2024/10: What does hiding a song in my playlist do?

[AlexQuinn]

Plan: Premium

Country: USA

Device: Motorola, Moto-G-Power (2021) Unlocked, (Using T-Mobile)

Operating System: Android 11

My Question or Issue: 

TLDR: How does hiding songs on a playlist effect it?

Greetings all,

    I searched for my issue in both FAQs that I found, and searched the questions forum for posts containing "playlist" AND "hid" without finding my issue. If this topic is already answered (after the hiding feature was updated), I apologize, and would appreciate a suggestion for how to find what I seek the next time I have an inquiry.

        I use the “hide song” feature more than any other, but I’ve noticed my playlists tend to favor genres that appear most frequently, as-if hidden songs were considered. For example, I hid a lot of rap songs from a metal playlist but continued receiving rap suggestions until I hid the metal songs as well. Now, it mostly suggests metal, even though the majority of tracks are rap/electronic. Since I hide songs for various essential reasons, I’m concerned that I may be dooming my playlists rather than fine-tuning them as intended. Could you clarify what hiding songs actually does so I can ensure I'm tuning my playlists effectively?

TLDR; How does hiding songs on a playlist effect it?

Thank you so much for your time/concern, and stay jammin' everyone!

Sincerely, 

        -Alex Quinn M.

[Yordan]

Hi there @AlexQuinn,

Thanks for reaching out!

The Hide song feature prevents the song in question from playing in the specific playlist/album: the next time it comes up in the queue, the app will automatically skip over it and play the next one instead. In essence, the stuff you play and actually listen to determines the algorithm's recommendations, so by hiding songs you are technically preventing them from affecting it, but its functionality does not extend beyond that point.

Note: the Hide song feature only affects the specific device and playlist/album at the moment, but there's a live idea about making it sync across all devices and playlists/albums, which you may find interesting, so feel free to check it out and show your support, if you haven't already.

Remove recommendation (which shares the same (-) button) is found in your personal playlists where Smart Shuffle is toggled on. Using it will tell the app that this recommendation doesn't suit you and will help tailor the suggestions to your personal taste.

You can find more info on how to improve the recommendations you get from Spotify in this article.

Hope this info was helpful. The Community is always here if there's anything else we can assist with.

Cheers 🤘

[AlexQuinn]

Greetings @Yordan,

Thanks for the info!

Firstly, I'd like to say that your reply was one of the most comprehensive responses I have ever received. I genuinely appreciate it. You even answered what my follow up questions probably would've been! Unfortunately, I have 1 more. Is there a way to remove hidden songs incase they are the reason my phone is struggling at times? I think it might be why some of my recommendations that I get frequently are not playing, even when I click on them, so I receive less recommendations overall.

Thank you greatly for your time and have a wonderful day!

[Yordan]

Hey again @AlexQuinn,

My pleasure 😎 And thank you for the kind words 💚

Yep, you can undo hidden songs anytime by heading to the specific playlist/album. The hidden songs are indicated with a (-) sign: tap on it to unhide the track, or do it from the three dots menu.

In case you meant the recommendations from Smart Shuffle, a pop-up will appear upon pressing the (-) Remove recommendation button with the option to undo the action, but note that it'll stay there only for a short moment before disappearing.

As someone who predominantly listens to metal when by himself, but also enjoys playing old-school hip hop and 2000s pop on get togethers, I've honestly never had Spotify mix-up the genres in my playlists. I keep my recommendations metal by utilizing the Exclude from taste profile and Private Session features. I go a bit more in-depth on those + a few other alternatives in this post, feel free to check it out if you're interested.

The Community is just a post away if you need assistance with anything.

Take care 🤘

[AlexQuinn]

Greetings @Yordan!

Thank you very much! Unfortunately, when hiding songs, I often do it to songs that aren't on the playlist. After removing a song from a playlist, it gives the option to hide it in that playlist. While I don't know what this does, I have had recommended songs skipped continually and think that may be a result of hiding songs that aren't on the playlist. If-so, I want to know how I can be sure there isn't anything hidden on the list that is causing problems.

Thank you for your time and have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

        -Alex Quinn M.

Business Advisor/Software Architect

[Yordan]

Hey there @AlexQuinn,

Thanks for the clarification!

In that case I'd recommend copying over the contents of the playlist into a new fresh one: this will reset any recommended songs you might have hidden in the previous playlist. You can do the three dots menu > Add to other playlist > New playlist.

Hope this helps 👍