Issues Syncing Local Files Between Devices

[Reaokn]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy Tab S4, Lenovo Laptop

Operating System

iOS 13.1 Beta, Android OneUI, Windows 10 Pro

My Question or Issue

When attemping to download songs from Local Files on my computer on my phone or tablet, it's unable to be downloaded. I've tried online tutorials that involved downloading the playlist on both devices which I already have done and attempted again multiple times with no success. On my phone when I select learn more, I get a prompt which has steps to sync songs which doesn't work. I'll list them out since I don't want to transfer the image to my computer.
1. Connect this iPhone to the same WiFi as the computer.

2. Launch Spotify on the computer where this song is stored.

3. Mark the playlist containing this song for Offline Sync on your computer or on this iPhone.

4. Watch as your song magically appears on your iPhone.

This message didn't help me and when I tried it on my Samsung Tablet, I didn't get a prompt and the song refused to be selected unless it was currently playing music on the computer. I also tried then changing devices while it was playing the song I was trying to sync and it stopped playing music and once again there was no message. Does anyone have a fix for this? Thank you. 

I filed this under iOS because I can live with not having the song synced to my tablet. 

[AeroZ]

Hello.

Do the local files that you want to sync play on your computer? If yes, then:

1. On your computer add the local files that you want to sync onto your iPhone into a playlist

2. Make sure that your computer and iPhone are connected to the same wifi network (public wifi networks probably won't work)

3. On your iPhone open the playlist which includes the local files that you want to sync and flip the Download switch

[Syncingsucks]

This doesnt work at all he said that and that is the first thing everyone tries

[ZincCatalyst]

This does not work.

[beachdude42]

Yep not working for me either. Super frustrating.

[Jeremy]

Hi there @beachdude42,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community.

Just to be sure, have you followed the steps that's provided in this article?

Another useful step is to change the source folder of the local files on the pc. The steps are: Uninstall Spotify on both devices > create a new folder somewhere else on the pc and move the local files there > install Spotify again > remove any potential source folders and add the new one > download the playlist again.

If that doesn't do the trick - can you try the following:

• Add some songs from our catalogue to the playlist as well as the local file/s and make sure they have ‘Show unavailable songs in playlists’ turned on in Settings

• Play some music on the device that has the local files to see if it shows via Connect on the other device

• Make sure the router supports the Bonjour protocol. If the router is made after 2005, it will likely have this protocol. The best way to handle this is to check the router make/model and Google it

Keep us posted 🙂

Take care!

[jnspir3d]

for anyone still having trouble, there is a new option to turn on local file sync in home > settings > local files in the spotify app. don't know why that's an additional slider, if I add local files to a playlist AND tick the download slider it should just do it. I've used spotify for nearly a decade and this took me a while to figure out.