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Spotify introduced a new feature today called Offline Backup. This feature for premium users is essentially a list of songs you recently listened to and that you can consume offline. It updates automatically based on your listening history.
Paid users can already download songs for offline consumption. But Spotify wants to give them more songs for offline playback by leveraging the local cache on your device of recently streamed tracks along with some songs in your now playing queue.
While the list is not personalized through algorithms, you can filter it by artist, mood, and even genre.
The list will appear only when you have enabled offline listening and have streamed more than five songs recently. You can tweak offline listening settings through Settings and privacy > Storage > Offline listening and Settings and privacy > Playback > Offline toggles.
Spotify said the Offline Backup playlist will automatically appear on the home screen when you are not connected to the internet. Alternatively, you can also add the list to your library for easier access.
Notably, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said last year that the company was testing a feature called “Offline Mix.” However, it is unclear if Spotify ever rolled out that feature to all users. Offline Backup could also be the new iteration of the Offline Mix feature.
Rival service YouTube Music, already has an “Offline mixtape” feature along with an option to auto-download liked music. What’s more, the Google-owned service can automatically download up to 500 songs in different playlists if users turn on the “Smart download” functionality.
Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web. You can reach out to him at im[at]ivanmehta[dot]com
