Getting and Playing Local Device Songs On Spotify

Summary

So your favorite song that you listen to ten times a day isn't available on Spotify, and now you are searching for a solution to your problem. You have found an article that will guide you in finding your music, getting it to your device, and adding it into a playlist upon Spotify. Each of these parts have alternate solutions. I'll try to point them out along the way.

Step 1: The Music

Many artist have their music available to purchase and download as MP3s. This is an excellent solution for your favorite song, as it supports the artist far more than listening to it on Spotify itself with a premium subscription. Bandcamp is a popular site for artist to sell their music on. Googlefu will be your friend in finding where, or perhaps if, your favorite artist has their beats available for purchase somewhere in an acceptable format. MP3 is a common standard that provides excellent quality within a reasonable data footprint, but other formats for probably valid. From this post, mp3, mp4, m4p, and FLAC are valid for playback. It notes that mp4 with video and m4a are not playable.

For demonstration purposes, if you don't have time to locate your favorite song, perhaps you would be interested in one of the following:
Hudson's Crimson
Wednesday's Wolves's Shake

There are probably other ways to get mp3s.

Step 2: Getting the File Onto the Device

The best solution is to make the purchase from the device that you want to play the mp3 from. That way, when you hit download after your payment, it arrives to the download folder of the destination. If the file is on a different device instead, things can get tricky.

• You might be able to dm yourself the file with a notes channel on your favorite communication app.
• If you have a file/web server, you probably aren't reading this help guide, but you could upload the file onto there, then download it onto your device.
• An SD card already in the device might be a valid destination for your file.

After the file is on the device, you should probably move it to a folder you plan to have your music on. For Android, there is a music folder that the operating system places on the root of the internal and external storage. Putting your file in there is a good choice, imo.

Step 3: Allowing Local File Playback

By default Spotify doesn't look at your local files for playable songs. This has to be enabled.

Android

In Spotify, get to a screen with your avatar in the top left of the app. For me, this is a big pink circle with a black A inside, as I haven't set my avatar in the app, and it picked a random color with the first letter of my username. Clicking this opens a menu. Go to Settings and privacy, then Apps and devices, and under Other devices is a toggle for Local audio files. After enabling this, you will have a Your Library playlist entry labeled Local Files. Click on that playlist, pull the screen down to see higher on the page, and type in the Find in playlist the name of the song you are interested in. From your new song, click the three dots and Add to playlist and select the playlist you want to hear that song on.

This song may appear greyed out or not appear at all on other devices. For each device you listen on, you'll need to add the song. Also, I've seen desktop have display issues when using local files on phone, but controlling the playback on desktop.

iOS

I imagine the instructions are the same, but I lack an iOS to check.

Desktop

In Spotify, there is a three dot menu in the top left. Click that, Edit -> Preferences..., and under Show songs from you'll need to Add a source folder that contains your song. Once you add a folder that has a file in it, a Local Files playlist will appear in Your Library.