Please help: how do I save/export playlist?

[kainth]

I wish to know how to save the list of music I have added to my playlist in case of any fault which results in loss or some files missing?

At the moment, the only way to monitor your tracks is to see the running total of tracks which only tells you the total number of tracks you have saved, it doesn't tell you WHAT you have added to playlist. I am concerned about what would happen if playlist was totally deleted or tracks became missing how would I know what to recover. It has taken years to accumulate my list and it would be devastating to lose it all.#

I recenlty lost music which was downloaded. Luckily, I kept a screenshots so I was able to see what was missing and easily recover. I want to do the same for Spotify.

[Carina]

Hey @kainth and welcome to the community!

First, no need to worry: You can always restore your playlists here https://www.spotify.com/account/recover-playlists/

But if you still wish to save your playlists - you just have to drag and drop the playlist (from the sidebar) to your desktop or a certain folder and it will save your tracks. I'm not sure but I think the tracks inside are not updated automatically, so you always have to save it again when you've made some changes. Ah, and if the song count of a playlist shows another number than the other time you were looking at it - could be that some files were disabled by Spotify due to legal rights. Make sure you enable to show unplayable tracks in your settings, so you see which songs went away..

[kainth]

Dear Carina,

Please explain what you mean when you say "drag and drop the playlist (from the sidebar) to your desktop or a certain folder and it will save your tracks".

When I do this, it creates a shortcut to Spotify application, which is not the same as saving my playlist. Please see screenshot attached.

[Carina]

Yes, this is how it works. When you drag it back to the sidebar, the playlist will be loaded. You need some other tools, if you want to export playlists to, for example, to iTunes.

[kainth]

Hi Carina,

When you say "drag it back to the sidebar", do you mean drag the shortcut (created earlier, shown in the screenshot, it is dragged to the desktop as application shortcut) back to Spotify sidebar, left hand side?

If I do this, it doesn't respond to drop. I tried this by droppping while pointing to current list and adding a new list. Neither works.

Are you able to video the steps and upload here for my instruction?

Thanks very much.

[Carina]

You have to drop it back to the "+ New Playlist" icon.

I made a (crappy) *gif only for you 🙂

[kainth]

Ah- that is so useful!

However, I'm not sure this answers my question. From what I can see, what you are doing is taking a playlist (Lieblingslieder) and making a copy (Lielingslieder - 2). My question is what happens if your first playlist goes missing (or songs within the playlist are missing) and you have no playlist to copy.

Sorry to be a pain, Carin but I still can't see how to save or export my saved list of songs.

x

[Carina · Accepted solution]

Ah no, I created a new playlist, made a shortcut on the desktop, deleted the playlist from Spotify and was still be able to add it again, as shown in the *gif.

You can also select all titles of playlist (CRTL/CMD + A), copy (CTRL/CMD + C) and paste (CTRL/CMD + V) them into a txt-document. This will create a list with the titles (artist - song title) and the link to spotify. If you want to import it, create a new playlist and paste it back into it.

[kainth]

Carina,

How to give you five stars!???

You have addressed my concerns!!!!!

What I love the most is the shortcut which can be saved back to Spotify to prevent having to re-type all the songs which is exactly what I want to avoid!

I love that the list is saved onto text in alphabetical order of artist. This text is searchable which is brilliant because artists sometimes are not listed since they are featured artists, so may not be so easy to find.

I love you!!!!
Thanks 🙂

Spoiler

[kainth]

Carina,

Help me, please!

For the past week, I have added continuosly to my playlist and accumulated 2000 tracks. I finally finished last night and was so pleased.

This morning, I noticed a duplicate track so I selected it and clicked delete. Now my entire playlist has disappeared! Vanished. I have experience of deleting tracks successfully in the past so I know I deleted track and not the entire playlist!

