I do a lot of music streaming when I run for marathon training, which is why I usually have some playlists downloaded to my iPhone just to be on the safe side. I might be roaming on occasion or running in areas with spotty connectivity. But I don’t want to lose access to my favorite songs. The offline playlists also come in handy when flying without internet access.
It turns out that Spotify has thought about another solution for the same problem, coming up with a new Offline Backup feature for Premium subscribers. Offline Backup lets you stream some of your favorite tracks when there’s no connectivity available. But rather than intentionally downloading tracks to your phone, Offline Backup simply leverages the music you’ve already streamed.
If you’ve used Spotify Premium to listen to music, some of those songs will be stored in your phone’s cache. They’re not permanent downloads, reflecting your most recent listening history. Offline Backup is Spotify’s way of turning the contents of that cache into a readily available playlist.
This is a handy trick that solves two problems simultaneously. The first is the lack of internet access. You might be flying, roaming, or hiking in regions with bad cellular coverage, but you’ll still have music available via Offline Backup.
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The second concerns storage. The more playlists you download to your iPhone or Android phone, the more storage they’ll take up. If you’re struggling to manage storage, Offline Backup can help. That’s because Spotify only uses the music that downloads in the app’s cache.
Spotify said in a blog post that it tested Offline Backup with users last year, receiving positive feedback. Starting this week, the feature will be available to iPhone and Android users worldwide. Offline Backup will also roll out to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
To get Offline Backup, all you need to do is get the latest version of Spotify on your handset. But make sure you’re paying for Spotify Premium first.
Offline Backup will show up automatically if you’ve listened to at least five songs and have Offline Listening enabled in the app’s settings.
Offline Backup will appear in the Home feed when the app thinks you’re offline, and you can add it to Your Library for faster access.
Back to my music streaming scenarios, I’m an Apple Music user, so Spotify Offline Backup won’t be available to me unless I switch apps and pay for Premium. I’ll keep downloading all the tracks I want to listen to offline. But maybe Apple could implement a similar feature. It could come in handy on those older 64GB iPhones still in use.
