Spotify Community

mattrendell27 · 2014-09-25

I tried to download the new iOS 8 only to find out my iPhone doesn't have enough capacity to download it. I checked my usage settings and it turns out the Spotify App is taking up 4.7 GB of space on my iPhone (exactly the amount of free space I need to download iOS 8). I went to one of the biggest playlists I'm following in Spotify (543 songs) and clicked "unfollow this playlist" and it only reduced it from 5.0 GB to 4.7 GB. I'm only following three other playlists with around 300 songs each. Is there something else I have to do to reduce the amount of space the app is taking up?

Guido · 2019-07-11

Hey all,

Dropping by to give you some further info about Spotify Storage.

Spotify uses your device’s available memory to:

Store temporary, or snippets of, music for streaming (i.e. as cache). This means that when you press play, you hear the music immediately with few interruptions.
Store downloaded music if you listen offline (Premium only).

To free up some space or fix common issues, you can clear your cache or manage where your downloads are stored.

How to clear cache on desktop:

Click in the top-right corner of the desktop app and select Settings.
Scroll down and click SHOW ADVANCED SETTINGS.
Scroll down to Offline songs storage to see where your cache is stored.
Tip: Click CHANGE LOCATION to store your cache somewhere else.
Go to that folder on your computer.
Select and delete all the files in that folder.

How to clear cache on iPhone:

Note: After clearing the app’s cache, you’re logged out, and your login details are cleared. You’ll need to resync any offline music, and reselect your preferred settings after logging back in.

On iPhone, Spotify saves downloaded music in an encrypted form on your device’s storage. If you need more room for a new download, iOS automatically frees up space by deleting any unused stored data. If no more stored data can be deleted, you need to free up space by manually removing downloaded tracks.

Clear cache on Android:

Note: After clearing the app’s cache, you’re logged out, and your login details are cleared. You’ll need to resync any offline music, and reselect your preferred settings after logging back in.

Tap Home.
Tap Settings.
Scroll to Storage, and select Delete cache.
Tap Delete cache.

Further info about Android devices.

If your Android device has an external SD card, you can download Spotify music to it, instead of the device's internal memory.

Tip: Make sure your SD card has at least 1GB free space. The storage option only appears if your SD Card is available and accessible.

Tap Home.
Tap Settings.
Tap Other, then Storage.
Select where you want to save your downloaded music.
Tap OK. The transfer takes a few minutes, depending on the size of your library. You can still listen to Spotify as normal during the transfer. Spotify restarts afterwards.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have further questions.

Have a nice day!

View solution in original post

user-removed · 2014-09-26

Having same issue

anything?

Baroninkjet · 2014-09-26

I would imagine it is music you have downloaded for offline availability.

mattrendell27 · 2014-10-03

Yeah, it turns out just swiping the button to make any playlists you have unavailable offline doesn't accordingly free up any space on your phone (or at least not a proportional amount of space). But what I did was just delete the Spotify App from your phone and doing that turns off the "available offline" function for any playlists you had that turned on for. And it actually reduces the amount of space the Spotify App takes up on your phone proportionately. And then just re-install the App and it will remember the playlists you had before they just won't be set to available offline anymore. Problem solved!

Luiza2009 · 2014-11-25

To reduce space, I swiped the playlists I did not care to have online to be offline. However, since it didn`t seem to reduce space, I turned the iphone off, and back on again, and woops, the storage was reduced. So ie, no need to delete the app and reinstall it again.

robined · 2015-06-28

Having the same problem on my iPad. Tried Luiza2009's suggestion but doesn't seem to have any effect on storage reduction. Tempted to go for the previous suggestion of deleting app. Can anyone else confirm that deleting app and then re-installing it will not mean I lose all my playlists?

enfilade · 2015-07-16

Deleting and re-installing the app doesn't delete your playlists - they're stored in the cloud. But it's a bit of a pain as you then need to go through and tell it again which ones you want to have available offline, and fill in all your preferences again.

