I’m a huge fan of Spotify, but I recently encountered a really annoying—and apparently common—bug. No matter what playlist, artist, or album I was listening to (whether on my iPhone, Mac, or Sonos), Spotify would pause every song or two, and I’d have to tap Play for it to continue. The other problem: Some desktop applications don't scale right on high-DPI displays because they simply have no idea how to do so. Spotify, running under Windows 10.
Music fans are plenty familiar with Spotify, the online streaming service that lets users listen to millions of songs on-demand for free or with a no-advertisement subscription.
However, with Spotify’s myriad settings and apps that extend its functionality, you might not be using it to its full potential. Here, TIME rounds up 8 tips that will help users see Spotify in a whole new light:
Hide Your Guilty Pleasures From Friends
The ability to follow friends’ musical habits is one of Spotify’s best features. But maybe you don’t want everyone to know exactly how many times you listened to “All About That Bass” this summer.
On the desktop version, you can select “Private Session” from the main Spotify menu to stop broadcasting your musical selections for a certain period (the same setting is found on the “social” menu within settings on the mobile version). To permanently stop sharing your listening choices, go to the “Spotify” menu, then “Preferences,” and uncheck the boxes for “Share my activity and what I listen to with my followers on Spotify” and “Share my activity and what I listen to on Facebook.”
Improve Your Search Queries
Navigating Spotify’s massive catalogue can be a chore. Next time, try using qualifiers to narrow your search. They work much in the same way as Google search queries. You can specify searches based on artist, title, genre or year. So if you’re looking for just Jay-Z’s output in 1997, “Jay-Z year:1997” to pull up the desired results. Here’s a full list of the search qualifiers you can use on Spotify.
READ MORE Spotify Now Makes Playlists Based On What Your Friends Listen To
Use Folders to Organize Your Music
One criticism of Spotify is that people’s music collections often devolve into a jumble of playlists and favorites songs. Consider using folders to provide more order for your playlists. On the desktop app, go to “File” and then “New Playlist Folder” to create a new folder. Then you can place any playlists you like within the new folder.
Toggle High-Quality Streaming On or Off
Spotify Premium users have the option to enable “high-quality streaming” from the Preferences menu on the desktop, which plays songs at a bitrate of 320 kbps rather than the standard rate of 160 kbps — making everything sound better.
On mobile, songs automatically play at a lower bitrate of 96 kbps to conserve data. All users can bump that figure up to 160 kbps, and premium users can also use the 320 kbps setting. Just be careful, since a higher bitrate will eat into your mobile data plan faster.
Add Songs That Aren’t on Spotify And Listen to Them Offline
Spotify’s catalogue is hardly comprehensive, but users can easily add songs from outside sources to their libraries and listen to them within the Spotify interface. Simply go to Preferences and enable showing tracks from local sources. Those sources can include iTunes, the Downloads folder on your computer, or specific folders that you select.
Even better, if you have a playlist filled with non-Spotify songs and toggle on the “Available Offline” option at the top of the playlist, you can download the songs to your phone for offline listening.
See the Lyrics to Every Song
Trying to prep for your next karaoke session? Turn on the musiXmatch app (you can find it in the “App Finder” tab on the left-hand sidebar) and you can see the lyrics of most songs as they’re playing within Spotify. There are lots of other handy apps in the “App Finer” menu, including recommendation apps that offer features like curated music lists from Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
READ MORE 6 Biggest Tech Debuts to Watch in 2015
Add a Visualizer
If you miss the cheesy visualizers from your days using Windows Media Player or Winamp, Spotify has you covered. In the search bar, just type in “spotify:app:visualizer” to bring up a range of different visual options that will play in time with your tunes.
Link to a Specific Part of a Song
Want to send a friend “Free Bird,” but skip the pretenses and get right to the guitar solo? Spotify makes that pretty simple. If you’re sharing the URL of a song (a special kind of Spotify-specific link that only works within the Spotify app), add a “#” sound to the end of the character string and then the timestamp you want to zoom to. To get to the “Free Bird” solo at 4 minutes and 25 seconds into the song, for example, you’d write this: spotify:track:1xt1TX045OgURfw0MAcVNF#4:25.
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Spotify is one most popular online music streaming services. There are number of factors which make Spotify a better service to try. Now, there are number of free Spotify plugins / add-ons / apps available on Internet which would make this online music streaming service a far more better thing to try.
These Spotify plugins / add-ons / app makes Spotify more fun more by letting you see lyrics while listening to songs, check out the details of the song being played, offering you with hotkeys for actions like pause, play, next, previous and many more.
Here are 6 best freeSpotify Plugins / add-ons / app:
LYRIFY
Lyrify is the best Spotify plugin for the users looking for an easier way to get the lyrics of the songs being played. This Spotify app will automatically search and fine the lyrics and will display them on another window. but it is compatible with Windows OS only. If you are looking for a similar add on on Mac, you should try LYRICSPOT.
SPOTIFY 2 SKYPE
This is an interesting Spotify add-on as it lets you display the current Spotify song as your status on Skype. Its just like letting the world know what you are listening to. This plugin for Spotify integrates well with Skype. It is compatible on Windows only.
SPOTIFYDJ
SpotifyDJ is an interesting Spotify plugin which required Adobe AIR. This app lets you broadcast your live DJ sessions to other users on Windows and Mac. If you are into DJ-ing, I bet you would love this add-on as its worth trying. It is compatible on Mac and Windows OS.
SPOTIFY REMOTE
This little Spotify app can prove to be very handy as it lets you control Spotify using your mobile phone. Isn’t it interesting? This plugin deserves a chance if were looking for a way to control Spotify remotely.
SPOTIFY TWEAKS
How To Change Spotify Display
Spotify Tweaks is the best Spotify plugin available on Internet which is a one stop solution for your need of Spotify add-ons like Lyric Search to search and find lyrics on Spotify, Spotify RSS to find latest happenings on Spotify, Advanced Spotify Search to do custom search for albums, artists, songs and there are many more functionalities that this all in one Spotify plugin would offer.
TOASTIFY
Toastify is the another Spotify plugin available on Internet which completes it with respect to functionality. This add-on is compatible on Windows which lets you use shortcuts / hotkeys for Spotify actions like Play, Pause, Previous, Next.
Does Spotify Display Over Other Apps For Mac
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