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How to shuffle on Spotify
Learning how to shuffle your songs and playlists on the platform is incredibly useful when you don’t want to listen to music in the same order over and over again. It allows you to decontextualize your listening experience in a way that allows you to listen to something, even if you don’t know what you want to listen to. Let’s go over how to shuffle on Spotify.
THE SHORT ANSWER
To turn on shuffle on Spotify, start playing music. Open the song into fullscreen by tapping its name bar at the bottom. The playback tray should consist of Shuffle, Previous, Play/Pause, Next, and Repeat. Press the shuffle button once, so it turns green, and a dot appears underneath the woven arrows.
KEY SECTIONS
How to shuffle songs on the Spotify mobile app
To shuffle on the mobile Spotify application, you must be a Spotify Premium subscriber. If you’re curious about the cost, check out our article on how much Spotify Premium costs.
- Start playing music on the app.
- Tap the name of the song in the bar that appears along the bottom of the screen to access the full-screen view of the current song.
- In the media controls, press the shuffle button. It’s represented by two interwoven arrows. The shuffle button is typically located on the opposite side of the Spotify repeat button.
Shuffle options on Spotify mobile app
- To activate the shuffle function, press the shuffle button once. Subsequent songs will begin playing randomly.
- To activate the smart shuffle function, press the shuffle button again. This option will play recommendations, that match your current mood, randomly.
- To deactivate the shuffle function, press the shuffle button one more time.
How to shuffle songs on Spotify on desktop
- Start by playing music in the Spotify desktop app or web player.
- Look for the shuffle button in the media controls at the bottom of the app. The shuffle button typically looks like two interwoven arrows.
- Click on the shuffle button.
FAQs
Yes, but only on desktop. The Spotify desktop client allows you to play music in the order you want, even if you’re a free user. If you want to reshuffle playlists and songs on the mobile app for Android and iOS, you must be a premium member.
If you are a Spotify Premium subscriber, the shuffle button is in the media controls next to play, forward, back, and repeat. If you are using Spotify Free, then you do not get a shuffle button. ALL music is played on shuffle automatically on Spotify Free, and there is no way to turn it off. As such, there is no shuffle button.