So I think it's not entirely impossible to use gifs as playlist covers...

[Chrissel313]

While searching the internet on how to use gifs or animated pngs as playlist covers/profile pictures I came to an answer pretty fast: It doesn't work. Everywhere I looked it was the same answer:

Spotify only supports jpeg files. You can't animate a jpeg file as it won't support multiple layers and so on. Therefore you can only use static images.

But then I stumbled upon this playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/user/kentspotifyvip/playlist/4E5VH90ld1k2mjRT9xau85?si=An9JYMS9SKmcqTpQ2sQf...

This is so far the only playlist that uses an actual animated file. If there are more please let me know!

I've tried everything to somehow convert a gif I want to use to a file that spotify accepts.

Then I came across this profile which uses an animated profile picture:

https://open.spotify.com/user/possan?si=dT6TCIIVRpGtUix9X6DZ8Q

This got me thinking that there is a way to either trick spotify into thinking it's a jpeg while in reality it's some animated file or to completely bypass the file check.

All I want to do is using a gif for a playlist cover. Could anyone help me out? What do you think about those links I've posted? Do you got any other profiles/playlists that contain animations?

[JohnnyJohn]

Thanks, good to know.

[JOEANDTHEJUICE]

Bump

[jacksongrgec]

Bump

[Sebasty]

Hey guys

That's really interesting!

While I myself wouldn't go for using animations in playlist covers or profile images, it does make me interested in how they managed to bypass that.

This user with glitchy profile image is apparently a regular user (no "Verified" mark that artists would have) and their profile image is a giphy gif. The source image for their profile pic is a giphy url.
Normally it would be stored on either some Spotify servers or taken from facebook servers. You can't upload an url...

The playlist cover image seems as if it had been uploaded as a normal jpeg file, at least judging by the source address.

I guess there was a time where some users figured out how to manipulate Spotify file detectors and successfully use gif files. Judging by the number of such users and playlists present, it's now either made impossible or is a well-guarded secret. 🙂

(Spotify file detector is smart enough to reject gif files with jpeg as their extension)

[hannah_ao]

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Playlists-Upload-GIFs-as-Playlist-Covers/i...

[MadmanOnWheels]

I went to the playlist and both profiles. None of them show as animated, for me. I would love to know how to make it work, because I have a playlist starter that I could use it for, which is based on the idea of a particular gif file. It would help me discover songs in a particular genre, which I was inspired by that gif, to check out.

It's really silly for Spotify to deliberately reject files that could work as animated files (gif files with or without jpeg as the file type), especially when people have been asking this to be a feature. If it works, Spotify should let it be, and employees should just be concerned with the content of them, just like regular images.

[hannah_ao]

Vote here for this idea to be approved!

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Playlists-Upload-GIFs-as-Playlist-Covers/i...