Spotify is making my private playlists public

[Josh125]

Plan

Premium

Country

Malaysia

Device

Samsung Galaxy S8+

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

Spotify keeps making my private playlists public. I make them private and listen to my music but later when I'm back on my account my playlists are public again. I've made my playlists private tens of times now and it's getting annoying at this point. Could someone help me with this issue please. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Alex · Accepted solution]

Hey @gabohuerta,

Thanks for the post.

As @Yordan has described above, there were some changes to how Playlist Privacy works on Spotify giving users more control over who sees and has access to their playlists.

Here is how it works:

• If a playlist is added to your Profile - it will be visible and accessible to other users who open your Spotify Profile. They can see and like the playlist (This was previously known as a Public playlist)
• If a playlist is marked as Public - it will not show on your profile by default, so users who open your Spotify Profile won't see it and won't be able to follow it, unless you specifically send them a link to the playlist (This was previously the Private Playlist)
• If a playlist is marked as Private - it will not show on your profile and users won't be able to follow it. You can still send a link to your friends, however the link will become inactive in 24h and they won't be able to access or follow the playlist after this time frame. This allows you to have more control over who follows your playlists and who can see the at all. 

Note that all your playlists that were previously set to Private, are still not added to your Profile and are not shown to other visiting your Profile.

We know it's a bit confusing with the naming, and we've passed this feedback on to the development team.

Hope this info clears things up.

[gabohuerta]

The confusion created by these changes has to be the product of either deception or incompetence. Completely counterintuitive. 

[Spotter9]

Hi guys, thanks for passing stuff on to the developers! Have a great day ANYWAY! 😊🌈

[andrewspectacular]

Hi it feels like a massive breach of trust here.  I had my setting to not make my playlists public only to find out today that they are. I've just had to spend an hour going through each one to make them private.  I didn't receive any notification that this had happened so what exactly is the point of having privacy options if they are not adhered to? What is the resolution going to be and why make this change anyway, people can choose if they want things public or not. Not happy Spotify.

[powah]

The option "remove from profile" is what I was looking for. Just got a bit confused after updates.

[amybillyelliott]

Hello, 

This still hasn't been fixed. I have made all my playlists 'private' and when I go to my profile it shows as over 50 of them as 'public' and displayed on my profile. 

I've been through every single one and made it private so why are they showing as public? Surely I don't have to go back through the hundreds of them again and select another option called 'remove from profile' it will take me hours. Surely private or public means only one thing and if 'private' is selected they shouldn't show as public. 

[ladyrox]

oops, sorry meant to post above this and can't delete 😞

[ladyrox]

Hey there Kiril, I would like to know why playlists that were once public, which I then made private, are still showing on someones account whom I've since blocked. Does this mean they can still listen to them? I would like to remove all access to my account for this person, but it seems like they can still listen to my musical selections even though they've been blocked and the playlists were made private ages ago. Any information / suggestions on why this is happening would be most appreciated. Thanks!

[DaddyThickShake]

Hello. I too am confused reading this thread. When I create a playlist, I almost always make sure I mark it as "private" as I don't like the playlists to be "public" until I feel they are complete, or far enough along to share with anyone who might be interested. I too am opening my home page and seeing LOTS of playlists that I have marked as private appearing under public playlists. I will ask a friend to take a look to see if he can see these playlists.  But, this "add to profile" and "remove from profile" step that I think (?) is necessary from what I read in this thread, seems a bit much to me. To me, private is private (only visible to me) and public is public (visible to anyone). I'd love to Spotify to make this part of the experience as simple as that. Please advise, thank you.  PLEASE NOTE: On playlists I'm seeing that I know I made private but are appearing as public, when I right click the choice says "make public." This makes no sense since they are appearing under PUBLIC PLAYLISTS. Further, there are 26 playlists of mine coming up under PUBLIC PLAYLISTS - and yet I've made public maybe four or five playlists. But, I've easily got 70/80 playlists, what determines this 20 or so being put under PUBLIC PLAYLISTS 

[johnzdebest]

Still not fixed. Still not responded to.

@Product Developers - Get off your asses and do your jobs. Use your brains.

[cainamaturo]

This is very confusing UX wise, it should be like YouTube, three options in one single setting. Public, unlisted and private.

[Jacob74]

The issue is still not fixed. My private playlists are repeatedly switched to public, and I have to manually set them to private again. It is very annoying and needs to be fixed.

[p8me]

This is absolutely unacceptable and frustrating. Suddenly making all the playlists public. I am so frustrated that I am considering other streaming services. AND thank you for removing the option for defaulting the new playlists to private.

This is exactly why software should be open source and everyone to be in control of their stuff.

Is spotify trying so hard to be the next facebook? well good job then, you're on your way.

[whisperDUH]

I have problems where my playlists are not public to others and there seen as private even though I made them for the public 😠