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Frequently asked questions

About Spotify

What is Spotify?
Spotify offers you legal and free access to a huge library of music. All you need to do is create an account and download our streaming music player. For more details have a look at our introduction video.
How do I get Spotify?
You are welcome to buy Spotify Premium to start using it right away. Alternatively, if you know a Premium user who has remaining invitations, they can invite you to Spotify Free, a lighter version of Spotify with commercial breaks and fewer features.
Can you give me an invite?
Sorry, no :) If you don’t know anyone who can invite you, you can buy Spotify Premium to get started.
What is your goal?
Our dream is to let everyone listen to whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want.
Can I buy downloadable MP3s in Spotify?
Yes! A large number or tracks and albums are available for purchase in Spotify, just click the Buy buttons.
How much advertising will I be exposed to?
There should be significantly fewer ads in Spotify than you’d find on commercial radio. We are trying to strike a balance between artists who want to be paid and providing the best possible user experience.
Is paying for Spotify online safe?
Yes, Spotify’s payment partners are PCI-certified, which is the global industry standard ensuring compliance to strict security and data protection standards.

Mobile

Does it require a premium account?
Yes, to use Spotify for your mobile you must be a premium subscriber.
Can I use the mobile version of Spotify with a Day Pass?
No. A Day Pass only removes ads for 24 hours. It does not enable mobile access.
Can I use on the underground/without network connection?
Yes. By synching your playlists for offline mode you will be able to listen anywhere, including the underground or on a plane.
How many tracks can I cache offline?
You can temporarily cache 3,333 tracks for offline listening..
How long can I cache them for?
Tracks can be cached for 30 days. After that time you must reconnect to Spotify to ensure that you are still a premium subscriber.
Will it work with the iPod Touch.
Yes, Spotify will run on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Will it cost me a lot to stream music?
This depends on your mobile data plan. To avoid any additional fees we suggest that you sync your playlists offline using wifi and then listen to them while on the go.
What connection do I need to stream music on the mobile?
You’ll need at least a 3G connection in order to stream music. For best performance we suggest you sync your playlists using wifi and then listen to them while on the go.
How do I get the mobile version of Spotify for Android/iPhone?
Spotify mobile for Android can be found in the Android Marketplace.
Spotify for iPhone can be found in Apple’s App Store.
The application itself is free in the App Store and Android Marketplace but you must have a valid premium account to use it.
Does the mobile version of Spotify use p2p connections?
No. Spotify mobile does not use p2p.
Why does the iPhone/iPod sometimes stop syncing offline playlists?
The device will switch off wifi when it goes into sleep mode if the charger is not connected. We recommend that you keep the charger connected when syncing, or consider setting the screen lock timer to “never”.
What happens if I stop my premium subscription?
If you end your premium subscription you will no longer be able to access Spotify on the Mobile. However, the playlists you created will be accessible in Spotify on your computer.
Is scrobbling supported the mobile version of Spotify?
Scrobbling is currently not supported in Spotify Mobile.
Does Spotify Mobile work with all headsets and docking stations, like iTrip and others?

Spotify has done its best to make sure Spotify Mobile works according to the standards that are available on the market. However, some headsets, docking stations and other accessories might not work correctly with Spotify. Some of these are designed to only work with the device’s built in player. For some docking stations updating the firmware can help when playing music from Spotify while docked.

Mobile problems

Error 117 on iPhone/iPod?
User have reported this problem when connected via Wifi, usually when at work. Error 117 is a access point restriction/firewall indication which indicates that Spotify can’t connect on the current wifi setup. If you get Error 117 please try: - another WiFi network without restrictions or
- Connect over 3G with your iPhone (ensure that you have a flat rate data plan)
Android install unsuccessful
If your install / update is unsuccessful on the Android phone in Android Market. Please follow the instructions to manually download the Android installer.
We also have a more detailed step by step guide with clearing of Android browser cache before downloading the update manually at the forum .
I have to login every time I start up Spotify on my Android phone.
Uninstall Spotify under ‘Settings’ -> ‘Applications’ in the phone menu and then download and install it again from the Android Market.
Offline access for this computer/device has been withdrawn.
If you find that you cannot mark playlists as “Available offline”, restarting your device/computer will allow you to authorise it for offline synchronisation again.
I’m connected to Spotify Mobile via WiFi but can’t sync tracks for offline use, the tracks are “pending”, and the top of Spotify is blue?

When Spotify Mobile is blue it’s in offline mode and is unable to connect to the internet. This is a common problem when Spotify Mobile is connected to a wifi with restrictions (often at work/office).

Please try on another unrestricted wifi to sync playlists offline, or use your 3G to stream music.

Premium

To manage or stop your subscription please visit the subscription page.

