Local Files won't Sync on Mobile

[maybachnvrep22]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone X

Operating System

iOS 14 on mobile and Windows 10 on my PC

My Question or Issue

I have a playlist of local files on my Windows PC that I want to sync to my iPhone, but it will not work. The playlist consists of all .mp3 files I imported to the desktop app through the local files settings, and all the files play on desktop. When I try to sync to my iPhone, the playlist will appear, but will appear empty with 0 songs. Both devices are on the same network. I have tried logging out and in on both devices, restarting the application, and toggling all the settings involving local files, but nothing has worked. Any help is appreciated, thank you.

[Jeremy]

Hey there @maybachnvrep22,

Thank you for reaching out in the Community. We're happy to help.

To sync local files from one device to another, you must be actively logged in to both devices with Spotify open and on the same network

Local files can be turned on/off in the Settings menu.

Can you double-check that you've followed all of the support site steps correctly.

If that doesn't do the trick - can you try the following:

• Add some songs from our catalogue to the playlist as well as the local file/s and make sure they have ‘Show unavailable songs in playlists’ turned on in Settings

• Play some music on the device that has the local files to see if it shows via Connect on the other device

• Make sure the router supports the Bonjour protocol. If the router is made after 2005, it will likely have this protocol. The best way to handle this is to check the router make/model and Google it

Another useful step in is to change the source folder of the local files on the pc. The steps are: Uninstall Spotify on both devices > create a new folder somewhere else on the pc and move the local files there > install Spotify again > remove any potential source folders and add the new one > download the playlist again.

Keep us posted. We're always one reply away 🙂

Cheers!

[maybachnvrep22]

I tried all these methods and none of them worked.

[Eni]

Hey @maybachnvrep22, 

Thanks for getting back in touch. 

Could you let us know if the issue persists on a different phone too? We suggest that you try with a different one to see if the issue is device-related. 

Also, we recommend trying with a different network, for example creating a hot spot on your phone and using that - if that's possible.

Lastly, we suggest that you make sure the OS of your device is up-to-date.

Let us know how it goes!

[maybachnvrep22]

Hello,

I tried syncing on my backup Android phone and it worked. How do I get this
to work on my iPhone?

[CarlosE]

Hey @maybachnvrep22,

Thanks for keeping in touch.

To sync your Local Files to your iPhone you just need to follow the steps here. We also recommend checking this Spotify Answer for more info and tips on how to play your Local Files.

Make sure that your iPhone has total access to your local network and there aren't any blockers, like battery optimization or task killing apps enabled.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[charzon]

I finally found an actual solution for anybody who stumbles upon this in the future, since Spotify doesn't seem to really care about this feature.

Make sure your PC is discoverable on your network, otherwise your phone can't see it. On Windows 10, click the WiFi icon in the taskbar, right click your network, click Properties, then check "Private" under Network profile. 

If this doesn't work, turn on your phone's hotspot, connect your PC to it, and follow the same steps. This immediately triggered the download for me.

[user-removed]

thank you so much!!!

[Anthonymeyerx]

i wish i could say that this worked for me 😞

[CurryPlug]

If you have two different bandwidths (eg 2g or 5g) try both of them because it didn't work on my 2g connection but worked on my 5g connection

[hi178]

---

@charzon wrote:

I finally found an actual solution for anybody who stumbles upon this in the future, since Spotify doesn't seem to really care about this feature.

Make sure your PC is discoverable on your network, otherwise your phone can't see it. On Windows 10, click the WiFi icon in the taskbar, right click your network, click Properties, then check "Private" under Network profile. 

If this doesn't work, turn on your phone's hotspot, connect your PC to it, and follow the same steps. This immediately triggered the download for me.

---

This should be the accepted answer! That was the solution for me.

[morechaos]

I recently synced some more local files to my phone and they were working fine. After like a few hours I came back to my playlist with the local files and only a part of them was greyed out. I resynced them from my computer but the same thing happened again. The greyed out ones are under the same album name if that helps.