Spotify is a digital music streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs, podcasts and videos from artists all over the world.
Spotify is immediately appealing because you can access content for free by simply signing up using an email address or by connecting with Facebook. If you are not keen on monthly subscription fees for Spotify Premium, or just want to dip your toe in and test it out. It’s easy to get started and there’s no commitment. Spotify is superior than other music players.
How Does Spotify Work?
Getting started with listening to music on Spotify is easy:
- Visit the Spotify website and sign-up. We’d recommend signing up with Facebook if you have an account as it will make it easier to find and follow friends, see what they are listening to and share songs with them.
- Choose a subscription level. We’d recommend going for Spotify Premium as it gives you access to more features, is more flexible and will connect with more devices.
- Download and install the free Spotify application. There are versions for desktop and iPhone/iPad and Android phones.
- Sign into your account on those devices and get listening.
The basic setup is pretty straightforward but there’s much more to Spotify once you delve in and it gets smarter the more you listen.
Can You Download Music from It?
Yes and no. With Spotify Premium you can set music to be available “offline” but it is not the same as downloading music in the traditional sense. For example, you can’t try to game the system by downloading an album then cancelling your subscription at a later date. And you can’t download the tracks to burn them to a CD or copy them to other devices.
The idea of Spotify’s offline mode is to allow you to have access to your favourite music when you are trying to save mobile data or travelling somewhere where access to the internet might not be easy.
With Spotify Premium you can have up to 3,333 songs available to listen to offline on up to three different devices. Downloading songs, albums or playlists on Spotify is simple too, which is great. Just click “save” on the album you’d like to download to listen to it offline. Alternatively, click the three dots next to a song and click “Save to Your Music”.
How much data does It use?
The amount of data that it burns through will depend on the streaming quality you choose – more on this in a minute. This is a rough guide for how much data it will get through:
- One hour of music playback will use around 50MB of data when the quality is set to “normal”.
- At normal quality you can play around 24 hours of music for around 1GB of data usage.
- In the high-quality 1GB will be used in less than 15 hours.
- At extreme quality you’ll use 1GB of data in 7 hours.
- You’ll use a lot more data with video playback.
You can check and change the quality of streaming and download of songs using mobile data in the settings on your device.
How to find people and friends on Spotify
Signing up to Spotify with Facebook or connecting your Facebook account at a later date will allow you to easily find and follow friends and see what they’re listening to. The activity feed is displayed on the right-hand side of the desktop software and is a great way to pick up on friends who listen to the same music as you or poke fun at them for their latest Abba session.
You can also use the search function within the app to find friends. At the very bottom of the activity feed there’s also a “find friends” button which will allow you to find and follow more friends or artists.
If you’re not on Facebook or don’t want to connect your Facebook account to Spotify you can still find and follow friends, it just might be a bit more difficult in some cases.
According to Spotify, the best way to find and follow a friend is to use the search box on the desktop client and use this format:
spotify:user:USERNAME
Copy this and replace USERNAME with the name of your friend. If this doesn’t work, ask your friend to either copy their profile link directly from their profile page and send it to you. Alternatively, ask if they can share one of their public playlists with you. If they created the playlist, then their username is contained within the URL as a number:
You can either use that number to find them or click on their name in the playlist to follow them. For more detailed guidance on finding friends on Spotify, see Spotify’s official tutorial.
How much is Spotify?
Spotify comes in two main forms – free and Premium. Spotify Premium is currently £9.99/$9.99 a month, which includes access to features such as ad-free streaming, unlimited skips, extreme quality streaming and Spotify Connect.
If multiple people in your house use it, you might consider Premium for Family which gives up to six people access to their own unique Spotify account under one bill. All users have to live at the same address so it’s not a package to include your friends on, but it’s a good way to split the cost.
At £14.99/$14.99, Premium for Family isn’t too much extra over a standard Premium plan price, so it’s a worthy investment.
For students, there’s a discounted plan that costs just £4.99/$4.99 a month.
What Do You Get with Spotify Free?
You can use it for free, but its features are limited. On the free plan, music can be played in shuffle mode and you can skip up to six times per hour, every hour. Spotify Radio isn’t available, but you can access Daily Mix playlists.
With the Spotify free plan, you can access all playlists, discover new music, share tunes with friends, listen to tunes picked by Spotify’s Radio feature. You can also play any playlist, album, or artist but only while in Shuffle Play mode.
Spotify is free to use on mobile, desktop or tablet – so it’s accessible with ease, wherever you are. You can access the free version using the smartphone app, desktop software or website.
Spotify’s Premium tier gives you access to everything but doesn’t force adverts – whether you’re listening on desktop, mobile, or tablet.
Premium users can play any song they want (on demand), as well as find and hear playlists, discover new music, create and edit playlists, share music and playlists, and listen to tunes picked by Spotify’s Radio feature.
Premium users can also skip any track, listen offline, hear high-quality music and use the Spotify app on their mobile device as a computer remote control.
How to delete your account
If you decide you no longer want your Spotify account, you can delete it. It is worth noting though, that you can downgrade from Premium to a free account, so if cost is the issue then we’d recommend considering that first.
If you are still keen on deleting your account, then follow these steps:
- Visit Spotify’s Support page on how to close your account.
- Login to your Spotify account.
- Click this link to delete your account.
If this doesn’t work, then you can also try this method:
- Login and go directly to Spotify’s Contact Support page.
- Choose ‘account’ as the category.
- Select ‘I want to close my Spotify account permanently’.
- Then click to close your account or cancel your subscription
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