Local File Playlist Failing to Download

[saucyross]

Plan

Premium

Device

Samsung S24+

My Question or Issue

Once again, the absolutely terrible Spotify app has another issue. Trying to download a playlist of my local files from my PC (which has worked for years) no longer downloads on my Android device. I have cleared the cache/storage, freshly installed multiple times, but absolutely nothing fixes this. 

I open the playlist, tap the download icon, and it appears as if the download begins. I get the notification that "0 of ####" songs are being downloaded, but it disappears shortly after and does not actually download anything at all.

This has worked for years, despite all of the other issues with this terrible app and service constantly has, but now it's broken as well. I've been a paying customer for many years but all of the recent issues are pushing me towards ditching Spotify and never using this broken app anymore. 

[Joan]

Hi there @saucyross,

Thanks for reaching out. Not to worry, we'll help you get the local files working again in no time.

We understand the frustration, but thankfully there's a pretty simple fix in this case. From the sound of it, you're trying to sync the local files playlist over Wi-Fi from your desktop to your mobile app. This is a feature that is slowly being deprecated, so it's expected that it will stop working over time. Now, to play local files on your Android phone, all you have to do is copy the files themselves over to the device in question, make sure the relevant setting is on and they should just appear. Full info on how this works here. 

Hope this clears things up.

[saucyross · Accepted solution]

well, that's really unfortunate to hear that yet another useful piece of functionality is being removed even though it made managing local files across multiple devices extremely simple. now, every time I modify my local files, I have to modify my files across several devices manually instead of just making the change on my main PC and letting Spotify handle the syncing across multiple devices. 

and now, since there doesn't even appear to be a way to specify the local file location on the Android app, every single audio file is added to my local files.. including saved voicemails, ringtones, etc. 

this is another terrible update by Spotify.