For avid Spotify users, mistakenly deleting a playlist that they’ve been lovingly curating for years could be a heartbreaking slip-up.
Indeed, the most ardent Spotify users have created and shared playlists with thousands of tracks, and now that , the sky’s the limit for how much music a Spotify playlist can contain.
You can easily recover deleted Spotify playlists by visiting the Spotify website in a desktop browser.
While Spotify will warn you before letting you delete a playlist, it’s still somewhat unnerving that years of careful curation could be wiped with just a couple of taps.
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Luckily, there’s an easy way to recover a deleted Spotify playlist, although you’ll need to use a desktop web browser to do it.
How to recover a deleted Spotify playlist
- Visit
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in a desktop web browser and log into your account. - Click your profile icon in the top-right corner of the screen, then tap Account.
- Scroll down and click the Recover Playlists option in the left column.
- You should now see a list of all the Spotify playlists you’ve ever deleted, complete with the name of the playlist, the date when it was deleted, and the number of tracks it contained. Just click the Restore button to revive your deleted playlists.
Keep in mind that it may take a few minutes for your recovered Spotify playlist to reappear in the Spotify app. If you still don’t see your old playlists after patiently waiting, try creating a new playlist; once you do, your recovered playlists should reappear at the bottom of the list.
This story has been updated. It was originally published on February 17, 2017.
If you play music on Spotify, you know it’s not quite the same as stacking your shelves with vinyl. You’ve got access to tens of millions of songs, but keeping track of them can be a chore. That’s why many users build playlists. The problem is, it’s easy to accidentally delete one of your favorite playlists. Here’s how to restore vanished playlists, and preserve them for future use.
Use Spotify’s playlist recovery tool
You may never have visited it, but you have a Spotify account page on the web. You can access it by logging in at spotify.com. Just use the same account name and password you do to log in on a smartphone or desktop client.
The first page you’ll see gives you access to all the standard account information, including your name, your profile picture, and, if you have a premium subscription, the method you use to pay Spotify every month.
For the purposes of this guide, the link we’re interested in is the one marked Recover playlists, which does exactly what the name suggests. You’ll find playlists you’ve deleted stretching back several months. Spotify doesn’t specify how long it keeps erased playlists around for, but we’ve seen ones that are six months old.
[Related: Instantly improve Spotify by organizing your playlists]
Click Restore next to the playlist you want to bring back, and as if by magic, it will be restored to your account. Just make sure you really, really do want to delete a playlist the next time you erase one from your Spotify list.
Try other recovery options
We’re all guilty of hitting the wrong keyboard combination or clicking on the wrong menu entry from time to time, and if you’ve just wiped a playlist you didn’t intend to from your account, the old faithful undo command can bring it back right away.
If you’re using Spotify’s desktop app, hit Ctrl+Z on a Windows PC or Cmd+Z on a Mac before you touch anything else and your last action will be undone, restoring the playlist to its previous position. If you act quickly, you won’t have to rely on the playlist recovery feature—though these shortcuts won’t work on Spotify’s web player.
It’s not unheard of for playlists to disappear from Spotify due to a bug or a technical hitch [it’s certainly happened to us]. If you find most or all of your playlists have been wiped without you touching them, and they’re not available to recover online, get in touch with Spotify support. The @SpotifyCares Twitter account is a good place to start.
Spotify support should be able to restore your playlists from the backups at their end, although you will have to confirm your date of birth and some of your payment information to prove your identity.
Preserve your playlists before they change or disappear
Some playlists will shift and change over time, without any input from you. These include playlists by other people you’ve subscribed to, as well as the Discover Weekly playlist that Spotify refreshes for you every week based on your listening history.
If you’ve happened across a Discover Weekly playlist that you really like, or you want to preserve another user’s playlist for future listening, follow these steps: Open the Spotify desktop client on your Windows or Mac machine, click somewhere inside the playlist, and hit Ctrl+A on Windows or Cmd+A on a Mac to highlight all of the tracks.
Right-click [or use a two-finger click on a Mac] on the playlist, then choose Add to playlist. You can add all of the selected tracks to a playlist you’ve already set up, or create a new playlist that you can rename later.
Your new, permanent copy of the playlist won’t be affected by any changes made to the original, so your songs will be safe and sound in your account. That is, at least until you accidentally delete another one of your playlists.
Absentmindedly or accidentally deleting your favorite Spotify playlist — which you spent hours or even days meticulously crafting — may seem devastating because there's no obvious way to bring it back. However, there is a hidden setting in the popular streaming service that can help you recover deleted playlists — you just need to know where to look.
Whether you're on an iPhone or Android device, you can quickly restore deleted playlists, but not through the official Spotify mobile app. Instead, you'll have to access the web version of Spotify in your favorite web browser and get the playlists back from your account page. Why doesn't Spotify build this recovery option into its mobile apps? Who knows, but at least there's a way to do it.
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Before we get into recovering a playlist, let's briefly go over how to delete one in the first place. Knowing how it works may help prevent unwanted playlist deletions in the future. Skip to Step 1 if you already know how to delete playlists in the Android or iOS app.
In the Spotify app, go to "Your Library," then "Playlists." Every playlist you've ever created [or followed] will appear here. Tap on a playlist you've created, followed by its horizontal or vertical ellipsis icon in the top right, then select "Delete playlist." A pop-up will appear asking if you're sure you want to delete the playlist: tap on "Delete" to wipe the playlist from your account.
Of course, the pop-up helps with accidentally deleting playlists, but you could also be removing the wrong playlist, which can happen if you have similarly titled playlists or even if your mind is elsewhere [it happens to all of us, or at least me, all of the time]. Luckily, getting lost playlists back is easy.
The official Spotify app on your smartphone does not have the option to recover a deleted playlist, so you must access the web version of Spotify in any web browser you have.
Visit spotify.com, then tap on the three-dash icon in the top right of the website, which will open a sidebar menu. Select "Log In," enter your Spotify credentials, and tap on "Log In" again.
After you successfully log in, you'll see an overview of your account. Tap on the drop-down menu that says "Account Overview" at the top of the page, and go into the "Recover playlists" option.
A list of every playlist you've ever deleted will appear in order of which one was deleted last. It will show you the name of the playlist, how many songs it has, and when it was removed. To recover the playlist, tap on "Restore." If successfully restored, the playlist will be highlighted green.
You can try to access your recovered playlist in the mobile app right away, but you may want to give it a few minutes before you attempt to do so to make sure it syncs properly. Open Spotify, go to "Your Library," then "Playlists," and scroll down. Any recovered playlists appear at the end of the playlists page.
This only works for playlists you create. If a playlist you're following is deleted, there is no way for you to access it again.
This article was produced during Gadget Hacks' special coverage on streaming, listening to, and creating music and podcasts on your smartphone. Check out the whole Music and Audio series.
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