Apple watch shows more playlists as downloaded than are available

[pasvadin]

I use my apple watch for sport where I don't want to carry around my phone with me. That's why I download playlists in spotify.

Whenever I use spotify on the watch it feels like the downloaded playlists change. 

Even though it says that 8 playlists are downloaded, when I set the filter for "downloaded" I only get 4 playlists shown. 

I then have to find the playlists that I had downloaded, and re-download them. They are still shown as downloaded, but not shown under the "downloaded" filter.

Only after a while the playlists that I downloaded to the watch are shown again. 

It feels like spotify automatically cleans up but I haven't figured out by what logic. 

What causes this and how can I prevent it? 

Plan

Premium Family 

Country

Germany

Device

Apple watch ultra 

Operating System

WatchOS 9.6.1

My Question or Issue

[Eni]

Hey there @pasvadin, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this and welcome to the Community. 

This can happen if your downloads have reached the limit on your watch (100 downloads per playlist or more than 10 hours). For more info, take a look at this article. 

If that's not the case, we suggest that you perform a clean reinstall of the app on your iPhone. Also, sure to reinstall the app on your watch as well. 

Let us know how it goes.

[pasvadin]

Hi Eni,

thanks for your quick response. 

I have a few follow-up questions:

Your attached link states: "You can download at least 10 hours". In your response you point out that downloads can disappear when passing the 10 hour limit. Shouldn't there be some kind of warning in the app ("You have downloaded more than 10 hours of content, at this point playlists might disappear randomly")?
What does "100 downloads per playlist" mean? Typically I would only download a playlist once, unless the download disappears and I have to download it again. Does it mean that each playlist has to have less than 100 songs? I do see the number of songs on the watch but don't find this information on the phone. Typically I download playlists to the watch from the phone. There I could use the information whether the playlist is compatible with the watch. 

Best Regards,

Nikolai

[Alex]

Hi there @pasvadin,

Thanks for the post. 

I thought I'd jump in here to clarify.

You can download up to 100 songs from a playlist. If a playlist has more than 100 songs, not the whole playlist will be downloaded. 

Depending on your watch model, you can download around 10 hours worth of music, on some older watches that might be less, and on some newer ones that will be more. It all depends on the length of individual tracks and the watch model.

In other words, if you're trying to download big playlists on your watch, the app will automatically manage space on the device and that's why you're most likely not seeing your full downloads.

Cheers.

[pasvadin · Accepted solution]

Thank you very much for your input.

I guess I have to accept your answers as an explanation, although they are far from a solution. The current behavior of the app is not user friendly and causes a lot of frustration.

Just to summarize it:
Spotify defines limits for the amount of content that can be stored on the apple watch that can only be found in the documentation. The actual parameters are approximations and also dependent on the available hardware. For example spotify uses 13MB out of 32GB on my watch.

If these parameters are exceeded the app decides which content to delete. From what I could see the logic behind this deletion is random.

There is no communication to the user.

There is no way to prioritize content.

There is no information how much "free space" is still available for content. 

The only "solution" I see is picking your favorite playlist and just having that one saved to the watch.