You’re about to hop on a plane. Or maybe you’re heading into the subway where data signals go to die. You open the app, hit play on your favorite playlist, and—nothing. The spinning wheel of death. Honestly, it’s the worst feeling when you realize you forgot the one step that makes the service actually portable. Learning how to download songs off of Spotify is pretty much the first thing you should do after signing up, yet the interface can be surprisingly clunky if you aren't looking in the right spot.
Spotify doesn't actually sell you files. That’s the big catch most people miss. You aren't "buying" an MP3 that you can drag and drop into a video editor or send to a friend via Discord. You're basically leasing access. When you download a track, Spotify encrypts it into a proprietary format that only their app can read. It's a "cache" system. If you cancel your Premium subscription, those files don't just sit there waiting for you; they become digital ghosts, unplayable and locked.
The Premium requirement and the "Free" loophole
Let’s be real: if you're on the free tier, your options are limited. You can download podcasts. That’s it. Spotify allows free users to save spoken-word content for offline listening because the licensing for podcasts is different from the iron-clad grip major labels have on music. If you want music, you’ve gotta pay.
Currently, Spotify Premium costs about $11.99 a month for an individual plan in the US. Once that’s active, the "Download" toggle magically appears. But there is a weird quirk—you can't download individual songs one by one in the way you might think. You have to "Like" them first or add them to a playlist. It’s a bit of an extra step, but that's how the architecture works.
How to download songs off of Spotify on mobile (iOS and Android)
Mobile is where most of us live. To get those tracks onto your phone, you need to find the playlist or album you’re obsessed with. Look for the little downward-pointing arrow inside a circle. It’s usually sitting right next to the "heart" or the play button. Tap it.
The arrow turns green. That’s your signal.
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Wait for the animation to finish. If you’re trying to download a 500-song playlist over a shaky 5G connection at a Starbucks, it’s going to take forever. Or worse, it’ll pause. Spotify has a default setting that prevents downloads over cellular data to save you from a massive phone bill. If you want to bypass this, you have to dive into Settings, find Audio Quality, and toggle Download using cellular to "On." Just keep an eye on your data cap.
The 10,000 song limit is real
Did you know there’s a ceiling? You can download up to 10,000 songs on each of up to five different devices. For most humans, 10,000 songs is plenty. That’s weeks of non-stop music. But for the digital hoarders among us, hitting that limit is a genuine risk. If you try to download song number 10,001, Spotify will usually boot the oldest downloads off your device to make room. It’s a "one in, one out" policy.
Doing it on the Desktop app
The desktop version of Spotify is a different beast. People often confuse the web player (what you open in Chrome or Safari) with the actual desktop app you install on Windows or Mac.
Note: You cannot download music on the web player.
If you're using a browser, you're out of luck. You need the standalone app. Once you have it, the process is almost identical to mobile. Navigate to your "Liked Songs" or a specific album, and hit that download arrow. These files are stored in a hidden folder on your hard drive. Don't bother looking for them to move them to a thumb drive; they are encrypted as .file or .dat chunks that mean nothing to VLC or iTunes.
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Why did my downloads disappear?
This is the number one complaint on Spotify support forums. You go offline, and your music is gone. There are usually three reasons for this:
- The 30-day rule: Spotify requires you to go online at least once every 30 days. This isn't just them being annoying; it’s how they verify your subscription is still active and how they calculate royalty payouts for the artists. If you stay offline for 31 days, your downloads expire.
- Storage cleaning apps: If you use "cleaner" apps on Android or Mac, they often see the Spotify cache as "junk" because it’s a bunch of large, unrecognizable files. They delete them to save space, and suddenly your music is gone.
- App updates or logouts: Occasionally, a major app update will wipe the cache. Also, if you manually log out of the app, Spotify often clears the offline data for security reasons.
Optimizing your audio quality
When you figure out how to download songs off of Spotify, you also need to decide how much space you’re willing to sacrifice. High-quality audio takes up more room.
Go to Settings > Storage. Here, you can see exactly how much space your music is eating. If you're low on GBs, go to Audio Quality and set your "Download" quality to Normal. If you have a brand new iPhone with 1TB of space and high-end headphones, crank that to Very High (which is roughly 320kbps). The difference in clarity is noticeable, especially in the low end and the crispness of the cymbals, but a single album will take up significantly more space.
The "Local Files" trick
Sometimes the song you want isn't even on Spotify. Maybe it’s a bootleg, a remix from SoundCloud, or an old CD you ripped in 2009. You can actually integrate these into your Spotify library.
In the Desktop app settings, enable Show Local Files. Point Spotify to the folder on your computer where your MP3s live. Now, here’s the magic: if you add those local files to a playlist and then open that same playlist on your phone (while both devices are on the same Wi-Fi), your phone will "download" the local files from your computer. It’s a workaround to get unreleased music into your main rotation. It’s finicky, and you often have to disable your firewall for a second to let the sync happen, but it works.
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Troubleshooting common download failures
If that little arrow stays grey or keeps spinning, check your storage first. Spotify won't tell you "Disk Full" until the very last second. You usually need at least 1GB of free space for the app to function properly.
Another culprit is "Battery Saver" mode. On many Android devices, turning on extreme battery saver kills background processes. This includes Spotify's ability to pull data from the servers. Plug the phone in, turn off power saving, and keep the app open on the screen. It's annoying, but it prevents the OS from "sleeping" the download thread.
Legalities and third-party "downloaders"
You’ve probably seen websites or "converters" that claim they can download Spotify songs to MP3. A word of caution: most of these are sketchy. At best, they violate Spotify's Terms of Service and could get your account banned. At worst, they are wrappers for malware.
These tools usually work by "recording" the stream or by searching for a matching YouTube video and ripping the audio from there. The quality is almost always worse than what you get natively in the app. If you care about supporting artists, stick to the official method. The fraction of a cent they get per play only counts if you're playing it through the official platform.
Final checklist for offline success
Before you lose internet access, do a quick audit.
- Check that the green arrow is solid, not a progress ring.
- Put your phone in Airplane Mode for 10 seconds and try to play a few tracks. This is the only way to be 100% sure the files are actually on the disk and not just cached from your recent listening.
- Ensure your subscription doesn't expire while you're away. If your credit card fails mid-trip, those downloads will lock up instantly.
- Verify your "Offline Mode" setting. You can manually toggle this in Settings > Playback to force the app to only look at your downloaded files, which also saves a bit of battery life since the app isn't constantly hunting for a signal.
Next steps for your library
Now that you've mastered the basics, take a look at your storage settings. Open Spotify, go to Settings, and scroll down to Storage. If you see that your "Cache" is massive but your "Downloads" are small, hit Clear Cache. This won't delete your downloaded songs, but it will scrub the temporary files that accumulate as you browse, often freeing up several gigabytes of space. After that, create a "Travel" playlist, throw 50 of your must-have albums into it, and hit that download button while you're still on your home Wi-Fi. It's the only way to guarantee the music actually stays with you when the world goes offline.