Spotify Skips Playlist To Play RAMDOM Songs (Solved)

Creating a playlist on Spotify is a personal experience in which you select the songs that you really feel fit together and ultimately design a playlist that works for you.

However, you may have found that Spotify is swerving away from your tailor-made playlists. In this article, we’ll look at why Spotify is messing with your listening experience by playing random songs and dive into how you can prevent it from happening in the first place.

Here’s Everything you Need to Know About Spotify Playing Random Songs on your Playlist:

Spotify users will encounter random songs playing at the end or during their playlists due to two specific Spotify options. Autoplay and the Enhance feature are settings meant to improve your listening experience but can be toggled on or off at the user’s choice. 

Why does Spotify Play Songs that are Not on my Playlist?

If you’ve ever noticed that Spotify is suddenly playing a track you don’t recognize (one that you did not add to your playlist), then you may mistake this issue as a glitch.

However, this is, in fact, Spotify working as it is designed to. The reason that you’re hearing a random song that is not on your playlist is that the playlist has come to an end.

Spotify ensures that even if you run out of songs on your playlist the music doesn’t come to an end, and this is a setting that is on by default.

The setting that is causing this all to happen is called ‘Autoplay’.

The songs that are being played are actually based on the songs that have appeared in your playlist. These ‘random songs’ are tracks that Spotify’s algorithm has selected specifically for your playlist.

There is also another option that can cause random songs to be played that are not on your playlist, which is called ‘Enhanced‘. However, ‘Enhanced’ is not a default setting and must be activated by the user.

Can you Make Spotify Only Play Songs on your Playlist?

Naturally, not everyone wants to be given suggestions for their playlists. Moreover, it may be frustrating to have them play out of the blue and ruin the curation you’ve put together.

This is why Spotify has made it very simple to change your settings and ensure that you have control over whether you want to only hear the songs on your playlist.

As mentioned, there are two ways in which Spotify will be playing songs that are not in your playlist, but both can be disabled with a few clicks or taps. We will look at how to adjust these settings shortly. 

Check out our article about why Spotify cuts off songs!

How Exactly Does Spotify Autoplay Work?

Spotify is famous for its unique algorithms that help users find new music. These algorithms lead to the creation of entire playlists, which are available each week and allow users to discover a wealth of tracks that should be a perfect match to that specific user’s tastes.

This same algorithm is applied to how autoplay works, too. 

After the last track on your playlist is finished, Autoplay will begin playing songs related to the playlist.

For example, if your playlist was made up of a mix of 90’s club classics, with a dollop of folk thrown in, then you can expect the autoplay to serve up songs that fit into those two genres.

It’s a clever feature that should, in theory, provide you with songs that fit into the style of playlist that you’ve curated. It’s also meant to ensure that the music never comes to an end, which is useful at a party or an event in which you may not have time to switch playlists when one comes to an end.

How to Disable Spotify Autoplay?

Now that you understand exactly what the Autoplay feature on Spotify does, you may feel that it is not something you really need.

Luckily, you’re not restricted to having this feature active, and disabling it is a piece of cake.

Disable Spotify Autoplay on Desktop Computer

Follow these steps if you want to toggle the Autoplay setting off on your desktop:

1. Open up the Spotify app on your computer.
2. Click your profile and then choose ‘Settings’.
3. Find the section titled ‘Autoplay’.
   • Here you will find two autoplay options: one for when ‘music ends in this app’ and one for when ‘music ends on other devices’.
4. Toggle them both off to ensure that autoplay will not activate in either situation.

Disable Spotify Autoplay on Mobile Devices

If you’re using the Spotify mobile app and want your Autoplay settings off, then just follow this guide:

1. Launch the Spotify app on your device.
2. Tap the gear icon to open ‘Settings’.
3. Select ‘Playback’ from the list.
4. Scroll down to the ‘Autoplay’ section.
5. Toggle both options to their off position to ensure your playlists end when they should, and then say goodbye to random songs.

Please also read our article about why Spotify keeps turning on shuffle (with solutions). 

Why is Spotify Playing Songs Not on my Playlist with Autoplay Off?

If you’ve switched Autoplay off, but you’re still hearing tracks that you didn’t add to your playlist yourself, then it’s likely that the ‘Enhanced’ feature is active.

• Enhance is a feature that is exclusive to Spotify Premium members.
• The feature comes in the form of an icon that you can select at the top of your playlist.
• Once active, Enhance enables new tracks to be automatically added to your playlist.
• Like autoplay, these songs should, as the name suggests, ‘enhance’ your playlist with tracks that fit in with the style of music you already have included yourself.

The Enhance feature has been a very successful addition to the Spotify user experience and users no longer need to:

 “(…) waste time searching for new songs (…) If you don’t see any songs you like, you can always refresh the Enhance option and get new suggestions.”

[Source: TechniPages.com]

However, if you’ve accidentally turned the Enhance feature on, you may be frustrated that these ‘new suggestions’ are messing with your playlist.

Thankfully, you can toggle this feature on or off.

• To turn ‘Off’ Enhance: tap the icon, easily identified as stars. Once tapped it will remove the added songs.
• To turn ‘On’ Enhance: tap the ‘+ symbol’ next to the corresponding track and make it part of your growing playlist.

If you’ve found that songs are listed twice on your playlist, check out our article about why Spotify has duplicate songs, albums and artists.

Why Does Spotify Add Random Songs to My Playlist?

It’s easy to mistakenly think that Spotify has added random songs to the end of your playlist.

At the bottom of every playlist you have made, you may see some tracks you don’t recognize. These songs are not actually part of your playlist at all, rather, they’re simply suggestions for you to add to the playlist if you wish.

Above this list of random songs, you’ll see that there is a small heading that says ‘More recommended songs’, followed by ‘Based on the songs of this playlist’.

These tracks are simply Spotify giving you more of what the algorithm thinks you’ll enjoy.

So, it’s not Spotify stepping in and adding songs to your playlist. Spotify never adds songs to your playlist.

Any random songs that you hear will simply be suggestions and will only be there to stay if you choose to add them permanently. Features such as Enhance or Autoplay are optional and are available to help you make your playlists even better and even longer.

Sources

What Is Spotify Enhance and How It Works

How to Turn Autoplay On/Off on Spotify

Spotify|Autoplay