Learn how you can enable Private Session in Spotify on its mobile and desktop apps to listen to music privately.
What is Spotify Private Session?
Just like you can follow artists on Spotify, other users can follow you on the platform.
What you listen to on Spotify is visible to people who follow you on this music streaming app. It’s shown in this “Friend activity” section of the Spotify app on computer.
However, if you don’t want others to know your listening activity, you can enable Private Session on Spotify. After this, embarrassing or heartbreaking songs or political diss tracks you listen to on Spotify aren’t visible to anyone.
How Spotify Private Session affects your music
Spotify constantly analyses what you listen to — songs, playlists, artists, genres, and more. Using this data, it recommends new music you might enjoy. Based on your music taste, it also makes playlists for you, such as:
- Daily Mixes
- Spotify Mixes (updated as frequently as you listen)
- Discover Weekly (updated every Monday)
- Release Radar (updated every Friday)
- On Repeat and Repeat Rewind (updated every five days)
But whatever you listen to in Private Session may not influence your Spotify recommendations, including the playlists Spotify automatically makes for you. As a result, you can also use Private Session to listen to a few random tracks that you don’t want to be a part of your recommendations.
Turn on Spotify Private Session in the app
- Open the Spotify app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone. We’re using an iPhone.
- Tap your profile picture from the top left corner of the Home tab.
- Go to Settings and privacy > Privacy & Social.
- Turn on the switch for Private session. You’ll now see “Private Session” at the bottom of the Spotify app. Additionally, you can also turn off Listening activity to stop sharing what you listen to with your Spotify followers.
Enable Spotify Private Session on your computer
- Open the Spotify desktop app and click your name from the top.
- Click Private session, and you’ll now see a lock icon next to your name.
You can also click your profile icon > Settings and enable Start a private session or Start a private session to listen anonymously.
Disable Spotify Private Session on mobile and computer
Follow the same steps to turn off Private Session. This will ensure your Spotify recommendations start becoming as personalized and meaningful as before.
Please note that according to Spotify, Private Session ends automatically after 6 hours or when you quit and reopen the app.
Related: How to hide tracks on Spotify you don’t want to hear (and unhide them if you change your mind)
What do to if you cannot enable Private Session in Spotify on iPhone?
When you use Spotify on your other device, some options become unavailable in the Spotify mobile app. The quickest way to fix this is by stopping Spotify on the other device. If this doesn’t help, quit the apps on both devices. After this, these grayed options should once again become active. You can now enable Private Session under Social settings in the mobile app.
An alternative to Spotify Private Session
If you do not want to use Private Session and still hide what you listen to, there’s a way to do that. For this, go to your Spotify Social settings (same steps as above) and turn off Listening activity or Share my listening activity on Spotify in the desktop app. Once you switch it off, what you listen to isn’t shared with your Spotify followers.
Similarly, for more privacy, you may also turn off Recently played artists, plus make your Spotify playlists private.
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