Accessing Family Plan Manager's Music and Playlists

[Solly316]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 8

Operating System

iOS

My Question or Issue

Hi, can all family plan members see and access the Family Plan Manager's (that's me) library and playlists? Can all members contribute to the library? We've spent years saving music and it makes no sense to have a family plan if the other members can't enjoy the library and playlists we've created with my account. 

[Emilia_8]

Hi @Solly316, 

Thank you for reaching out here in the Community!

You can always set your playlists to public: 

• Right-click the playlist (only for desktop) or click the three dots.
• Select Make Public to show it on your profile. 

Then other users can go to your Spotify profile and follow your playlists. 

If you don't want the playlists to be public, you can send playlist link to people you want to share it with. They will still be able to access that playlist, but it won't be public on your profile. 

There's an option to make a collaborative playlists as well.

If you're a member of a Family plan you can also enjoy Family Mix feature. It's a playlist that combines music you and the other members of your Family plan listen to. It comes preloaded with genres, artists, and songs you’ve all played on your own, and updates the more you play.

Here's more info on that. 

Let me know if you have any further questions!

[Solly316]

Thanks. I have a few questions still based on your note. 

1. We have been using my one account for several years. The Library has all the music in it. In a family plan why can't the "members" access and play the library? 

2. We have created several playlists. We all contribute to those playlists. In other words we each add / subtract to them. Can that still be the case with the family plan?

Thanks again

[Emilia_8]

Hi @Solly316, 

Premium Family is designed for up to 6 family members. 

Each member has their own Individual Premium account, so other members can't access your library as if it was theirs.

However, the members of your plan can still follow each other's playlists by taping the  icon - that means the playlists will appear in their libraries. And you can all follow the same artists and like the same songs and albums from your individual accounts. So you can make all of your libraries look the same. 

If you want all the members to be able to contribute to playlists on your account (and vice versa), you can set that playlist as a collaborative playlist - when the members of your plan will follow the playlists, they will be able to add, delete, and reorder the tracks.

If you want to read more on how Your Library works, check this Support article: https://support.spotify.com/article/what-is-your-music/?ref=related

Here's some info on Premium Family: https://support.spotify.com/account_payment_help/premium_for_family/premium-family/

And here you can learn how to make collaborative playlists: https://support.spotify.com/using_spotify/playlists/create-playlists-with-your-friends/

I hope it helps!

[Solly316]

Thx for that. How can someone quickly access all songs in the main library? You mention that is possible, but can it be done in bulk and quickly? If it's one by one, that's a long and painful process. 

[Emilia_8]

Hi @Solly316, 

The easiest way to share Liked Songs from Your Library is to put them all to a new playlist. I'ts better to do it on your desktop:

• Go to your Liked Songs, 
• Select the first one and then use keyboard shortcut to select all: Ctrl+A (Windows) or cmd+A (Mac). If you have many songs in your Liked Songs it might select all songs, you will have to click on the first one, then hold Shift and scroll down. 
• Once you have all songs selected, drag them to + New Playlist section in the bottom-left corner/above now playing. 

Then everyone can select all songs from this playlist, using their accounts, right-click on one of them and choose Save to your Liked Songs. That way all the songs will be in their libraries as well. 

You can use this method to like all songs in other playlists or in albums.

Albums and Artists you will have to follow separately.

Liking an album doesn’t automatically like all its songs. However, when you like  an album and you want to to like all songs in it, click the three dots on the album using your mobile app, then Like All Songs. On desktop you can select all and save the to library using right-click (as I explained above). 

Most likely, you won't have to like separate songs in albums if you already transfered the liked songs. 

I hope it helps 🙂

[Solly316]

A continued thanks. So, if I create a playlist of the Library (which is what you're recommending) and my family members get access to it, will we all be able to add to it and remove songs from it? That means my current Library will become stagnant, it will not automatically update as the new Library playlist is modified. Or will it remain dynamically updated? This should just be a metadata thing, but let me know.

Finally, we use Sonos connected to Spotify in the house. Currently, we use it with my Premium account. What happens when we switch it to the Family plan? Can other members use Sonos with their accounts or is Sonos only connected to just one account? 

[Emilia_8]

Hello @Solly316, 

If you set your playlist as a collaborative playlist, then all of you will be able to edit that playlist.  

However, likes are connected to a specific account, so if someone will like a new song on their account, it won't be automatically liked on the other accounts. 

When it comes to Sonos, you can still use it as a member of Premium Family. You can still use your account to do it, or you can add the other Premium Family members and everyone can use their own account with the same Sonos device. 

Here's a Sonos Support article on how to use multiple accounts for the same music service, in this case Spotify: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3624?language=en_US

Let me know if there's anything else I can help with!