected to the same Wifi network, when you choose to save a playlist in Spotify for offline access, all the songs--both local files and songs on Spotify's catalogue--will be saved onto your iPhone/iPad. With a premium membership, you will be able to play all your songs indefinitely offline using the Spotify app.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by your songs getting deleted after 30 days. All I can say is that I've been using Spotify for years and I still have all my music.

TL;DR: Yes, it is doable. And yes, you will be able to listen to downloaded playlists without having too waste unnecessary data (so long as you own greyed out songs locally on your computer)

Hope that helped!

[nayuan01]

Thanks for your response Victor. 

What I meant by the songs being deleted after 30 days is the following: Currently, most of my Spotify playlists contains a mix of music locally stored in my computer and songs from Spotify's catalogue. From your explanation, it seems that I am able to sync and keep my locally stored music in my iPhone indefinitely. But what happens to the Spotify songs after 30 days in offline mode? Can I simply donwload them on my devices and keep the internet connection open (to avoid being deleted after 30 days offline) and just listen to the downloaded version of the songs as opposed to streaming them?

I am really concerned of exceeding my data limit if I continously stream songs from Spotify, as I perform most of my music listening at work through my cell phone.

[user-removed]

Ohhh I see what you mean now. So what the "30 Days" in offline mode means is that after 30 days, Spotify will go online again, and you can simply switch back to offline mode again. I think that option is there because some people know for how long they will be without internet.

Your songs will be saved offline indefinitely.

Also, if you're on T-mobile, it's worth noting that they recently rolled out a program where all music streaming on services like Spotify and Google Play (and others) will not count towards your high speed data cap, meaning that T-mobile customers have unlimited high speed 4G LTE Spotify streaming!

[nayuan01]

Yah, I've considered switching to T-Mobile just because of that (currently have AT&T) but, unfortunatley, T-Mobile's service in my area is horrible.

Lasltly, is the download option on Spotify reliable?

Thanks for all your help Victor!

[user-removed]

Yea, T-Mobile can be really, really sketchy in areas that are not big cities. I think that's why they can afford to pull stunts like this honestly hahah

But yea, no problem at all. The download option in Spotify is very reliable if you are able to get Spotify to recognize your iPhone under the "Devices" tab in the desktop client while connected to the same Wifi network. I know some networks and routers have weird firewall settings that mess with that. And even if you run into any issues, the Spotify community here is always happy to help, which is something I think Apple and iTunes lack (having to schedule an appointment at an Apple store can be annoying). Let me know if you need any more help!

[jeremygoh]

Kindly take note that after 30 days, if you do not go online, the songs will be removed on the device and you would have to resync again. It is again part of the licensing deals with the recording labels with Spotify.

( @vyxl got the point, but in clarification.. I'll just add up some details above! 😄 ) 

The download option on Spotify is reliable, however, if you need the music critically, you should only update the Spotify application on the app store when you have stable internet connection.. Some updates resets the entire spotify application, therefore losing downloaded songs.

I would suggest that you make sure the sync over 3G is OFF so that it will not incur too heavy data charges, your streaming quality should also be set to normal (if you are wary of hitting the internet caps)

All the best chap! @nayuan01

[user-removed]

Oops, sorry about the misinformation about the 30 days in Offline mode! That's my bad.