What happens if I cancel my premium subscription?
If you purchased a Spotify Premium subscription and then decide to cancel, your account will automatically revert to a Spotify Free account after that month’s subscription period expires. You can find out more about Spotify’s paid for services in our Terms & Conditions.
I don’t have a Spotify account, can I buy a day pass?
Day passes can only be purchased by Spotify Free users. If you don’t have an account at all you can purchase a Spotify Premium account.
Can I use Spotify to play music in my bar, restaurant, store, school etc?
No, the Terms & Conditions that you agree to when registering for Spotify states that Spotify is for personal, non-commercial use.
How do I get new invites?
Getting invites is one of the benefits of being a Premium subscriber in one of the countries where Spotify Free is available. You receive two new invitations each time your Premium account is renewed (yearly or monthly, depending on your payment method).
I’m going to travel outside my profile country, can I use Spotify there?
If you are a free user you can log in abroad for up to 14 days. If you are traveling for a longer period, you might consider a Premium subscription. Premium users are licensed for unlimited travel. You would be able to enjoy Spotify, without ads, in any country…

Premium / Day pass problems

I signed up for the premium service or bought a day pass but still hear ads
If you’ve purchased a premium subscription or day pass you may need log out of your Spotify account and log back in to activate the purchase and get rid of the ads.
You should also check to ensure that your premium account is still active, if you’ve changed your credit card or used a virtual card it’s possible that your automatic renewal was not processed. Check your subscription status to ensure that you are still a premium member and update your card details if necessary.
When trying to pay with my credit card, I get “Declined, please check your details”. My card details are correct. What is the problem?

To sign up for premium, your credit card has to be issued in the same country as the country in your Spotify profile. You can try to update your profile yourself to ensure the card and profile countries match. If you don’t have a credit card from a country where Spotify is available unfortunately you won’t be able to upgrade to premium.

If you accidentally change your profile country and have a problem updating, please contact customer service .

E-cards

How to purchase e-cards
Navigate to the Spotify Premium e-card purchase form. Fill out the buyer and recipient details as desired. After the purchase you will be able to decide if you want to print the card or if you want to email the card to your recipient. You can both print the card and email it, if you wish.
If I have forgotten to print or send the code, what can be done?
When you buy the e-card, a receipt will be sent to the email address that you have entered as “Your email” in the purchase form. On the receipt you will find the code as a link that can be used or printed. (You won’t be able to use the Spotify card template after closing the browser). However you can simply copy the code, and make the gift even more personal and print it or send it in a email!
Can a free user upgrade to premium with an e-card?
A Spotify Premium e-card can be used to create a Spotify account with a Premium subscription. If the recipient already has a Spotify account, the card can be used to upgrade to the Premium service. If the recipient already has an active Premium subscription, the card can be used to extend that subscription.
Cancel and refund of e-cards
You have the right to cancel your purchase and receive a full refund for a period of 14 days from the date of receipt of this email. If you wish to do so, please use the contact form and include the full receipt and Spotify will refund you.

Please note once you use the code to access the premium service or the mobile premium service you will no longer be entitled to a refund, even if you cease to use the premium service or mobile premium service. In addition, after the 14-day period has elapsed you no longer have the right to cancel your purchase and receive a refund even if you do not subsequently log into the premium service or mobile premium service.

Offline mode

How many tracks can I sync offline?
You can store 3,333 with offline mode.
Can I use offline mode on more than one computer or mobile phone?
Yes, you can have offline playlists on up to three devices (mobile or computer) at a time.
I’ve reached my offline track limit – how do I free up more space?
If you’ve reached the limit of 3,333 tracks for offline mode you’ll either have to turn off the feature for a playlist or delete tracks from an offline playlist before you can add more tracks.
How long can I store playlists with offline mode?
Playlists can be stored offline for as long as you are a premium subscriber. If you are offline for more than 30 days you will need to log-in in order to ensure that you are still subscribed.

Purchases

Can I buy downloadable MP3s in Spotify?
Yes! A large number or tracks and albums are available for purchase in Spotify, just click the Buy buttons.
Where are purchases saved on my computer?
Purchases are downloaded to your default music folder on your computer (normally My Documents/My Music on Windows and Music/Spotify on Mac OS). You can change the location of the download by going to the preferences menu.
Can I re-download a track I’ve purchased?
Yes. If you want to download the track again (for example, at work) you can do so by going to the “Purchases” menu and clicking on the individual “Download” button. Each purchase can be downloaded 3-5 times (depending on track and label).
Can I transfer purchases to an mp3 player or burn them to a CD?
Yes. The purchases are yours to own and you are free to burn them or load them to an mp3 player.
What is the sound quality on the purchases?
The quality of the download can differ from track to track but most are either 256kbps or 320kbps MP3s.
How can I get more information about downloads?
Purchases are provided by our partner 7Digital, for more details and help check our their help site. http://www.7digital.com/help
The album/track I want to purchase doesn’t have a ‘Buy’ button, why not?
Not all tracks or albums have been licensed by 7Digital for download so it’s possible you won’t be able to purchase them. Check back from time to time as more purchases are being added all the time.
Why is there no download button in my purchase view, I have downloads left?
The “Download” button is not visible when you already have the track saved in your default music folder since there should be no reason to download it again. However, if you delete the track, move it to another folder or use another computer the “Download” button will appear again.
I can’t play music files purchased in Spotify, what is wrong ?
Files can sometimes be corrupted when downloading. The solution is to delete the files that are corrupted and download them again, after restarting Spotify.

