Spotify puts its song cache to good use with a new auto-offline playlist

Spotify Premium has long supported offline playback, allowing subscribers to listen to songs manually downloaded without an internet connection. Many users, however, often forget to download their favorite playlists before a flight or other offline activities, which prevents them from streaming. To avoid interrupting paying users’ listening sessions during unexpected internet outages, Spotify now relies on the app’s cache to enable offline playback.

Spotify announced today that Premium subscribers can now use the new Offline Backup feature. The playlist compiles all cached songs and lets you access them without an internet connection. So, as long as you haven’t cleared the Spotify app’s cache, you’ll be able to listen to your favorite tunes offline without manually downloading them.

Keep in mind that mobile apps typically have a certain cache threshold, and they’ll automatically clear older data once it occupies too much space. As a result, the Offline Backup feature will only apply to local song caches that haven’t been wiped yet. To help users personalize the offline playlist, Spotify lets them sort and filter its songs based on genre, mood, and artist.

To use the new Offline Backup feature, you must enable the Offline Listening toggle in Spotify’s settings and listen to at least five tracks. The offline playlist will then appear automatically in the Home tab whenever your device loses connection. If you don’t spot it on your end, ensure you are running the latest mobile app version and have an active Spotify Premium subscription.