How do I get  my playlist back? I tried to Recover Playlist from My Account but it was 1205 tracks which I deliberately deleted when I was exploring functions last week. It's not the playlist containing full 2000 tracks! 

Thanks

Spoiler

[kainth]

Carina,

Before the loss, I saved the playlist by dragging it to Explorer just like you showed me. But when I tried to drag it back to Spotify, it created the playlist but it was blank!

A second smaller playlist still worked, ie playlist could be dragged to Spotify and added!

I'm crying!

[crismarsf]

Hi Kainth, 

No need for an SOS distress call. If you ever feel like your playlist is different than normal (some tracks missing), the Spotify support team can revert it back to a specific date/time.

If it's deleted, you can recover it following this guide or contact the support team as well. 

Keep in mind that the Starred tracks cannot be recovered once deleted, so always put them in a Playlists as Private (right click>Private),  so only you can see it. 

I hope this helps. 

Wish you the best, 

*Kudos are always appreciated 🙂 

[Carina]

Hey @kainth ,

as @crismarsf explained, I suggest reaching out to the Spotify staff using this contact form: https://www.spotify.com/about-us/contact/contact-spotify-support/

If you'll receive an automated email that leads you back to the community, reply to it (even if it's from "no-reply") and someone will get back to you. But no need to do this if you're going to receive a case number.

Let us know if they were able to help you!

Btw, sometimes you still selected the playlist instead of a single track, so by pushing the delete key, it's definitely possible that you accidentally deleted the whole playlist (but usually you should get a little "do you really want to delete the playlist" message..)

[kainth]

Thank you both!

I have contacted Spotify to help me recover. I am crying! I have spent 8 days of my life adding tracks to Spotify and I really hope I haven't wasted all that time!

Carina, I'm sure I didn't delete the playlist. I say this because when I tried to Recover Playlist from My Account it was a playlist from 27-Oct-2014 containing 1205 tracks which I deliberately deleted when I was exploring functions straight after you informed me. It's not the most recent playlist containing full 2000 + tracks with today’s date.

[kainth]

Hi Carina- PS I know the message you refer to about are you sure you wish to delete. Just to confirm, there was no such message.

[crismarsf]

Hi @kainth, 

Don't cry, have some chocolate on the way 🙂 the Spotify team will revert your playlist back to where it was with all your songs. 

Make sure to provide security information and the date you think the playlist was intact. 

Take care. 

[Carina]

Okay, sorry to hear that 😞

So I think the only thing to do right now is waiting for a staff's mail (it can take up to 48 hours).

What I recommend for the feature: Create more playlists with less songs and put them alltogether in a folder (file -> create new playlist folder or CTRL/CMD+Shift+N). By clicking on the folder, you can still listen to all of the songs in the playlist but you won't experience any perfomance issues (your problem sounds to me somehow like that). And it's maybe easier for you to browse through your playlists. Just a recommendation, you don't have to do this of course 🙂

Hope you'll get an answer by the support team soon!

[kainth]

Thanks both!

FYI- Spotify have sent case number.

Crismarsf FYI- I provided date and time of loss in the case. You sound confident of recovery so I will hang on to hope.

Carina- another way for future I was thinking was: once playlist is complete, delete it so that it can be recovered. Keep doing this everytime you add tracks, so that you have a trail of recovery points and you can always receover from the most recent playlist!

Had I not created a recovery on 27-Oct-14 of 1200 songs, I would have had to start from scratch - 0 songs!

Chocolate helps!!!

Thank you!

kisses

[Peter__]

If it ever happens again, the delete operation can be undone in the desktop client providing you realise at the time. Ctrl+z should undo any accidental delete.

[kainth]

Thanks Peter!

People have so many good ideas on this forum and this is one of them!

I confirm that action undoes track delete. However, it doesn't undo playlist delete.

Just to confirm, I didn't delete the playlist. (In doing so, you are asked to confirm delete which I didn't get). The playlist has just vanished without my action!

Thanks anyways

x