By default, the files are in the ‘Spotify’ folder, which will be in the user’s standard music folder on your computer. If you cannot find it, the location path can be found in Preferences:

Edit > Preferences > Purchases > Location

1) Delete the files that you downloaded. It is better to delete only the corrupted files.
2) Restart Spotify.
3) Go into your Purchases page
4) You will see a ‘Download’ button next to the tracks. We would advise downloading the tracks one by one, allowing each download to complete before starting another.

All purchased files are DRM free. If you would like to use these files on any other device, you can copy them by email or by other means.

Country availability

What countries is Spotify available in?
Spotify is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. We hope to launch in more countries in the future. You can use Spotify Premium in all countries, however you can only buy premium and sign up in our launch countries.
I live in an overseas territory which belongs to one of the 6 countries above, but can’t create an account, why?
Due to technical and legal issues, Spotify isn’t available in several overseas territories belonging to Finland, France and the UK, among other countries. This is why you get the error message “Unfortunately, due to licensing restrictions we are not yet available in your region” when you try to create an account. If you live in one of those territories, we apologise and we invite you to keep an eye on the blog for any updates on this subject.
When will Spotify be available in my country?
At this time we don’t know when we may launch in more countries.

Share music

Can I share music with my friends?
Yes, you can drag and drop any track, album, artist or playlist to your email or instant messenger which creates a link to your favorites that you can send to your loved ones. They need to have Spotify to listen, though. Read more about sharing and collaborative playlists in our blog.
Can I make more advanced searches?
Yes, you can search for genres by writing genre: followed by the genre you want to find, like genre:Trip-hop. You can do the same thing with release years for albums by writing year: and the year you want. You can even specify a range, like year:1979-1982. Other searches to play with are artist:, album: and track:. There are some more examples in this blog post.

Technical information

What bandwidth does Spotify need?
We recommend 256 kbit/s. Spotify usually works well on a 3G connection. Plenty of free disk space also helps keep the network requirements down as it enables more caching.
On what platforms can I use Spotify?
Mac OS X 10.4 or later and Windows XP or later. You can also run Spotify in Wine on Linux.
Why do I have to install Spotify?
By installing Spotify as a stand alone application you get a much better user experience and audio quality compared to web-based sites.
What quality does Spotify stream in?
We use the Ogg Vorbis q5 codec which streams at approximately 160kb/s. Premium subscribers can enable higher bit rate streaming at 320 kb/s from the preferences menu.
How much disk space does Spotify use?
Spotify stores data on your computer in order to minimize the use of bandwidth. The exact amount varies, but Spotify will automatically try to free your computer resources so that you don’t run low on disk space. The exact size can be configured in Spotify preferences.
Can I use Spotify from multiple locations?
Yes, you can install Spotify on as many computers as you like. You may be logged in to Spotify from several computers simultaneously, but you can only play music on one computer at a time. The music at your other computers will automatically be paused. If you want to install Spotify on more than one computer simply download the program again and log in with your existing username and password, there is no need for an invite token.
The spotify: URIs are the real Spotify addresses. The http://open.spotify.com/ URLs are a workaround to give you clickable, blue and underlined links in instant-messenger and email applications that don’t yet recognize the Spotify URI format. When there is a choice (such as when you are creating your own hyperlinks on the web), always use the spotify: addresses. What happens when you click an http://open.spotify.com/ link is that a page is opened in your web browser that redirects you to the real address (the spotify: equivalent). When you have control over the links, that’s a redundant step. And if you’re a software developer, please consider auto-detecting the spotify: URIs in your applications.
Why does Spotify use so many internet connections?
Spotify uses a peer-to-peer network along with streaming servers to stream music. This is why you see multiple connections to other Spotify users.
Can I stream Spotify music to speakers with Airport, Logitech Squeeze box, Sonos, etc?
Currently there is no built-in support for this but some of our users have found ways to make is possible. For more info read here about Apple Airport and Logitech Squeezebox.
Can I scrobble the music I play to Last.fm?
Yes, Spotify has built in support for last.fm that can be enabled from the preferences menu. For more details have a look at this blog post.
Are there any keyboard shortcuts?
Yes, see the list of keyboard shortcuts.

