What is Spotify?

Spotify offers you legal and free access to a huge library of music. All you need to do is create an account and download our streaming music player. For more details have a look at our video or introduction page.

Spotify’s dream is to let everyone listen to whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want.

Spotify is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. We hope to launch in more countries in the future.

FAQ

Do I need to pay to use Spotify?

No, the advertising-funded version of Spotify is free of charge, however, for now it requires that you receive an invite to register unless you are in the UK. Visit our invitation page to sign up to the waiting list. Alternatively, you can pay for an ad-free premium subscription to Spotify.

What bandwidth does Spotify need?

We recommend 256 kbit/s. Spotify usually works well on a 3G connection. Plenty of free disk space also helps keep the network requirements down as it enables more caching.

Can I download or buy music in Spotify?

We have links on a large number of albums and tracks that you can click to purchase mp3’s from our download partner. To purchase tracks right click on the track or album (control click on Mac OS) and select “Buy From”. Downloading is currently only available in the UK, Sweden, France and Spain.

How much advertising will I be exposed to?

There should be significantly fewer ads in Spotify than you’d find on commercial radio. We are trying to strike a balance between artists who want to be paid and providing the best possible user experience.

Is paying for Spotify online safe?

Yes, Spotify’s payment partners are PCI-certified, which is the global industry standard ensuring compliance to strict security and data protection standards.

Using Spotify

Why do I have to install Spotify?

By installing Spotify as a stand alone application you get a much better user experience and audio quality compared to web-based sites.

On what platforms can I use Spotify?

Mac OS X 10.4 or later and Windows XP or later. You can also run Spotify in Wine on Linux.

Can I use Spotify from multiple locations?

Yes, you can install Spotify on as many computers as you like. You may be logged in to Spotify from several computers simultaneously, but you can only play music on one computer at a time. The music at your other computers will automatically be paused. If you want to install Spotify on more than one computer simply download the program again and login with your existing username and password, there is no need for an invite token.

Can I share music with my friends?

Yes, you can drag and drop any track, album, artist or playlist to your email or instant messenger which creates a link to your favorites that you can send to your loved ones. They need to have Spotify to listen, though. Read more about sharing and collaborative playlists in our blog.

Why do you have two different link formats?

The spotify: URIs are the real Spotify addresses. The http://open.spotify.com/ URLs are a workaround to give you clickable, blue and underlined links in instant-messenger and email applications that don’t yet recognize the Spotify URI format. When there is a choice (such as when you are creating your own hyperlinks on the web), always use the spotify: addresses. What happens when you click an http://open.spotify.com/ link is that a page is opened in your web browser that redirects you to the real address (the spotify: equivalent). When you have control over the links, that’s a redundant step. And if you’re a software developer, please consider auto-detecting the spotify: URIs in your applications.

Can I make more advanced searches?

Yes, you can search for genres by writing genre: followed by the genre you want to find, like genre:Trip-hop. You can do the same thing with release years for albums by writing year: and the year you want. You can even specify a range, like year:1979-1982. Other searches to play with are artist:, album: and track:. There are some more examples in this blog post.

What happens if I cancel my premium subscription?

If you purchased a Spotify Premium subscription and then decide to cancel, your account will automatically revert to a Spotify Free account after that month’s subscription period expires. You can find out more about Spotify’s paid for services in our Terms & Conditions.