Spotify is testing a new feature for simplifying offline music downloads

Streaming music online brings a lot of benefits like getting access to millions of songs, freeing up valuable space on your phone, and creating and sharing playlists with your friends. However, a downside to streaming is that as soon as you lose your internet connection, your music disappears as well. Spotify, one of the most popular music streaming platforms, is now testing a new feature that will simplify the process of downloading music for offline listening.

According to a tweet spotted by Android Central, Daniel Ek, Spotify's CEO, says the company is testing a feature called "Your Offline Mix." While there aren't many details available yet, such as a release date or specific workings, one thing is clear: it is “designed for those times when you might not be online.”

The concept behind this new feature is to allow you to enjoy your recently played music even when you're unexpectedly offline. The app will automatically download a mix of the songs you've recently listened to, so if you find yourself in airplane mode, in the middle of nowhere, or in a long, long tunnel, for instance, you'll still have something to listen to.

Based on an image shared on Twitter, we can assume the Offline Mix could be over three hours long, which provides plenty of listening time. However, it needs to be clarified how often these playlists will be downloaded or if they will be automatically deleted after a certain period. Otherwise, the app could become quite large. Just to give an idea, a playlist with 100 high-quality songs can use up to around 1GB of storage.

Right now, Spotify offers the option to download music for offline listening. While downloading an entire playlist is simple with just one button, downloading a single song can be a bit tricky and frustrating. You have to add the song to a playlist first and then download the entire playlist or add it to an already downloaded playlist.

With this new feature, Spotify aims to simplify things: a much-needed step to enhance user experience. Its competitor, YouTube Music, has been offering this feature to its premium subscribers for quite some time now. To remain a major player in the game Spotify needs to keep up with these updates.

Spotify boasts around half a billion users, and adding new features is a smart move, especially considering that only around 40% of Spotify users are premium subscribers. This new feature will likely only be available to premium users, which may help Spotify attract new paid subscriptions.