Home > Lifestyle

5 Spotify Controls Guaranteed to Please Music Lovers

By Crystal Crowder
Spotify on a phone next to earphones.

What do Spotify users want most from the popular streaming service? Better controls and tools. Spotify listened and finally added in some incredibly useful Spotify controls to give music lovers more power to customize their listening experience.

1. Spotify Queue Gets a Makeover

While you could always check to see what songs were coming up next by viewing the queue, you’ll notice a few extra Spotify controls when you tap the Queue icon on any song screen. It’s the three lines at the bottom right.

Tap Shuffle to easily shuffle the remaining songs or turn it off. Tap Repeat to repeat songs or tap it again to just repeat a single song. Of course, there’s also Timer. This is a switch from tapping the three dot menu on a playlist and then setting up a timer, which is perfect for bedtime listening.

Viewing the Queue settings on Spotify.

I did discover if you tap Repeat, go out of the queue, and back in, your shuffle and repeat options are greyed out. Exit Spotify completely and go back in and this fixes the problem.

Some users also have a Smart Shuffle button, though Spotify hasn’t rolled this out to all users just yet. For me, I could just tap the Shuffle button twice to turn on Smart Shuffle. Of course, this is still only available on playlists you’ve created yourself. Tapping the shuffle icon at the top of a playlist still lets you switch between in order, shuffle, and smart shuffle.

If you don’t like Smart Shuffle at all or don’t want Spotify playing extra songs at the end of a playlist, tap your profile icon and select Settings and privacy -> Playback. Toggle off Autoplay and Include Smart Shuffle in play modes.

Turning off autoplay and smart shuffle.

2. Convert Liked Songs into Playlists

If you tend to just like songs versus creating different playlists, your Liked Songs list could leave you skipping around a lot as you try to find the right songs for your mood or day. Instead of trying to manually creating individual playlists, let Spotify do it for you.

This one of my favorite new Spotify controls. Tap Your Library at the bottom of the app and tap Liked Songs. Select a genre just under the play button. Review which songs appear and then tap Make this a playlist.

Creating a new playlist from Spotify's Liked Songs list.

It’s a super easy way to create custom playlists from a list of songs you already know you love.

3. Create Lists From the Main Screen

Spotify’s added an extra control at the bottom of the main screen called Create. There’s no need to jump to Your Library or tap any songs/artists/playlists to create a new playlist.

Instead, tap Create at the bottom right and select what you want to create.

Spotify Controls Please Music Lovers Create

It’s nice to see all the options in one place:

  • Playlist – Create a standard playlist of songs or podcast episodes
  • Collaborative Playlist – Invite others to create a playlist together
  • Blend – Blend tastes together with friends/family
  • AI Playlist – Create a playlist from a prompt
  • Jam – Listen to the same playlist with others, no matter where you’re at

Of course, the options you see may differ based on whether you’re a free or premium user. For instance, AI playlists are premium-only.

4. Easier Playlist Management

For any playlist you’ve created yourself, Spotify’s added a few extra controls. Just above the song list, you’ll now see three new Spotify controls – Add, Sort, and Edit.

Instead of scrolling to the bottom of your list to add new music, just tap Add to manually search for songs or add any of Spotify’s suggested songs. What I love about this feature is instead of just 3-5 suggested songs at a time and having to refresh to see more, it’s an endless list.

And, as a bonus, you’re not just limited to the search box or suggested songs. Swipe to the next screens to see suggested podcast episodes, recently played songs, and your Liked songs for more ideas to add to your current playlist.

Using new Spotify controls to add music to playlists.

The Sort button lets you sort by custom, title, artist, album, and recently added. Personally, I just usually stick with the Shuffle or Smart Shuffle option next to the Play button.

For those who love customizing everything, tap Edit to change your playlist’s cover image, title, description, and even delete and reorder songs.

Editing a playlist's details.

The most exciting part is using Spotify’s cover creator tools to design something completely unique. Tap Create cover art to let your creativity flow, or tap Change cover image to upload an image you already have. The design tool lets you change the text, background image, background color, and add stickers. Tap Save when you’re done.

Changing playlist cover.

5. Hide and Snooze Music

Spotify’s had the Hide feature for a while now, but it’s a bit more prominent now. Generally, you tap the three dots beside any song title and select Hide in this playlist to hide a song in that particular playlist. That option still exists. But, if you’re currently listening to a song, tap the big X on the player screen to hide it.

Hiding a song on Spotify

The Snooze option isn’t currently available to all users yet. I’m a little disappointed I don’t have it yet myself. It’s rolling out to some Premium users and if users like it, we’ll all finally get it. If you do have it, you’ll see a small pop-up when hiding a song asking if you’d like to snooze that song for the next 30 days.

This hides a song for 30 days on all playlists. It’s a nice way to take a break from songs Spotify wants to add to every single playlist just because you listened to it a few times. If your lists are getting stale, try these options to improve your recommendations.

If you don’t see any of these changes, update your Spotify app. Also, some changes are only for premium users and are rolling out in stages.

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox

Crystal Crowder Avatar
Crystal Crowder
Crystal Crowder has spent over 15 years working in the tech industry, first as an IT technician and then as a writer. She works to help teach others how to get the most from their devices, systems, and apps. She stays on top of the latest trends and is always finding solutions to common tech problems.

Read next

When Cingular chief Stan Sigman backed the original iPhone before its 2007 unveiling, he accepted terms American carriers usually refused: no logo on the device, no control over its software, no preloaded apps, and a share of monthly subscriber revenue flowing back to Apple, after signing on without seeing a prototype
In 2016, archaeologists dated two rings of snapped stalagmites in France’s Bruniquel Cave to 176,500 years ago, evidence that Neanderthals had walked 336 metres into darkness with fire and built architecture deep underground long before modern humans reached Europe
Otto von Bismarck was 74 when Germany adopted the world’s first national old-age social insurance program in 1889, setting the pension age at 70 after years of fighting socialists with bans, laws, and a promise few workers would live long enough to use
When cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov stepped out of his Soyuz capsule in March 1995 after 437 consecutive days aboard Mir, doctors recorded him at several centimetres above his pre-flight height, and his spine had become so unaccustomed to gravity that the recovery team carried him to a chair rather than risk the compression of letting him walk.
A contemplative scene with two scientists in a vintage laboratory setting.
When Harvard astronomer Cecilia Payne submitted her 1925 doctoral thesis arguing that the Sun was made almost entirely of hydrogen, the field’s senior figure Henry Norris Russell talked her into adding a line calling the result ‘almost certainly not real,’ and then published the same conclusion himself four years later to widespread acclaim.
When Edme Mariotte stared at marks on a wall in the 1660s, one mark vanished inside a six-degree hole where the optic nerve leaves the eye and the brain has been filling in wallpaper, sky, and faces ever since
When seismic waves from the Chicxulub impact reached what is now North Dakota roughly ten minutes after the asteroid struck, they appear to have triggered a ten-metre standing wave in an inland river that flung fish onto the bank and buried them under glass beads still falling from the sky.
When survivors near Lake Nyos woke on the morning of 22 August 1986, the cattle were dead in the fields, the birds had fallen out of the trees, and 1,746 of their neighbours were lying where they had stood the night before, with no fire, no flood, and no wound to explain it.