How to prevent Spotify from running on phone when in use on PC

[SpotifyCookieCo]

I think used to be called Spotify connect.  How to disable this useless and unnecessary feature that causes Spotify to run on our phone when using Spotify on a PC?

Obviously I've already read countless forms and Googled everywhere for an answer.  Being told to put my phone in "offline mode" is not a solution.  Obviously I could also turn off my wifi to accomplish the same.

This is an issue because its messing with other apps and draining resources.

* Running brand new Android Galaxy S21 Ultra

[SpotifyCookieCo]

'd like to add that the notification cannot be swiped away either.  Don't tell us your "cannot duplicate this".
Playing a track on my PC while getting ready for the day and every time I look at my phone there's a Spotify notification pissing me off.

Great feature guys.  I'm sure you "cannot duplicate this".  Right.

[MafeG]

Hi @SpotifyCookieCo,

Thank you for your reply and sharing those images. 

 We'd like to start by pointing out that there's no reason for us to try and deceive you that we cannot replicate this behavior, especially on a public forum. While we continue trying to help you out, we strive to keep a friendly and respectful tone.

We have seen other reports ourselves, but considering the total Spotify user base, it really seems to be affecting specific devices rather than everyone, which is what makes it difficult to identify the cause of this.

From the info you've shared with us, upon restart Spotify is probably loaded in the background by the OS as the default music app, which is not unexpected and which would explain why the widget appears on every reset, but stays gone after the app is fully closed, the OS then knows not to relaunch Spotify.

You can check if your phone has an OS-based setting for the media player widget. On stock Android this should be located in the phone Settings > Sound & vibration > Scroll down to the "Media" option (not the Media volume) and tap it > Hide player when the media session has ended.

If you don't see the setting, your specific Android ROM probably has it set so it's always shown. If that's the case, there won't be much we can do, but you can check with Samsung if there's any way to modify this setting on your specific phone.

This screenshot illustrates the setting in question. 

Let us know if you have any questions.

[SpotifyCookieCo]

You are unfortunately correct.  That option does not exist for me -- on a brand new phone with the latest available Android OS.

If you're going to blame the OS for a feature Spotify should allow us to disable, then by all means keep blaming Android for why we cannot turn off Spotify Connect.

Why can we not disable Spotify Connect? There is no reason for the app to care what I'm doing on other devices. That is not an Android problem.

 

Not impressed.

[SpotifyCookieCo]

an update.
It seems the Android 10 and higher on Galaxy devices now have a new feature for notifications.

There's now a two-button section if you swipe down twice for "Devices" and "Media". It would appear the new awesome "Media" tab is where, or what, is allowing Spotify to open on start up and constantly ping what we are doing on other devices.

Please prevent our phones from being able to force Spotify to run. Resources are valuable on these phones and Spotify doesn't need to be running or communicating when not in use.

Again, Spotify Connect needs to be disabled or removed. It is the culprit that makes this all possible.

I do not want my phone caring about what songs I've played (or playing) on my PC. There is NO NEED for that feature to even exist, it's pointless for us as users.

[George04]

It's very irritating when listening on desktop that I have a control bar pop up on my phone. Closing this bar then stops music on PC desktop. Why? I have scoured app settings and I cannot find a solution. 

[Ver]

Hey again,

Regarding your request to disable or remove Spotify Connect, please understand that specific app features on any app will never be used 100% by everyone, but with this specific example, our data and direct feedback we received show that Connect is very popular among the majority of Spotify users and the ability for Spotify to be integrated and connect to so many different devices is a main factor of why many people choose it over other streaming apps.

With that in mind we want to be honest that we have no intention or plans to change its functionality at this moment as we need to focus resources on improving the app in other ways. And without passing the blame - it should be indeed possible to control this notification behavior from the Android OS. It's always best for apps not to try and modify OS-based settings, if even possible to do so, as there're often restrictions that prevent this. If a specific phone's ROM doesn't include this setting, we would recommend sending the feedback to the manufacturer so that they're aware this is a popular request, rather than to demand that an app attempts to makes OS-setting changes.

We hope you understand where we're coming from and we would like to confirm if you managed to find the specific OS setting on your phone? If this is the case, please share screenshots and some details on where it can be found so other people that experience the same can read this and find a solution. We ourselves would also love to understand this better to in turn be able to help such users faster or direct them to your post. In the end of the day, we really want every user to have the best experience possible, so we would really appreciate if you can do that.

Thank you!

[markspl_]

This "feature" is frustrating! There should be an option to disable this.

Phone Samsung S21 FE, Android 12.

When I'm listening Spotify on different device (e.g. on PC), it shows playing song in my notifications even Spotify app is not running on my phone:

It also says incorrectly "(Spotify logo) This phone", saying my phone is playing the song but actually my PC is.

And I can't remove/disable that.

Plus, if someone calls me or something else happens on my phone which normally stops playing music on phone, it will stop music on my PC too.

I hope you'll release a setting to disable this feature when music is played on another device.

EDIT: The notification widget in the image is a good feature when I'm playing a song on the same device. But it's useless (for me) when I'm playing music on a different device.

[SpotifyCookieCo]

"our data and direct feedback we received show that Connect is very popular among the majority of Spotify users" - Spotify Moderator

I have my doubts people like this feature, most don't even know it's a feature. Most users don't use Spotify on a PC so they have no idea it's happening.

Show us the data about how "popular" this feature is for people who use Spotify on desktop PCs AND their phone.

Allow us to turn it off.  I'm tired of every time I restart my phone, which is recommended daily, to see the last song I played on my PC like 4 weeks ago splattered on my phone's home screen.

It's a stupid feature.

