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How to Download Music From Spotify on the iPhone & iPad

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It isn’t up for consideration anymore, Spotify is by far the world’s most widely used subscription music service. Everyday millions of people log into the service’s Mac and PC apps to create playlists and stream from its huge cache of music. When they’re away from home, Spotify’s millions of users login into the service’s iPhone and Android apps to check out what is new in the music community.

Here’s the thing, primarily Spotify is used by most as a free streaming music service with curated playlists. It’s great for that, but those who want to ditch the service’s advertisements have to sign up for Spotify Premium, a monthly subscription service that works hand-in-hand with the app to provide a better listening experience. Besides streaming music without ads, Spotify Premium allows iPhone and iPad users to download entire playlists to their mobile device. The feature is perfect for long plane rides or commutes that don’t always offer a reliable mobile data connection.

Here’s how to download music from Spotify on the iPhone and iPad.

Learn how to fix Spotify problems in minutes. Denys Prykhodov / Shutterstock.com

Denys Prykhodov / Shutterstock.com

Before attempting, be sure that you’re in a place where you have access to a Wi-Fi network. Look for the Wi-Fi icon at the top of your iPhone’s or iPad’s screen. The Spotify app won’t download tracks over a mobile connection by default, but still, there’s nothing wrong with being safe. It wouldn’t hurt to make sure your device isn’t low on storage by checking the Settings app either.

This is a tutorial to store the parts of your Spotify collection that you want offline for playback when you don’t have an internet connection. It is not a way to download music from Spotify permanently and avoid paying subscription fees.

You’ll need to have already created an account and signed up for Spotify’s premium $9.99 membership service. That service is the only way the app will allow you to store music for playback later. Users who sign up for a trial through their iPhone are eligible for a seven-day trial. Users who sign up through the company’s website are treated to a 30 day free trial, as long as they provide their credit card credentials for billing once the trial expires.

Unlock your device by entering your PIN code or by placing your fingerprint on the Touch ID home button if you have Apple’s iPhone 5s, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6s Plus.

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You should have already downloaded the Spotify app from the iTunes App Store and logged in once with the account you created. If you haven’t, download the app now and login to the app with your Facebook account. You can create your own login for the service, but it’s much easier to find friends and family in the social media aspects of Spotify if the service has access to your Facebook account.

We’ve already downloaded the app and created an account. Spotify is represented by the black icon with a green circle inside of it.

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Open Spotify and you’re immediately taken to the service’s Recently played & playlists. For the sake of this example you’ll be downloading one of those, though albums and individual songs can be stored on your iPhone too.

Welcome to Home. Choose any playlist and tap on it. In this example we’re storing a Mellow Beats playlist that the service offers for offline playback.

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Tap on the Follow button below the cover of the playlist to add it your collection. After you’ve added it to your collection, you’ll now find that there’s a switch labeled, Available Offline. It’s flipping this switch on individual songs, albums and playlists that stores content on your device for playback later.

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Any music you add to your collection or follow, will show up in a list of songs and other media in a fly out menu.

Tap the back button in the top-left side corner of your screen.

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Tap the icon with lines in the top-left corner of your screen to reveal the app menu. This can also be done anywhere in the app by placing your finger on the left side of your screen and slide it to the right.

Tap Your Library.

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And there you have it; that same playlist should show that it’s available to play offline in your collection.

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As long as that Spotify Premium subscription is paid every month those songs will be available for you to listen to when you’re ready.

You can manually configure Spotify so that it intentionally only plays music that you have stored on your device.

Press the Menu button in the top-left corner again.

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Tap the Settings cog in the bottom-right corner of the navigation menu.

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Tap Playback.

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Now tap the Offline switch.

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If you don’t choose to keep a Spotify Premium subscription, then all the music stored locally on your device will stop working until you renew your subscription.

12 Comments

12 Comments

  1. Kent

    05/27/2014 at 12:21 am

    Thanks for the nice article! But offline playlists aren’t stored under “Local files” – there you’ll find mp3’s saved on your phone. You won’t find your offline songs gathered anywhere, but can see what playlists that are offline synced from the green arrow next to it.

    Thanks

    • James May

      04/11/2019 at 8:05 pm

      I use Allavsoft to download the music from Spotify to MP3 on my computer for backup and then transfer them to my iPhone or iPad

  2. Angelatphoenix

    03/10/2016 at 6:39 pm

    See…!m­­­­­­­­­y f­­­­­­­­­r­­­­­­­­­i­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­n­­­­­­­­­d’s s­­­­­­­­­t­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­p-s­­­­­­­­­i­­­­­­­­­s­­­­­­­­­t­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­r m­­­­­­­­­a­­­­­­­­­k­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­s $85 /h­­­­­­­­­r o­­­­­­­­­n t­­­­­­­­­he co­­­­­­­­­mpu­­­­­­­­­ter . Sh­­­­­­­­­e ha­­­­­­­­­s be­­­­­­­­­en une­­­­­­­­­mplo­­­­­­­­­yed fo­­­­­­­­­r 8 mo­­­­­­­­­nt­­­­­­­­­hs bu­­­­­­­­­t las­­­­­­­­­t mo­­­­­­­­­nth he­­­­­­­­­r inco­­­­­­­­­me wa­­­­­­­­­s $20978 jus­­­­­­­­­t wo­­­­­­­­­rkin­­­­­­­­­g o­­­­­­­­­n th­­­­­­­­­e comp­­­­­­­­­ut­­­­­­­­­er fo­­­­­­­­­r a fe­­­­­­­­­w hour­­­­­­­­­s.
    see post… See More

  3. alvin

    03/16/2016 at 3:25 pm

    I use https://spotifytube.com to download from Spotify

  4. Spurgeon Dennis

    06/02/2016 at 1:40 pm

    I want to be able to transfer all of my songs and everything else on Spotify from my old iPhone three to my new iPhone 6 Plus. Am I able to do that from one phone to the other or do I have to use a computer to do that ?

  5. Erin

    07/08/2016 at 2:59 pm

    If you have no storage left and want to get rid of those downloaded songs do you just go to the library and remove?

  6. Dianna

    12/09/2016 at 2:12 am

    I prefer Allavsoft to direclty download and batch download Spotify playlist music to MP3, WAV, WMA etc.

  7. chăm sóc sức khỏe gia đình

    04/17/2017 at 4:30 am

    Hmm it seems like your blog ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll
    just sum it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying
    your blog. I as well am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to the whole thing.
    Do you have any helpful hints for novice blog writers? I’d
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  8. JustinPag

    09/05/2017 at 12:51 pm

  9. Dave

    04/28/2018 at 3:03 am

    In fact, you’ll have to subscribe to the premium account of Spotify if you want to download the music onto your mobile devices. But if you only have free account and don’t want to upgrade to premium, you should try DRmare Spotify Converter: https://www.drmare.com/spotify-music-converter-for-mac/ which will help you download and convert any Spotify music to MP3, AAC, and other common formats with original ID3 tags preserved.

  10. Annie Yazbeck

    12/09/2018 at 11:20 pm

    If you would like to keep Spotify music and playlists offline on your iPad when the Spotify Premium trial period expired, you can have a try of AudFree Spotify Downloader: https://www.audfree.com/spotify-music-converter-win/, which is able to download all Spotify content, such as songs, tracks, playlists and albums and convert them to MP3, FLAC, WAV,AAC with your free account. So that you can enjoy Spotify offline on iPad forever. But one disadvantage is that it’s only available for computer, you need to transfer Spotify files to iPad from computer for playback.

  11. KZ ZS10 Review

    07/09/2019 at 6:36 am

    thanks. it is really helpful for me.

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