Music streaming company Spotify is finally and officially testing a playlist that automatically downloads some of your recent favorites a couple of years after starting working on such a feature.
In a tweet, the company’s CEO Daniel Ek said that Spotify has been testing “Your Offline Mix.” But beyond that he didn’t give out any details. In particular, it’s unclear when the company plans to release the feature.
As the screenshot posted by Ek suggests, these playlists can store music with multiple hours of listening time. This can be handy at times when you are going to hop on a flight but forgot to download music. As a reminder, Spotify already allows you to download playlists for offline playback.
Tweets from some users suggest that they have already seen this feature appear in their apps. But it’s unclear in what territories Spotify is rolling out the offline mix. Plus, there is a question about the feature’s availability for free users. We have asked Spotify for a comment and will update the story if we hear back.
In 2020, reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered that Spotify was working on an offline mix feature. But it was never rolled out. However, with Ek’s official confirmation, the feature should be on track to be available to users in the future.
Spotify’s rival service, YouTube Music already has an “Offline mixtape” feature. Additionally, the Google-owned service can automatically download up to 500 songs in different playlists if users turn on the “Smart download” functionality.
According to figures from its last earnings call, Spotify now boasts a user base of over 500 million people.