[-CinderBlock-]

I actually really like the feature and use it frequently. It's very nice to use when playing music through speakers via my PC, but I'm not at my desk. For example, I could be reading on my couch at the other end of the room and use my phone to control the music instead of having to get up and walk over to my computer just to change the song or the volume.

That being said, I do agree that this notification can be a bit annoying since it pops up without me opening Spotify on my phone. It's in my notification tray every time I reboot my phone, presumably due to what @MafeG said about the OS. I can swipe it away, but as soon as I start playing music on my PC the notification will pop up again. In order to prevent that from happening I need to open and then close the app before swiping it away. From that point on it doesn't mirror my activity from my PC to my phone (for a few hours). I usually have my music playing on my PC for almost the whole day while at work, and every couple hours the notification will show up on my phone again. At that point I need to open and close the app again in order to be able to swipe the notification away because I can't swipe it away while it shows a song is playing. Closing the app shows the song is paused in the notification which allows me to swipe. I have not experienced the music stopping on my PC when I close this notification.

Ideally this notification should only be allowed to display itself while the app is actually open (in the list of active apps, not necessarily being the foreground app), and it should go away on its own when the app closes.

I'm using a Galaxy S10e with Android version 11. Unfortunately I don't seem to have the "Hide player when the media session has ended" setting. If you want any further information (device info, more detailed reproduction steps, etc.) please let me know. I understand this isn't a high priority issue because it's only affecting a small set of device/software combinations, but if there's anything I can do to help make the issue easier to solve then I'm more than happy to help.

[Ashryvr]

If you have a newer Samsung S(#), then you can pull the notification tab down 2 times.  You should see a button that says "Media Output".  Click it, then click the arrow at the top right of the screen.  Next, deselect Spotify as one of the options to play.  That should stop it from playing on your phone while listening on PC.  Hope this helps!
(I just figured it out while reading this thread.)

[Mscris]

I'm having the same ANNOYING issue. It temporarily goes away if I turn the wireless or data off on my Android phone, but who wants to do that!!!! Ugghhhh.

This sucks. I may just uninstall Spotify on my phone. That seems to be the only way to resolve this issue or use another streaming app.  

[Yordan]

Hi folks,

Thanks for your inputs so far!

Our teams have continued to investigate this and found out that this can be triggered by other 3rd party apps that try to initialize music playback - one example is the fitness app "Polar Flow", which has special notification access, allowing it to launch Spotify automatically.

Could you please search your phone's settings for "Notification access" (it should be either under Apps > Special access or Notifications > Special app access) and disable the notification permissions for Polar Flow or any other app you might assume would want audio playback control and please report back the results to us, including any other apps you've found were causing this.

Thanks again. We'll be on the lookout for your replies.

Cheers!

[IBR4H33M]

Hi. I have a solution that actually worked for me. I use Samsung A12 running android 11. You should go to your settings, then go to "sleeping apps", then add Spotify to the list. After doing this, Spotify wont run anymore after you close it from home screen. When you open spotify after adding to "sleeping apps" list, spotify will ask you for background running permission, just ignore it because spotify will still run in background of your phone being minimized, unless you close it from the home screen.  

[SpotifyCookieCo]

Thank You, just tried this. Closed all apps, put Spotify in the "Sleeping Apps" list. Restarted phone and home screen is still splashed with whatever the last track I played.

No other app or media player does this, it's invasive and pointless.

[bennybeerme]

This drives me nuts and truthfully Spotify is the only app that does this on my phone. There's no reason why I can't just turn this feature off so when I'm playing music on my PC it doesn't constantly show up on my phone.

[bobbo3376]

I would also like a fix for this. My issue is this:  When I'm listening to Spotify on my laptop and accidentally hit my samsung earbuds, spotify automatically switches to my phone. I've also noticed sometimes the volume control on my phone will control spotify on my pc.  I want all controls completely separate from each other, yet there is nothing in settings to achieve this. This is very frustrating having to walk back over to my laptop to fix this.  Force stopping the app on my phone is not a fix at all. As soon as the earbud is touched again, the app is open. I could log out on my phone, but I would have to remember to log back in every night, since I use spotify for some of my alarms.  It seems spotify has made things much more complicated than they need to be.

[Angienno]

I have Samsung S21 Ultra too and face the same problem. There a thing called "Always On Display" features with Samsung. You can try this way :

1. Go to Settings on your phone 

2. Tap "Lock Screen" 

3. Tap "Always On Display"

4. Disable "Showing music information"

5. If you have Spotify widget, you should erase it (I actually don't like this because I can control Spotify easier with the widget)

6. Close all Background app

7. Lock your screen and you can see the "Spotify notification" is gone. 

This work for my device and I hope it is working for other people too. (And sorey my English is not perfect, I hope people can understand what I share here).

And annoying thing even when I tried ro post this, spotify said I don't have email that connect with any spotify account which is not true. I have 2 accounts with 2 different username and one of it even Premium account. I just want to reply to this topic **bleep**.

[visualmhillary]

This is still an issue, I fear. Yes, I can select the device on which Spotify is playing, but the it's still hopelessly tethered. While Spotify is playing on my desktop, any volume I attempt to adjust on my phone (for IG, etc) adjusts Spotify's volume on the desktop and not my phone's volume at all. I would LOVE to be able to separate these completely. Please.

[todtown1]

I finally just deleted the app from my phone. It will not die. I had to kill it. What's worse, if I play spotify on my desktop it shows up on my phone and then when I get in my car it plays in my car and I can not stop it! So I toke the app off of my phone and that solved all of my problems with Spotify, except of course I can't play spotify on my phone or in my car. 

[saladbar311]

May 2023 , the option that seems best is to log out of the spotify app on your phone and use the web browser or in my case my old Iphone i have at work just for music and games.  I can't figure out how to stop the mirroring stuff but I don't my main cell phone running the app  if it's not the primary source of use.