Go Offline on Spotify: Two Switches That Do Different Jobs

Ask to go offline on Spotify and you might mean playing only downloaded files with no connection, or you might mean listening without your followers seeing it, and those are two separate switches in two separate places.

Older guides collapse them into one and send people to the wrong menu. Sort out which of the two you want first.

Offline mode, for when there is no signal

Tap your picture, open Settings and privacy, go to Data-saving and offline, and turn Offline mode on. On the desktop app the same control sits under File on Windows or the Apple menu on a Mac.

With it on, Spotify plays downloaded content and refuses everything else. That is the point: it stops the app reaching for the network and stops it eating mobile data on a track you did not mean to stream.

Three limits come with the downloads themselves, and Spotify publishes all of them:

• Downloading albums and playlists needs Premium. Free accounts can download podcasts and nothing else.
• The ceiling is 10,000 tracks per device across five devices.
• You have to bring the app online once every 30 days or the downloads stop working.

That 30 day check-in is the one that catches people. A tablet used only on flights, left in a drawer between trips, comes back empty through no fault of yours.

Private session, for when you do not want to be watched

Tap your picture, open Settings and privacy, then Privacy and social, and switch on Private session. Listening carries on normally and your followers stop seeing what is playing.

It is deliberately temporary. Spotify resets it after six hours, and restarting the app ends it too. Turn it on for a guilty evening and it will be off again by the next morning without telling you.

The other thing worth knowing is what it hides and what it does not. It keeps the play out of the Friend Activity feed. It does not make you invisible generally, and Spotify’s data export records which plays happened in a private session, so this is a social curtain rather than a privacy setting in any strong sense.

Choosing which way to go offline on Spotify

If the problem is a train tunnel, offline mode. If the problem is a housemate who follows you, private session. If the problem is both, turn both on, because neither implies the other.

One combination behaves worse than you would expect. Offline mode with nothing downloaded gives you an app that looks broken: no search results, no recommendations, no error explaining why. Download something first, then flip the switch, in that order.

Sources

• Spotify, Listen offline support article
• Spotify, Privacy and social controls
• Spotify, Understanding my data
• TechPP, Spotify private session guide