Spotify now creates offline playlists to keep your music playing without internet
It could especially be useful for people who are mindful of their mobile data.
It’s frustrating when music playback stops due to a poor internet connection—especially if you haven’t pre-downloaded a playlist. Well, Spotify’s new Offline Backup, feature aims to resolve this by creating a playlist of recently streamed and queued tracks when your device goes offline.
Unlike the manual download feature, Offline Backup pulls songs from your cached listening history, updating in real-time. While it doesn’t use Spotify’s usual recommendation algorithms, users can still filter the playlist by artist, mood, or genre. And according to Spotify, the playlist adapts as you listen, ensuring fresh content even without the internet.
To use the feature, users need to have streamed at least five songs recently and enable offline listening in the Settings > Data Saving and Offline or Storage sections. Once set up, the playlist will appear automatically on your home screen when you lose connectivity, and you can also save it for future listening. Since Offline Backup doesn’t require additional data or storage, it could especially be useful for users mindful of their mobile data.
Though Spotify’s Offline Backup is convenient, YouTube Music has long offered a similar Offline Mixtape feature, along with Smart Downloads, which can automatically save up to 500 songs across playlists. However, Spotify’s approach seems more immediate and adaptive, pulling from recent activity, which might appeal to users seeking a dynamic, real-time solution.
As part of Spotify’s broader strategy to enhance the experience for its 626 million users, Offline Backup aligns with other features like interactive podcast tools and personalized AI audio recommendations, all aimed at minimizing disruptions across Spotify’s ecosystem, whether users are listening to music, podcasts, or other audio formats.
As Offline Backup begins its global rollout for premium subscribers on Android, iOS, Android Auto, and Apple CarPlay, its impact will likely depend on how easily it integrates into users’ routines and whether it consistently offers uninterrupted playback during offline moments.
Kelechi Edeh
