It’s probably happened to all of us. You board a long flight and realize you haven’t downloaded any music to listen to. Spotify is helping make this problem a thing of the past with a new offline backup feature for Premium users.
A unique and evolving playlist
The feature, rolling out globally this week, will take queued and recently streamed tracks to create a playlist that’s automatically available when there’s no internet connection. The feature will be available in the iOS and Android Spotify apps, as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so you can use it while driving in spotty or no cell service areas.
In the playlist, you can filter and sort songs by artist, mood, and genre. It will evolve as you listen to different music.
To see the playlist, you need to have recently streamed more than five songs and have offline listening turned on. You can do this by going to Settings & Privacy > Storage in the Spotify app. Make sure offline listening is turned on. In the same menu, you can delete all your currently downloaded songs and free up storage on your smartphone by clearing the cache.
Playlists will automatically appear when you’re offline. You can also add offline backup playlists to your library for easy access even when you’re not connected to the internet. Also, make sure you’ve updated to the most recent version of the Spotify app.
Making Spotify even better
Of course, it’s easy to download Spotify songs for offline listening, but it’s something that many users forget to do. I was recently on a long, five-hour flight and completely forgot to download any songs from Spotify. I’m excited to see offline backups being rolled out and will definitely be using it soon.
Despite paying extra every month, I constantly switch between Spotify and Apple Music when listening to my music. While I love that Apple Music makes it easy to play music on my Apple devices, Spotify still provides the best music suggestions when I want to listen to something new. Now that Spotify has an offline backup feature, I’ll probably use it more often than Apple Music.
