This Spotify feature is Android-only, and it’s a game-changer

It’s a rare day when you find a popular app and realize it has Android-specific features that don’t, or even can’t, exist on iOS. Most apps and services aim for feature parity between the two platforms, and when they don’t, it’s often iPhones that win, not Android phones — sadly.

But that’s not the case with one particular Spotify feature that only exists on Android because it could technically only exist on Android: App shortcuts. I’m specifically talking about the ability to make unlimited home screen app shortcuts for any Spotify artist or album. Let me walk you through it.

Create home screen shortcuts for your artists and playlists

This is my favorite little-known Spotify trick. If you’re obsessed with an artist or a playlist and want to open their page immediately, without first opening Spotify or relying on an algorithm-based widget that may or may not show you what you want, then creating specific shortcuts is the way to go. To do this, follow these steps:

1. First, go to the artist or playlist you want to create a shortcut for inside the Spotify app.
2. Start playing anything from them; the first song works if you don’t want to overthink it. Just remember it’s crucial to start playing something directly from the artist or playlist page.
3. Get out of the Spotify app and go to your home screen (or app drawer).
4. Tap and hold on the Spotify icon, and you’ll see a new item under Search with the specific music you just played, i.e., the name of your artist or playlist. This is the App Shortcut.
5. Drag this shortcut to your home screen.
6. Repeat this as often as you want to make as many icons as you need for your favorite music.

The video above shows the process in detail. However, I recorded it when adding albums was also supported, but that doesn’t seem to be the case now with the latest Spotify app version — only artists and playlists offer shortcuts. Additionally, Spotify used to show this as “Add to home screen” in the options menu of whatever you were listening to inside the app, but not anymore. You have to know about the play once > trigger an App Shortcut trick to make all of these standalone icons. It’s a step back, sure, but I’m glad there’s a workaround. I don’t ever want to go back to the dreaded favorites widget.

Now, each time I’m obsessing over a new artist or playlist, I just add it to my home screen. That way, I can bypass Spotify’s busy algorithmic home page, the capricious favorites widget, and the confusing Library that mixes everything before I filter. Instead, one tap and I can start playing what I want.

As a bonus, if you’re on Android 16 QPR2 and you enable the Themed icons option, these shortcuts will automatically follow the color and shape that you choose for the rest of your home screen. It all looks very… film negative-like.

So why Android and not iOS?

Spotify is using Android’s App Shortcuts API to achieve this. Apple offers a similar Home Screen Quick Actions feature for iOS, and the Spotify app uses that too on the iPhone and iPad, but Apple’s implementation doesn’t bring the custom artist or playlist art, nor does it let you break an action into its own icon. Google does. Because of this, it’s easy to create a bunch of custom and easily recognizable icons for your go-to music on Android, whereas the Spotify app on iOS will only surface the last two or three recently played playlists or artists with a nondescript arrow next to them.

I’ve tried to tinker a bit to see if I can recreate these with the Shortcuts app on iOS, and I think you can… if you’re patient enough. You’ll have to share the playlist or artist to get their link, make a new Shortcut that points to that link, try to manually apply an icon that makes sense (iOS doesn’t automatically extract it like Android does), and then add a home screen icon for that shortcut. It’s not as easy and not as seamless as it is on Android.