Why Does Spotify Take Up SO MUCH Space? (Solved)

Whether you use Spotify on your desktop computer or your mobile device, the chances are that you’re downloading songs for offline playback. You may have noticed that Spotify is taking up a lot more space than you expected.

Here’s Why Spotify Takes Up so much Space:

Downloading on high quality, overloading your storage capacity, and how you manage your cache all have a factor in how Spotify performs and how much space you are taking up. Clearing your cache, downloading in lower quality, and emptying out your storage can all help remove clutter.

Spotify app in a mobile phone

What are the Storage Settings Available with the Spotify App?

How and where Spotify stores your data depends on your device.

For example, iPhone offline tracks are encrypted, so it is impossible to find them on your device without using Spotify.

On the other hand, Android users can save offline music to an SD card and desktop computer users can change the folder destination of saved data.

Changing quality settings and clearing the cache or unused data can significantly reduce the amount of storage space that Spotify uses. 

Can you Change the Download Quality to Free up Space?

When it comes to music, Spotify has the very handy feature of allowing you to play your favorite tracks and playlists without needing an internet connection.

This is all made possible because you can download your songs onto your device for offline playback. However, downloading all your music onto your device makes you risk filling up your storage space even faster.

Tracks downloaded on Spotify’s ‘Very High’ quality setting will be around 10MB each. Reducing the download quality will save considerable space if you download multiple songs.

For example, setting download quality to ‘Normal’ would mean that the same song would be less than 5MB.

Switching download quality is simple and can be done with any device using the same instructions. Moreover, you can keep your streaming quality settings at ‘Very High’ to ensure you get the best sound quality with an internet connection.

Here’s How to Change Download Quality to Save Space on your Device:

These steps are identical on all devices, so follow along to reduce the amount of space each of your downloaded Spotify tracks takes up:

  1. Open the Spotify app on your device.
  2. Navigate to Settings (mobile users should tap the cog icon).
  3. Select ‘Audio Quality’ from the list of options.
  4. Find the settings for ‘Download’.

Adjust your download quality settings, and you have the choice of:

  • Low
  • Normal
  • High
  • Very High

Do note this will not change the download quality and the subsequent file size of any previously downloaded tracks already on your device. Changing this setting will only affect future downloads.

If you want to reduce the total size of your downloaded Spotify Library, delete the downloaded tracks and redownload them in the new quality setting you selected.

How Much RAM Does Spotify Use?

RAM is your computer’s short-term memory; your machine cannot function without it, nor can the apps you want to use.

RAM gives your computer the ability to quickly access information and allows for processes within apps to hopefully be smooth and efficient, providing you have enough RAM to handle the workload.

However, when it comes to Spotify, users have complained that the app uses a tremendous amount of RAM. Reports show that the Spotify app uses 650MB to 1.2 GB of RAM.

“Spotify has been an absolute hog. The simple act of opening it will require three hundred MBs. That’s a remarkable amount of memory for staying idle and doing nothing useful. Let it play for a few hours, and have fun glancing at CPU and RAM usage ramping up like there’s no tomorrow.”

[Source: Nicolaiarocci.com]

Why Does Spotify Use so much Ram?

The question of why so much RAM is needed for Spotify has plagued the minds of some curious users, but there is an indication that it could be something to do with a certain setting that you can change in Spotify.

That setting is called ‘Hardware Acceleration. Users have found that this setting, which is active by default, can be disabled and that doing so will reduce the amount of RAM used while the Spotify app is running.

To deactivate ‘Hardware Acceleration,’ follow the steps below:

  1. Open the Spotify app on your desktop computer.
  2. Navigate to ‘Settings’.
  3. Select ‘Show Advanced Settings’.
  4. Find the section named ‘Compatibility’.
  5. Toggle’ Hardware Acceleration’ to disable it.

How Much Space should Spotify Take up?

The space that the Spotify app takes up is dependent on three factors:

The Device that the App is Downloaded on:

Depending on your device, the amount of space the program will take up may vary.

  • The app for iPhone is 45MB.
  • For Android, it’s 30MB
  • The Desktop version of Spotify is 110MB.
  • Spotify Lite is below 10MB in size.

How Many Downloaded Tracks you Have:

Tracks can vary in file size depending on your download quality setting.