This is a really annoying issue and I hope they sort it out soon. If you have stopped storing music on your iPhone, it should give you the space back. Turning the phone off didn't solve it for me - I had to reinstall the app.

harnden62 · 2015-08-24

This really needs a fix. Even with all offline setting off, Spotify is a cache hog.

robined · 2015-08-24

Thanks to enfilade. I did delete the app and reinstall it and this worked fine but agree with harnden62 that a fix would be good. Otherwise will have to do the same thing again every few months.

Dirkvnh · 2015-08-26

Using a 64GB model will also fix this problem.

hedlesschickens · 2016-04-01

Still no fix for this!
Cmon Spotify! Stop being lazy

Dziwozony · 2016-05-19

Yep, Spotify is STILL killing all available space on my iPhone 4 (8GB), despite deleting/reinstalling a month ago. I only have about five short playlists "available offline." It takes 2 full minutes to load when I open the app, and it's about a 50/50 chance that the app will crash and need to reload.

Not all of us have the ability to replace our iPhones with the latest model!

Spotify, I'm paying for this offline service, can you at least *try* to make it functional?

1228753823 · 2016-06-07

Using 128gb model, same problem, half my memory is "other." Deleting and reinstalling the app helped, even after re-adding "available offline" songs. . Unfollowing/making music not available offline did very little. The app apparently has a huge cache no matter what, and doesn't delete as frequently as needed.

I have a HUGE photo library so I kept deleting photos, one at a time, in vain. Until it occured to me to delete Spotify and all of its info. Bam. half my storage back. And a reinstall with a login (which still includes my offline library) did not take up as much space as previously. Something is wrong there. Needs to be fixed.

And everyone can't afford a more expensive phone. I've got the biggest 6plus there is. I'm not buying a new phone because Spotify says I need a 6s.

Especially not when I'm paying for a 3 person membership! I'm paying for this. I am not paying for them to take over my entire family's phones with some crap! They're just giving credence to people who say we are cheating by using Spotify but getting a lesser service.

If they want to go the route of trashy service, fine I will quit them and go back to Amazon. I genuninely am not threatening....I do stuff like that.

And there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who are with Spotify because it is the best deal. They aren't the only streaming music company. Not even the best. Just the best cost.

No one wants to be treated like crap because they picked the most cost-effective option. I also notice their lyrics have been gone for 4 days now and we are all supposed to wait for that.That is a good part of the reason I pay for this. And Lyrics put the weight on CUSTOMERS to do them, that's not even Spotify. So what's the problem???

I think I am going to migrate. Seems like the sun is going down on this.

Fewer and fewer artists are wiling to work with them, while cost goes up and quality goes down. It seemed too good to be true for a reason, I guess 😞
I really LOVED it while it lasted....

@Dirkvnh wrote:
Using a 64GB model will also fix this problem.

quchaoa · 2016-10-17

Try to delete unwanted data or download cache files from Spotify App.iPhone data cleaner app can help us do that easily.

Santoshp · 2016-11-10

Because all of us download the whole playlist.. The best way is to turn off the download from every playlist.. But we can't listen offline ...

mirecek_parecek · 2016-11-10

If I have any problem with the Spotify, the Care forward me to the forum a write the post. But nobody from the Spotify is replying to it. Are you kidding? We are "crying" about Spotify cache/using the data for a very long time but nothing is changed. I really wan't some status from the support/developement.

When tit will be fixed?

I deleted all playlists, all albums, uncheck all offline downloads but Spotify still takes 800MB + 100MB for the app.!

Developers give us some feedback for this! I'm really pissed off thinking about cancelation of our family subscription.

mirecek_parecek · 2016-11-10

This is not the solution and I can't understand who can select this post as the solution. Should be some workaround for a while but not the final solution.

You are saying:

"Do you have problem with the cache? No problem, Delete our app..."

Are you kidding?

Give us a solution as the fix of the iOS app!

Santoshp · 2016-11-10

Not a offencive !!!
Am just suggest those who engaged with spotify and have a subscription but they have less storage capacity on phone.

Ha ha ....you suggest us to delete the app... please listen to your customer and try to fix this problem.
Yes..!! All of us know that, you are doing your best regarding this issue..

mirecek_parecek · 2016-11-10

I really can't find anything about Spotify's point of view about this problem. No official reaction.

Deborah · 2017-03-06

Yes this worked everyone. Delete the app then add it again. Now I have a ton more space available!

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