Spotify has finally addressed what is, for many users, the biggest problem with its service. On Wednesday, it lifted the number of songs that users are allowed to download for offline listening.
Last night something weird happened to me. I was sleepily listening to music, and adding some albums to my Spotify library, when I accidentally selected “download” instead of “save”, and it worked!
Earlier this year, I started paying for Spotify to avoid the ads and have the ability to download music onto my phone. The download only happens when you’re connected to Wi-Fi with the app open. I selected download on a lot of albums, but it took a while for everything to process and suddenly I hit the limit of 3333 tracks per device.
No matter how many tracks I removed, I was still at the limit. And when I selected “download” again, a pop-up informed me I was over the limit, needling me like a slow form of water torture. Last night’s fluke made me think I’d finally pruned enough selections, but in reality, Spotify just jacked up the offline song limit to 10,000 tracks per device with a five-device limit.
Rolling Stone was the first to report the change. We asked Spotify for comment on its decision but didn’t receive an immediate reply. A community manager for the company’s forums confirmed the new limit, writing:
At Spotify, we’re always working on improving the experience for our users. We can now confirm that we have increased the number of offline tracks per device – from 3333 on 3 devices to 10.000 tracks per device for up to 5 devices.
I’m far from the only one who found the limit annoying. You can find countless people complaining about it online. Personally, I need the downloads for when I’m commuting underground on the train. Plenty of other users have strict data limits or can’t do online streaming when they’re on the go at all.
As The Verge points out, users still have a 10,000-track limit on their personal library, so I suppose that will be the next wall I run into. But for now, I have few complaints.