Free Spotify For Alexa

Here, we cover hot to get Alexa to play Spotify playlists. You can ask an Amazon smart speaker to play any public playlist on Spotify, as well as playlists that you’ve created in your own Spotify account. Further, you must link that account to your Amazon account via the Alexa app. Once that’s done, you may ask to hear your Spotify playlists in your Spotify account by issuing voice commands to your Echo, Echo Dot, Tap, or Show devices. Or you can do it in the Spotify app itself. We describe both methods below.

Alexa starts to support Spotify to play on Alexa devices. Not only Spotify, but you can also play Apple Music, Pandora or Spotify on Amazon Alexa devices. There is no need to have Amazon Prime or Spotify paid account for playing on Alexa. Use Spotify Free Spotify on Alexa used to be limited to the paid-for platform, but now users of Spotify Free can also use their voice to summon music. There are limitations, however. You can only choose music from playlists, so you can't just pick and choose the music you want to hear on a whim.

Please see our Spotify Setup Instructions on Amazon Echo Alexa Devices post for detailed instructions on how to connect your Amazon smart speakers to your Spotify account. Do this prior to following the procedures below.

How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

Method One: Asking the Alexa Speaker to Play a Spotify Playlist

With your smart speaker turned on and connected to your Amazon and Spotify accounts, ask Alexa to play a Spotify playlist as follows. We asked for one we created named Tom’s Christmas as follows:

Alexa, play the Tom’s Christmas playlist on Spotify.
Alexa shuffle the Tom’s Christmas playlist on Spotify.

Your speaker then says something like “[Playing / shuffling] Tom’s Christmas playlist from Spotify.” The shuffle playlist feature does not work as of this writing, as the playlist still plays in the order that songs were added to it when created, though the shuffle command is accepted. To shuffle play the playlist, use method two, described next.

How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists via the Spotify App

1. Find the Spotify App on your Tablet or Phone

In this demo, we’re running it on an iPad Air, as shown in the next screenshot.

2. Run the Spotify App

Spotify then displays a home screen that looks something like that shown next.

3. Tap the Your Music Link

It’s the one pointed at by the blue arrow in the previous screenshot. Spotify then displays the Your Music screen as shown next.

4. Tap the Playlists Choice to Continue with How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

Find the Playlists option at the far left edge of the Your Music screen, which the blue arrow points at in the previous screenshot. The system then displays a list of all the playlists currently saved in the current Spotify account. We currently have four playlists saved in ours, as shown in the next screenshot. In this demo, we’ll be playing the Tom’s Christmas playlist.

5. Tap the Playlist you’d Like to Hear on your Alexa Speaker

As mentioned, we’re going to play the Tom’s Christmas playlist in this demo. So, we tapped that one, pointed at by the blue arrow in the previous screenshot. This brings up a sort of playlist editor screen named after the chosen playlist, as shown in the next screenshot, which lists the songs in that playlist.

6. Start your Selected Playlist Playing

You can have Spotify play the list sequentially from beginning to end by tapping the first song in the list as pointed at by the leftmost blue arrow in the previous screenshot, or you can tap the green Shuffle Play button, which plays the listed songs in random order. In either case, the listed songs begin playing on the current speaker (usually the mobile device on which you’re running the Spotify app), and the playlist editor screen changes to show the Devices Available link, as shown in the next screenshot.

7. Tap the Devices Available Link to Continue with How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

This takes you from the playlist editor screen to the Playing From Playlist screen, as shown next. This is a more graphical representation of the previous playlist editor screen, showing a picture of the album from which the current song is taken. This screen also provides controls for pausing playback, skipping ahead to the next song, and skipping back to the previous song in the current playlist. There’s also a progress slider that shows the current position in the song currently playing, and you can also select the speaker or speaker group that Spotify will play through.

8. Again, tap the Devices Available Link

The Devices Available option is pointed at by the blue arrow in the previous screenshot. This brings up a menu style list of available speaker devices and groups that have been set up in the current Spotify account (ours in this demo). This menu is called Devices.

9. Tap the Alexa Based Speaker you Wish to Play the Playlist Through

Select this speaker from a list like the one shown above. You may have to scroll the list to find it if you have lots of devices configured in your Spotify account. In our case here, we want the playlist to play on our Office speaker. Thus, we tapped that entry.

Using Spotify With Alexa

The Devices menu then disappears, taking you back to the Playing from Playlist screen as shown next. Play then stops on the currently playing speaker and moves to the speaker or speaker group just picked.

Also, note that the Devices Available link is replaced by the name of the speaker now playing. You should now be hearing your Spotify playlist on the Amazon Alexa speaker you selected in step 8 above. Enjoy!

References for How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

Revision History

2020-07-17: Tweaked the targeting.
2019-02-21: Added tags.
2019-01-25: Added key phrase targeting.
2017-12-27: Originally published.