Spotify is probably the single most used application to stream music around the world.
With the Spotify app, you are able to add songs to your library so that you don’t have to search for them over and over again. For Spotify Premium users, you can even download the songs that you have added to your library for offline listening.
The Spotify catalogue is vast with over 30 million songs so far, and is still constantly expanding as new tracks continue to be released.
That begs the question, with millions of songs available at your fingertips, how many can you actually have in your library at any one time?
The Spotify Library Limit
The answer is – 10,000 songs.
That’s how many you can have in your library under “Your Music”, and for many years, this has been seen as a point of contention for users. For years, the internet has called on Spotify to scrap this limit, and this is a well-discussed issue in many tech portals, forums, and even in Spotify’s own support forums.
But Spotify is defending its decision to uphold this limit.
In a well-documented thread in its support forums that started way back in 2014, here’s Spotify’s official response:
“At the moment we don’t have plans to extend the Your Music limit. The reason is because less than 1% of users reach it. The current limit ensures a great experience for 99% of users instead of an “OK” experience for 100%.”
So what happens when you do hit the limit? You will simply get the following message, “Epic collection, friend. There’s no more room in Your Library. To save more, you’ll need to remove some songs or albums.”
Offline Downloads Have A Separate Limit
However, that 10,000 song limit is only applicable to the tracks you saved under “Your Music” for online listening.
If you are on Spotify Premium and hope to download all of those 10,000 songs for offline listening – tough luck. That’s because Spotify is limiting you to only about a third of them on one device for up to three devices.
Officially, you are only allowed to download 3,333 tracks per device, for a grand total 9,999 tracks in three different devices – one shy of that magical 10,000.
So, if you are just surviving on your smartphone, you will have to live with a third of your song library.
The Argument For Removing That Cap
Derek Mead of Motherboard wrote a considerably persuasive argument as to why Spotify should reconsider that track limit in order for the company to grow.
Fresh off its billion dollar funding last year, many were excited at what Spotify would bring to its music streaming service. But there were also those who first wanted prevalent issues solved – and the track limit was thrust into the spotlight once again.
Like most of us, Derek is a paying member who has a Spotify Premium account. Unfortunately, he belongs to that 1% of users Spotify was talking about, who have hit 9,999 songs in his library.
He laments that because Spotify has grown into a position of dominance, current users of its services might suffer in the long term because Spotify simply refuses to fix simple issues like that track limit.
Chris Welch of The Verge just last week also joined the 1% club, as he also shared his take on why Spotify should make the change.
For him, Spotify should listen to the hardcore users of its service, because the reality is that a 10,000 limit isn’t quite enough for a lifetime of songs if they expect users to use it through their lives – and all it takes for Spotify is a little engineering work.
But It Won’t Matter To Everyone Else
On the other side of the coin, I guess it’s obvious why Spotify won’t budge on this issue – because it simply isn’t affecting a significant enough of users for them to actually make the change.
Just look at anyone around you right now, chances are, you won’t find anyone who is anywhere near the 10,000 song limit.
While it is worrying that a company is not paying attention to 100% of its users, just making the larger majority happy with new features and song selections makes more business sense.
Either way, Spotify sits atop the music streaming throne and people will still continue to use it regardless.
In the mean time, the company is gearing up for its planned expansion into Vietnam and Thailand after recently settling a class action suit.
