Playlist order different on app than on my computer

[Meditrina]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Samsung Galaxy 10

Operating System

Windows 7

My Question or Issue

I'm getting married in a few months. My fiance and I have gathered all the songs we wish to play.  Took days to go though and set the playlist up so that the songs play in a certain order.  So did all that work on my laptop.  But when I open the playlist on my phone the order is completely different.  Is there something I can do so the order matches all the work I did on my computer to the phone?

[songassistant · Accepted solution]

Hey @Meditrina,

welcome to the Spotify Community! I'm happy to assist you!

Please tap on the thre dots ••• on the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Then select "Sort playlist" and choose "Custom". Now it should appear in the same order as the one on your laptop.

Let me know how it goes 🙂

I wish you an unforgettable day of marriage, keep rocking!

[Meditrina]

That worked!  Thank you very much~!

[OllyatFCP]

Hi that doesn't work on my phone. I don't have 'sort' in my drop down choices. 

[Yordan]

Hi @OllyatFCP!

The Spotify app has gone through multiple updates since then, so currently you can access the sort menu by opening the playlist and swiping down - a search bar and a Sort button should then appear at the top.

Hope this clears things up. Cheers!

[wlondon]

Thanks a lot. It worked perfectly 

[pepe304]

I still have playlist in different order on my android phone compared to windows desktop.

The custom sort on the phone doesn't change the order

[stevehead1984]

I also am having the same issue. For example, I have a playlist of the entire Beatles discography, in chronological order. Just randomly while listening to the Revolver album in my car, "I Saw Her Standing There" (from the Please Please Me album) was in the place that "Yellow Submarine" was supposed to be. Looking at the playlist, the two songs are swapped, with "Yellow Submarine" as the very first song in the playlist. This is not the case on desktop, as all the songs are in the correct order. I tried changing the sorting on mobile, but it will not change back. Even manually tried moving the songs into their correct positions on mobile, and it just goes back to what I described. Very annoying.

[ksoi]

Same phenomenon as pepe304 and stevehead1984 in my account. 

Is it a bug? 

[AlejaR]

Hey folks,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

Seems that the behavior you're describing is related to the one we're currently investigating in this thread. We'd recommend taking a look at it and if the issue described matches your cases, please send us the info we're asking for in the Status Update. That way, we can forward all your info to the right team.

We'd also suggest subscribing to that thread, so you can get notified as soon as we post any news on that behavior.

We'll be on the lookout!

[mssmith1]

I don't think it is the same issue. The original post is about the order of playlists, the thread you suggested is about the order of songs within a playlist. 

I have the same issue as the original poster. I organise the playlists in my library into a custom order on my laptop (Mac). When I go into my library on mobile (iOS) and filter playlists by custom order, the playlists seem in a random order and do not reflect the order I made on the laptop. 

[Joan]

Hi @mssmith1,

Thanks for the reply. The order of playlists is currently not synchronized between desktop and phone, as both are handled differently as well. On mobile, the playlists are usually sorted by recently played, although other sorting methods are available as well.

Hope this clears things up.

[ChloeA]

No it doesn’t “clear things up”. I spent all weekend uploading 11 playlists in a very specific order and the songs appear that way on my Mac. But on my iPhone they are all arranged randomly with no facility to change that to ‘Custom’ order. It’s such a small thing I can’t believe how Spotify don’t address it? These playlists are for my niece who wants to hear my music. I’ve arranged all the playlists so that the listening experience is a coherent one, transitioning from one song to the next. Spotify just turns songs into commodities. Imagine making a cake when the ingredients are all jumbled up and the method is random?? Sort this out Spotify, it’s so frustrating and insulting to music lovers. 

[Maria]

Hey @ChloeA,

Thanks for reaching out!

Just to confirm, is it that the playlists doesn't appear in a customized order in Your Library? Or does the songs appear within the playlists in a random order?

While you need to use the desktop app to set a custom order for your playlists, it should still show on all devices that you use the app on. What you can double-check in this case, should the playlists appear in a different order on different devices, is that the account info is synced. You can usually force a sync by creating a new playlist on your phone & then make sure Your Library is filtered by Custom order. Another option, is to clear stored cache from the phone. Once it's done, log out from the app and back in again to resync the info.

Should the songs within a playlist appear in a different order than the one you created, however, it's worth having a look at how the playlist's content is sorted on your phone. You can do this by following the steps on this page.

Hope this helps & feel free to let us know if you have any questions!

[ChloeA]

Hi there. I think you've not understood the problem which I and others here are having. The custom list order in the phone app appears in alphabetical order for the playlists themselves but what concerns me is that the songs within each playlist, which are in the order I want them to be on my desktop, appear in random order on the phone. Even though Spotify suggest that I can make the order of the songs appear in custom order, I can't. The playlist content option in the app does not include "Custom" and it should, to match the order of the songs within the playlists on my desktop. It's really important to me that my niece hears the songs in the order that I put them in. I don't understand why this is so difficult??

[Eni]

Hey @ChloeA, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

We tried rearranging the songs in some of our playlists on the desktop app and the changes were reflected in the mobile app.

In this case, could you check if the playlist you created in the desktop app is sorted by "Custom order" on your phone as well? You just need to swipe down on the mobile app to reveal the sorting feature and then choose the "Custom order option": 

If you can't see this option, could you send us a screenshot of what you're seeing on your end? We'll take a closer look. You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert image option in the post editor. Make sure not to send any private info.

Keep us posted on how it goes.