**bleep**’s guide to syncing playlists between devices – please!

[CarterUSM]

Hi

I have a very simple wish, namely all I want to do is to sync the Spotify playlists on my PC with those on my IPad. My motivation for doing this is that, rather than having to switch on the PC to stream music to my Bluetooth speaker, I’d much rather do it using the more user-friendly and compact tablet.

Upon performing a Google search, there appear to be several different threads suggesting different courses of action. Can anyone offer me a simple guide on how to perform what I’d hoped would be an easy procedure, or alternatively point me in the direction of what they believe to be the best, most understandable discussion on the subject?

In addition, I’d like to backup my Spotify playlists to USB, a CD or an external hard drive, just to give me some piece of mind.  (Ideally I’d have liked to have been able to back them up to ICloud but I believe this isn’t possible).  I understand that as all Spotify data files are encrypted, copying files to USB/CD isn’t possible, but Sidify offer a tool which can convert them to MP3 or other formats. Is the Sidify tool the best means of doing this, or are there alternatives available?

(I also came across a thread which stated that another way of circumventing the Spotify encryption issue is to copy playlists to ITunes – but what if some songs on my Spotify playlists aren’t available (i.e. can’t be purchased) on ITunes – would this be a problem? I’d prefer to keep most of my music within Spotify for this reason.)

Apologies for the lengthy thread and many thanks in anticipation of your help.

[landonharris88]

The thing to keep in mind with issues like this is the nature of the spotify platform. Unlike many other streaming services, spotify keeps your playlists, music, radio stations, etc on their servers rather than only on your device. As a result, any device signed into the same spotify account should have access to all of your playlists and music. If you're having issues with syncing between devices, make sure that you are:

1. logged into the same spotify account on all of your devices
2. all of your devices have access to the internet
3. you are on the most recent version of the app on all of your devices

Since all Spotify information is located in their servers, there is no need to back up your playlists, they will always be securely stored on their servers! If you do happen to accidentally delete a playlist, or one of them disappears, there is away to recover them! 

As a result of the music liscences that Spotify has with other artists, it is currently not possible to download spotify music as an mp3. The tools you've found online are not officially supported by spotify, and are sourcing outside databases for songs that match the information provided when you connect your spotify account to them (song name, artist, album, etc). 

[CarterUSM]

Many thanks for your reply and apologies for the delay in replying.

What really prompted my initial posting was an unfortunate occurrence after routine PC maintenance last year. I’d previously exported all of my iTunes playlists over to Spotify; unfortunately, after the maintenance, most of the songs had disappeared from the lists exported to Spotify (mostly the tracks I’d ripped from CD’s, many of which I’ve now sold). I’ve painstakingly managed to recreate most of the playlists within Spotify. Hence my enquiry about the ability to back up playlists from Spotify.

Now that I’ve reconstructed the playlists I’d imported from iTunes, do you know if it’s possible to create copies which are independent from those held within the iTunes app on my PC? (such that if there’s a recurrence of the issue, these playlists won’t be affected by the break in the link between iTunes and Spotify as they were previously).

Upon further consideration I’ve decided it’s not a particularly good idea to stream Spotify from a tablet owing to its severely limited memory (compared to PC/laptops). Bearing in mind cloud backup isn’t an option, in future I think I’ll buy a laptop with a decent hard drive capacity, install the app, and stream from that instead. Do you have any thoughts on my proposed course of action?

Once again, many thanks in anticipation of your help.

PS. not sure how Spotify could take offence to a term in the thread title which is often used to describe a fool, but there you go.....