Technical problems

What should I do if I find a bug?
It would be nice if you could report it to us, the best way to do that is to visit our forum and leave a message with as much details as possible as to what the bug is, how it occurred and a little bit about you computer setup.
Music fast-forwards or jumps ahead when I play it, what can I do? (Windows Only)
To solve this problem disable Hardware Acceleration in the system preferences by going to Edit -> Preferences -> and unchecking “Enable hardware acceleration”.

Playlist problems

My playlists are not loading, what can I do?
If your playlists are not loading or don’t update when you make a change we’re likely experiencing some temporary problems with our playlist servers. Your playlists will come back as soon as the problems are resolved, check our service status page for the latest updates.

Account and log-in

I have forgotten my password or username. Can you help me?
You can request a password reset, as long as you remember either the username or the email address you have supplied.
What should I do if something goes wrong while Spotify tries to update itself?
Probably the easiest thing to do is to download and reinstall Spotify!
I can’t log in to Spotify, it says the update failed? (error 308)
When an update fails please uninstall Spotify and then download and install the latest version from our website.
I’m getting errors when updating Spotify (Error 5XX)
All 500 errors are problems with automatically updating Spotify, please uninstall Spotify and then download and install the latest version from our website.

Error messages includes 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508 and 509.
When I try to log in it says that my current country does not match my profile? (error 408)
When you log in Spotify checks the internet protocol (IP) address that you use to connect to the internet and compares it to the country you set in your profile when you registered. If they do not match and you are away from your home country more than 14 days you will not be able to log in. If you have moved we suggest you change the country in your profile, as long as you have moved to one of our other launch countries. If you travel extensively you can purchase a premium subscription for unlimited travel. In some cases this error can occur by mistake if you use Spotify at work as many companies route their traffic through other countries therefore you appear to be abroad. If you’re at work and have this problem you can solve it by logging in to your Spotify account at home once and awhile.
I can’t login, Spotify says I’m offline?
If Spotify continually says you’re offline it is likely because it is having trouble finding an internet connection. If you are running a firewall, Norton security or any other internet security software/fiewall you might want to remove any settings for Spotify and then re-add the Spotify application so that it is allowed to connect to the internet.
Can I change my username?
Unfortunately not. If you for any reason would like to change your username you would have to re-register.

Content / Music problems

If you are an Label or Artist and have questions about Spotify, please visit the Labels and Artist page for more information.
Why can’t I find a track, album or artist I’m looking for?
We aim to have all the world’s music available at Spotify. We are still in the process of acquiring licenses to all music in the world (!), therefore it is possible that you won’t be able to find some of your favourite artists or tracks right now. We are signing new labels and adding a great amount of new tracks every week. Hopefully your favorite music will be up soon.

Unfortunately there are some artists who have opted not to be a part of Spotify at this point in time. Some frequently requested artists that are not in Spotify include Metallica, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. We hope that they change their minds regarding streaming soon!
Why isn’t an artist or album available in all countries?
In the copyright jungle, music rights are often divided among many different right holders in different geographical territories. That is, an artist may have licensed his or her music worldwide, except for UK, using a large record label that we have an agreement with. However, the artist may have licensed his or her music to a small label in UK that we do not have an agreement with, resulting in that Spotify has the music in all countries except UK until we have signed with that specific label

In other cases, one record label has the rights to a certain artist in all countries, but choose not to launch that artist in all countries. We’re constantly trying to get our content providers to diverge from these types of territorial restrictions and hope to have all music available in all countries.
Why has a track or an artist disappeared?
As all content is licensed from a number of rights holders there are cases where an rights holder asks for content to be withdrawn. This can happen in some cases where the rights are sold to another rights holder, perhaps one we don’t have an agreement with yet. This can create a gap where Spotify doesn’t have the music for a while. We promise that we’ll try to get the music back!
Will Spotify add lyrics, videos, podcasts, audiobooks etc.?
This is an interesting idea but at the moment we need to focus on building a music service with the biggest music-library out there. Having that said, if you have any interesting ideas or tips that you want to communicate to us, please do so in our support forum.

Invite problems

My friend said he would send me an invite, but I haven’t received it. Why is that?
First, check your spam/junk mail folder. If it’s not hiding in there, you could try asking your friend to send you the invite token manually. To do this he should cut and paste the invite token (the long string of letters and numbers, not the invite email) from the invite page and send it to you by IM or email.
I have changed computer, can I download Spotify again without an invite?
Yes! As long as you have a Spotify account you can always download and install Spotify again - regardless of computer.