Tracks downloaded at the highest quality can be around 10MB each.

How you Manage your Cache:

The Spotify cache can grow to huge proportions if you stream a lot of music at high quality and do not ever clear it out.

Spotify’s cache can increase Spotify’s overall size to 50GB! 

Can you Delete the Spotify Storage Folder?

If you’ve seen how large the Spotify storage folder is and have had your cursor hovering over it while you decide whether you can delete it or not, then rest easy.

The storage folder holds all your cached data and offline downloaded tracks, but deleting the contents will not prevent Spotify from working. On the contrary, all you will have done by deleting the contents of the folder is free up space on your machine.

Remember, you can choose whether to delete offline songs or the cached data from the Spotify app.

How do you Clear the Spotify Storage Cache?

Clearing the cache on Spotify is incredibly straightforward and is a great way to clear up some space on your device. All you have to do is take a look at the steps below.

How to Clear Spotify Cache on Desktop

  1. Begin by opening the Spotify desktop app.
  2. Next, click on ‘Settings’.
  3. Click on ‘Show Advanced Settings’.
  4. You will see a section titled ‘Storage’.

Here you can see how much space your cache is taking up. All you have to do is click ‘Clear Cache’.

How to Clear the Cache on iOS

  1. Open Spotify on your iOS device.
  2. Navigate to the ‘Home’ screen and click on the gear icon in the top right to open ‘Settings’.
  3. From this menu, scroll down and tap ‘Storage’.
  4. You can then tap the option ‘Clear Cache’ if your cache is full.

How to Clear Cache on Android Device

  1. Open ‘Settings’ on your Android phone.
  2. Tap on ‘Apps’.
  3. Next, find and tap on Spotify and then choose ‘Storage’.
  4. Finally, tap ‘Clear Cache’.

Please also check out our article with easy tips to solve scrolling problems on Spotify. 

How do you Check How Much Space Spotify Takes up?

There are two ways to check how much space Spotify uses on your iOS device. The simplest way to check the storage is through the app. 

Follow the instructions below:

  1. Open Spotify and tap ‘Home’.
  2. Tap on the gear icon in the top right.
  3. Scroll down to ‘Storage’.
  4. Tap on this and you can see exactly how much space Spotify uses.

You can also find out by going to your iOS device’s Settings’ menu and then navigating to General>Storage.

Here you can see how much space each app is using.

To discover how much space Spotify is taking up on your Android device, follow these steps:

  1. Open ‘Settings’ on your Android device.
  2. Scroll down and tap ‘Storage’.

Here you will see a list of categories for your internal storage. If you click on ‘Apps’ you will see how much storage space each app takes up.

Scroll down and find Spotify to know how much space the app uses.

Launch the Spotify desktop app on a Mac or Windows and navigate to the Settings menu. Scroll through, and you will find a section titled ‘Storage’ that details how much space your downloads and cache are taking up on your desktop. 

If your device is running out of storage space, this can cause Spotify to download songs multiple times

Does Spotify Take up More Space than Other Music Apps?

Depending on your device, Spotify’s application will take up varying amounts of space. On mobiles, for example, Spotify will take up from 30-40MB, whereas on a desktop, it can be 110MB.

If you have a lot of downloaded tracks and podcasts, then Spotify will take up much more space on your device, ranging anywhere from 1-10GB.

“If you are using 96kbps, then it consumes about 2.8MB per song. If you are using 160kbps, then it takes about 4.7MB per song. At 320kbps, it consumes about 9.4MB per song.”

[Source: technipages.com]

These averages are, of course, dependent on the song’s length and quality. Spotify also has a limit of 10,000 songs, so it cannot exceed 35 GB of storage on your device.

Spotify’s biggest rival on the market is most definitely Apple Music. On average, a song downloaded at 160kbps on Apple Music will use up to 10MB.

This may seem like only a small amount more than Spotify, but after you’ve downloaded 1,000s of songs, you will notice a difference in storage space.

So if you’re looking to save some space, Spotify uses up less than Apple Music.

Sources

How much space does Spotify take up [100% Accurate Answer]

How I stopped Spotify from draining both my RAM and CPU

Spotify|Storage information

Check How Much Space Spotify Songs Are Taking Up

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