Spotify has finally delivered what we once called the “Holy Grail of smartphone streaming” — the ability to download songs to your watch, so you can listen to them even when your phone is at home and you’re jogging through the woods without a data connection. The feature is rolling out now, although you’ll need a Spotify Premium account to use it.
By the way, to play any kind of music from your Apple Watch, you’ll need to connect your bluetooth headphones to the watch (it won’t play from the watch’s speakers). To connect bluetooth headphones, if you haven’t done this already, open the Settings app on your watch, tap Bluetooth, and activate pairing mode on your device. Once it connects, you can start listening to music or podcasts directly from the watch, with apps that support it. (Apple Music, for example, or Audible.)
How to download Spotify playlists on your Apple Watch
- Open Spotify on your phone.
- Choose a playlist. (You can’t download individual tracks.)
- Tap the three dots to get a menu; one of the options should be “Download to this device” (i.e., your phone) and another will be “Download to Apple Watch.”
- On your Apple Watch, open the Spotify app.
- Tap the rectangle that looks like a phone; this lets you decide where you are listening from. Choose your watch.
This last step matters because Spotify’s Apple Watch app can act as a remote for your phone. Choosing your watch means that the music will actually play from your watch, and you can leave your phone at home. Just make sure to check that your music has fully downloaded before you go.
You can swipe from the main Spotify screen on the app to what they call the “home” Spotify screen, which shows your library and recently played tracks. There’s now an option that says Downloads, and from there, you can choose a downloaded playlist to listen to.
How much music can I download on my Apple Watch?
Spotify says that downloads are limited to 50 tracks per playlist, but you can download as many playlists as you have room for. They estimate that a watch can typically hold 10 hours of audio, depending on what else you may have stored on it.