My mobile app will not let me turn smart shuffle off

[katerwauled]

Even when my playlists show that they are not on shuffle, the song preview screen is still showing smart shuffle and adding songs that are not on the playlist. I use spotify for events for work and I cannot have random suggested songs added to strict playlists.

[Darth_GTB]

brace yourself. you are about to be sent to the huge post about Smart Shuffle where we can all be ignored together

[Yordan]

Hi @katerwauled,

Welcome to the Spotify Community!

By "song preview screen", do you mean the Play Queue? In addition to disabling Smart Shuffle for the playlist, make sure the feature is toggled off in the Now Playing View (mobile) / Now Playing Bar (desktop) as well:

Now Playing View

Now Playing Bar

If the issue persists, please share a short screen recording which captures the described behavior in action so we can investigate further.

Cheers 🤘

[Darth_GTB]

@Yordan, this is probably not their case as they use it for work, but in my case, I have the free version of Spotify and Smart Shuffle is the only option available. After thinking about that for a while, that makes me realise not even Spotify believes Smart Shuffle is a good feature. Spotify probably believes this is an annoying feature people would pay to get rid of. You know, like ads or skip limits, etc.

Could you please confirm if my hypothesis is correct? Was Smart Shuffle intentionally developed to be annoying? Because it is. It's more annoying than ads. I don't really mind ads or skip limits. I think they are really reasonable limits for the free tier.

[Yordan]

Thanks for the reply @Darth_GTB!

Smart Shuffle is the default playback option for free users in some regions, yes. As for the feature's purpose, I think it's intended to be a more-compact way to keep the functionality of the previous Enhance button (with some tweaks, of course), as the current mobile app UI design just doesn't have enough room for it.

We’re constantly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone though, so your feedback on this is greatly appreciated - with Smart Shuffle being one of the most discussed Spotify features, rest assured it's being actively looked into.

In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so you don't miss out on any updates.

The Community is here if there's anything else you need assistance with.

Take care 💚

[Darth_GTB]

Hello,**bleep** for your reply. I would just like to point out that it isn't just the default option. it's literally the *only* option. I wouldn't have an issue with it if it were an actual shuffle. But it isn't. Honestly the "normal" shuffle is pretty bad too, although not as annoying. Spotify is so bad at recommending relevant songs that I'm convinced it's actually a sponsored feature. It keeps recommending songs that I can only assume are supposed to be popular in my region instead of songs that I would actually enjoy. It even misses on the genres. It recommends songs from genres I had never listened to in Spotify. Why would a platform recommend something that I don't listen to? Unless it's sponsored. Then it makes sense. It's painful for your clients, but makes sense.

That being said, I mentioned before in another post, but I would like to share my suggestion for a change in these features. We could have 3 play styles:

- Normal (paid tier): play the playlist in order

- Shuffle (free tier): random order from every song in the playlist (which doesn't seem to be the case for some reason)

- Smart Shuffle (paid tier): random order from every song in the playlist, but prevents the same song from playing again every x songs. So, lets say 5 songs. We have 1k songs in a playlist. As soon as we start playing on smart shuffle, the algorithm starts adding songs to the queue. The algorithm could already calculate the next 5 songs. By the time the first music ends, you will calculate the 6th. All you have to do is pick something at random, check if it's already in the queue and only add it if it's not. If it is, pick another one.

You could still have the recommended option as a separate setting. Add a checkbox that says "include recommendations". This checkbox could then be checked for all 3 play styles. Every 5 or so songs you can add a recommended song. This checkbox can then be accessed in the same popup as the play styles thing:

[Darth_GTB]

About the **bleep** up there. I have no idea what happened. I just @ your name and thanked for your reply lol

This forum also has its fair share of bugs

[Ivelina]

Thanks for the detailed response, @Darth_GTB!

We're always looking for ways to improve and offer better functions to our users and we really appreciate your opinion on the matter with the Shuffle/Smart Shuffle functions.

If you think other users might also like your suggestion, you can go ahead and create an idea on the relevant idea board. In this and this help articles, you can read how ideas work and also find useful tips on how to submit an idea. As a heads-up, it's good to know that the higher the number of votes an idea gets, the more likely it is for it to be implemented.

Don't hesitate to let us know if you've got any other questions.

Have a good one 🙂

[Darth_GTB]

Thanks,**bleep**'ll try that one too. Last time I used it, I was rerouted to the Smart Shuffle announcement post. But I think this one might not because it is not a bug report.

BTW, @katerwauled, I'm sorry for taking over your post.**bleep** believe your issue might not be the same as mine.

[Darth_GTB]

And here we go with the **bleep** again lol

You can report this bug to the forum developer. Here is what this message looked like originally:

Now that I think of it, it's probably trying to hide e-mail addresses... It's definitely a bug in the forum that can be fixed... you don't start an e-mail address with an `@` and e-mail addresses do not have spaces