Spotify is one of the best music streaming services in the world, but competitors such as Apple Music are not far behind. Spotify has long allowed premium listeners to download up to 10,000 albums, playlists and podcasts on up to 5 different devices, but like YouTube Music’s smart downloads, it’s possible to automatically track frequently-listened tracks. No direct download functionality is provided. It has been around since mid-2019. But Spotify may soon launch its own version, according to company CEO Daniel Ek.
In a tweet posted on ThursdayEk released a screenshot of the “Your Offline Mix” playlist in development, adding that it’s “designed for when you may not be online.” The CEO didn’t elaborate on the feature, but seems open to suggestions at this point.
This means that there is no schedule for when this new offline playlist will arrive, and we don’t know how many songs will be automatically downloaded. For example, YouTube Music’s smart download feature allows listeners to automatically download up to 500 songs for offline playback.
As TechCrunch points out, Spotify has been working on introducing automated curated offline playlists to the service for some time. Jane Manchun Wong, the authoritative source for app feature leaks, has just revealed a working version of Spotify’s “Offline User Mix.” 3 years ago. But for some reason it didn’t deploy.
Information about the new Your Offline Mix playlist comes directly from Spotify’s upper management, so there’s no doubt that it will eventually make its way into the main app. It looks like testing is already underway, with TechCrunch spotting at least two users (1, 2) so you can access your offline mixes.
There are many scenarios where offline playlists like this come in handy, such as forgetting to manually download songs before a long haul flight. It will take a while for Spotify’s algorithms to learn based on your listening patterns, but eventually only the tracks you listen to will be automatically saved for offline playback. It should look like this.
