Do you need to turn on "Available Offline" in Songs, Albums AND Artists?

[Itslotus99]

Hi there.  I'm sorry to say this, but those manning the support emails are not much help, just copying and pasting generic replies related to Listening Offline, when I have asked specific questions.  So I gave up after trying twice, and hopefully someone here can help me.

Here was my email in, and the replies (redacted for the pertinent info) I got from two different agents.  First one told me to just uninstall and reinstall the app.  Wow, the effort that took them to diagnose my issue.  Second one gave me a link to the standard How to listen offline page.  Wow again.

Is there anyone who can address my specifc questions?  🙂  I've got an iPhone 5 I'm using this on, with a Premium membership.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

Hi, I've tried to Save some albums so I can listen to them offline when I'm on vacation.  So I first Saved an album (Legend by Bob Marley), then found it in Your Music, and then under Albums, I checked the Available Offline button.

But then when I go to that album's Artist (Bob Marley) in Your Music, I see the Available Offline button is not on.  Why is that?  Do I need to manually turn it on everywhere to listen offline?  I mean, in Songs, Albums, and Artists?  Seems like a lot of duplication of work... 

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REPLY 1:

Hello,
 
Thanks for getting in touch.
 
I'm sorry to hear you’re having trouble with the app. Let’s try a quick reinstall to get it fixed.
 
Juan

Spotify Customer Support

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REPLY 2:

Hello,

I'm Edwin and I'll be helping you from here.

Sorry to hear you're having issues using the offline option. Lets go ahead an make sure you're following the appropriate steps. Please access to the following, locate your device and follow the steps.

https://support.spotify.com/us/learn-more/guides/#!/article/Listen-offline/

Let me know how it goes. If you have any additional questions, remember I'm just a few clicks away 😉

Edwin ♫

[MattSuda · Accepted solution]

It doesn't matter where you download them for offline use. You can do both if you want to.

The difference between making an "album" and "artist" available offline:

When you make an album available offline, only that album from that artist will be downloaded.

When you make an "artist" available offline, it will download every single song you have saved by that artist, and it will automatically download any other song by that artist you save in the future.

To tell if the song is downloaded for offline use, there will be a green arrow symbol next to it when it is done downloading:

When you see this green arrow next to a song, you will know that you can listen to it offline. 

Hopefully that explains it.

If you still need help just reply back.

[Itslotus99]

Thank you Matt!  That's the answer I was looking for.  Sounds like then if I was going to check off just one, the Artist one might be more comprehensive, than the Album one.

PS  I nominate you to lead the Support Department!  😄

I hope Spotify staff / managers read these threads, and talk to their staff.

[MattSuda]

You're welcome!

It's actually my dream to work at Spotify one day, that's why I help out here.

My Spotify Dream

Enjoy using Spotify! 😃

[MattSuda]

Also I have forwarded this thread to Spotify so they can take a look at your feedback for the support team.

I apologize that the support team gave you such poor quality answers!

Enjoy using Spotify!

[Itslotus99]

Thanks!  Great to see everyone do their part to help out.

It's too bad so often (and I'm guessing here, but I can't imagine it's different) support people seem to just read one word in your question (Offline in my case), and quickly just cut and paste the first link in the FAQ section relating to it, without spending just a few minutes to actually read the question and respond to it.  I don't think any language barriers here were the issue.  Perhaps they're in too much of a rush to bang off support answers and close them...

If you read the correspondence I've had, it's pretty sad.  I actually wrote this in reply to the first support person Juan, and when I got the second reply from Edwin, you can see none of it addressed a single thing in my reply to Juan, or my original query (and the email thread was missing too):

Hello Juan. thank you for the reply. For some reason your reply does not include my original email which I have pasted below. Please make sure in your reply you do not delete the email thread

Before I uninstall the app can you please confirm that you have read my specific scenario in detail and are not giving me (it certainly sounds like) a generic response to "having issues playing music offline"?

Nothing in your reply actually addresses my specific questions about how the Available Offline button is supposed to work. 

.

.

.

What good would Uninstalling the app have done?  Nothing.  And wasted my time and deleted a bunch of my saved playlists, etc. from what I understand.  So they actually would have done more harm with their advice than helping, had I just blindly followed his advice even.

[Itslotus99]

PS  So many top companies like Google, Amazon, etc. that I've dealt with, follow up support queries with a Feedback / Survey / How did we do thing, which I think would be awesome if Spotify implemented, as part of their Customer Care efforts.  (hint hint)  😄

[MattSuda]

When I first started using Spotify back in 2011, I know they had a survery after I contacted support.

I think they still send out a link to a survey, but I'm not 100% sure since I have no need to contact support. I know pretty much eveyrthing about Spotify now, except if they send out surveys haha.

[TheKingLives]

This confused me as well, but you only need to turn on the Available Offline button under your Your Music --> Songs list. If that one is highlighted, every album/song you save will be saved for offline listening, even if the album's Available Offline button is not highlighted.