Shuffle All Albums (Songs) from Library / Library Issues after big update last year

[NikoPikoNiko]

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So after the big library interface UX update last year, I'm still recovering from the utter obliteration of my library's organization from that changeover. I'm still incredibly upset by it, and I think the new library organization/browsing navigation is a complete disaster, especially to anyone who previously had a well manicured library. Suddenly "Artist" section doesn't correlate with the albums or songs you liked, but rather only the artist you "follow." (I don't "follow" artist in Spotify, so this feature isn't helpful to me, but why doesn't Spotify just make a dedicated "Following" tab in the Library navigation?)  So, no way of browsing my saved library by Artist anymore. Sure, I can sort the albums by artist, which Ive accepted, even though it still drives me crazy. To add insult to injury, the albums that I've already liked don't/didn't automatically add the individual songs from the album to the "songs" section of my library, so you wont see the songs from an already saved album in the "songs" section either. You have to now individually add each song from the entire album you've already liked to have them appear in "songs." For me that would be over 10,000 individual song likes that I'd have to get through. What a joke! No on has time for that. Which brings me to my main issue: since the core of my library that remained intact seems to only be browsable in "Albums," there is no way to currently shuffle my entire library. As far as I can see there is NOT AN OPTION TO SHUFFLE ALL ALBUMS (or in other words: shuffle all songs from your saved albums).  Why?... I have no idea. Seems the only place in which you can shuffle your entire library is if you've individually went back and liked every song from every album in your library so they once again appear in "Songs," like they used to before the update. I'm incredibly dumbfounded with Spotify not considering how disastrous their update would be to peoples existing libraries after the upgrade. So in short: Songs, Albums, and Artists do not correlate with each other in the slightest. Anyone else incredibly frustrated with this? PLEASE, if anyone has any tips as to how to gain this entire library shuffle functionality back while not having to individually like over 10,000 songs from my already saved albums, please let me know. Thanks, in advance

[OneByBoo]

Hi there @NikoPikoNiko,

thanks for reaching out to the community !

I was able to find 2 live ideas regarding the main changes you've mentioned.

Please make sure to add your +VOTE to each one of them, here and here.

In addition, subscribing to these idea threads will keep you posted on any changes the might happen in the future.

Hope this helps.

Let me know if you have any further questions 🙂

[NikoPikoNiko]

Thanks, but neither of these links really address the issue. I know they've now allowed for more than 10,000 songs, thats not the issue. The issue is the existing albums I've liked don't automatically add their respective songs to the "Song" library, the only place I see an options to shuffle potentially all of your saved music. So I'd still have to manually add/like every song from every album I've already saved to use that feature. The second link for a global shuffle is certainly closer, but the suggestion doesn't seem to include "Albums," where a majority of my music is saved to. And again, I dont "follow" artists, I simply save an album I like, so I'm not interested in that functionality either, but I imagine if they can implement it there, then they are one step away from adding a shuffle feature to the "Albums" library. Thanks all the same.

[sidewinder03]

Very well said, NikoPikoNiko. I've been having various issues with how my library is organized over the last year and trying to wrap my head around what the fundamental changes were. One thing I'd been wondering is why songs from albums I had saved (or "liked" now), whose songs were part of my Liked Songs list, were not being removed from that list when I un-liked/unsaved the album. I just read an 11-page thread on the subject and finally understand, but you'd summarized the issues very well here. 

The ultimate problem coming out of the changes is that a user that manages their library by saving albums no longer has a way to shuffle their library, and it's pretty infuriating. Sure, I could clear my mucked up Liked Songs playlist and then add all the songs from my saved albums to it (sounds tedious even with workarounds), but I regularly save and unsave albums so I'd have to manually save and unsave the respective songs from my Liked Songs every time. That's a huge pain in the ass and fundamentally changed the purpose of that list. 

Saving and Liking should have never been combined as they are two completely different mindsets or actions.

This shuffle problem could be solved by once again separating Saved songs from Liked songs (and including a Shuffle option for the Saved songs), or adding a Shuffle option at the albums list level. On desktop, it's possible to shuffle all playlists within a folder, I imagine it would work similarly to that. But I'd love a mobile solution too.

[NikoPikoNiko]

Thanks Sidewinder03! Glad to hear I'm not alone with this frustration. I've added all this to the "ideas" section too, as well as voted on other posts that are related. I guess that's as much as we can do. Not sure if it will actually gain traction since their unrealistic voting system seems to determine whether or not they actually do something about it. I'm a bit surprised more people haven't reached out about this. My guess is that most people wont take the time to dig through the community pages (or even know it exists) and even though they are frustrated, they don't know how to articulate the issue and just accept the new platform at face value. Luckily I'm a musicphile and have used Spotify for quite a while. I've seen a ton of updates over the years, most of them good. But this Library situation is just a mess. Makes no logical sense. Plain and simple. 

[steven1022]

New user here, came from Apple Music

I wont be renewing after free trial. This is a mind blowing gap in the functionality of a music provider in my opinion. Having to micro manage both your songs list and albums because you want to shuffle is crazy

No option to add multiple albums at once to a playlist?

Very surprised to see Spotify is a 14 y/o company with these gaps in its feature set

[chipples]

Totally agree with everything said here, I don't understand the rationale for the library changes at all, and it's messed up things for me a treat. It's enough to consider a different service.

[DaveB222]

I couldn’t agree more. This is a very poor design decision and has seriously reduced the user experience. I’ve lived with this now for a number of months mainly because I don’t want to start from scratch building my library back up on another service but I’ve finally come to the decision through frustration that it’s the better option. 

[Sirjury]

There's no way we are the only people annoyed and infuriated by this.   Such a common shuffle that people have done ever since the first ipod arrived.   Sometimes I want to listen to my favorite albums shuffled, sometimes I want to hear the best of the best, aka my 'liked' songs.   

I ride around on a motorcycle.  I am unable to select an artist when I want to randomly hear them.   Give me the shuffle option.

[Jeremy]

Hey there folks,

Thank you for your posts and feedback in this thread.

We're always testing things by adding or removing features to make Spotify better overall. We’re sorry that this means you’re not able to use Spotify like you wish to do at the moment.
 

You can read more about how your feedback reach Spotify here.

If you have any questions we're always one reply away.

[Youweiparra]

well, this can explain why i can't shuffle albums yet.
i'd love this feature to exist, it would make albums so versatile, and make them a useful part of your spotify experience.

as someone who first started listening to music on spotify, i've never usually noted the existence of albums. so to have this small feature, is just a blessing to revitalise the album prevalence

[kristal17]

You have taken the thoughts out of my head about this. I cannot believe this feature got removed and we are supposed to be grateful for this liked songs replacement bs instead.

[Mediocretes_]

I don’t understand the point of liking an album if you can’t play it from your library. The lack of this feature really puts a damper on my opinion of the Spotify app. It doesn’t seem like something complicated to add. If I wanted to listen to an individual album, I would just go to the artist’s page. Big disappointment, Spotify,

[Pyramidion]

We need a button that shuffles through songs of all saved albums. I'm literally going to switch to Apple Music if this does not get integrated/reversed soon.

[Isolated_1]

it's now august 2022, i'm starting to believe that spotify just likes to changes things up for the sake of changing things up without any clear reason. users complain and a spotify employee will say that they are taking your suggestions/opinions into consideration and that they are sorry for what happened.

however, we all know they won't be changing anything. not being able to randomly play all songs in my saved album list is the most stupid thing ever.

[JA1950]

I am a new spotify user who has finally burned out my ipod classic with the 40k songs i had on it and was hoping to be able build a library on spotify and shuffle all as i was used to doing. i can see now that probably going to happen. if i cn't get a solution to this before my free trial is over i'll not be continuing and have to find another answer to my problem. i have 226g. of music on my laptop that i would like to be able to remotely access. thanks, grayowl

[ranezu]

I've created a way to shuffle your Spotify albums:

(link removed - please check the Community guidelines)

Just add all your favorite albums to your Spotify library, go to link above, click the blue button a couple of times and randomly selected albums magically appear in your Spotify play queue 🙂 Please give it a go and let me know what you think!

[Sirjury]

I really appreciate the fact that you have created a way to do this-

But this should already be an option from the app itself, they shouldn't
need community development, or they should pay community members who
created requested features.

[haywire727-ca]

I'll add my name to the disbelief that this has been going on for years.  Spotify must be the only media player/streamer that you can't shuffle songs from album list.  This would be a deal breaker but I need spotify connect to use with my google speakers.  At least let 3rd party apps use the API and make a proper media player.  Thanks spotify for making album art bigger.

[Isolated_1]

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@haywire727-ca wrote:

I'll add my name to the disbelief that this has been going on for years.  Spotify must be the only media player/streamer that you can't shuffle songs from album list.  This would be a deal breaker but I need spotify connect to use with my google speakers.  At least let 3rd party apps use the API and make a proper media player.  Thanks spotify for making album art bigger.

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LOL..it is now july 2023 and this feature is STILL not available but like above mentioned, thank you so MUCH for not only making album art bigger but putting plastering artist info all over the place. yes, that was sarcasm.