Spotify needs a WiFi or mobile data connection to work.
Mobile data
Since 2 weeks, im facing with a very annoying problem with the latest spotify app. Whenever i'm listening to downloaded music, spotify generates mobile data in the background, around 6-7Mb per hour. I have to switch to offline mode, othervise it eats my data. Am i the only one who facing with. You’ll still be using data, but it won’t be as much. Most of us like to listen to music when we’re on the move, and Spotify is the current app of choice when it comes to doing that. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you’re streaming music when you’re out of the house, and there isn’t a WiFi network around to.
It’s best to use WiFi instead of mobile data.
If you can’t use WiFi but want to keep mobile data usage low, use Data Saver.
Spotify uses more data than Pandora for music streaming. Depending on how much music you stream, even a higher-tier data allotment can be pretty easily exhausted in less than a month. How much data does Spotify use is an important question to answer if you have limited data on your iPhone or iPad. If you often enjoy streaming music on the go with the Spotify app on your iPhone, it makes sense to ask yourself, does Spotify use data, and also, does Spotify Premium use data. Here’s how much data you can expect Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and even Pandora Premium to use per hour, on average, based on the audio quality: Low (48-96 kbps.
Data Saver reduces the app’s data usage by showing fewer images and reducing audio quality.
- Tap Home .
- Tap Settings .
- Switch Data Saver on.
More ways to reduce mobile data usage:
- If you have Premium, download music to listen offline.
Tip: Make sure the app only downloads when connected to WiFi, switch Download using cellular off in the app’s settings (under Music Quality). - Check your Music Quality. Higher quality music uses more data.
- Switch Autoplay off in your app’s settings. This stops it playing after what you’ve selected.
- Use WiFi when using the app abroad. Check your mobile data plan to learn about roaming charges.
- Your device may have its own data saver. Check the support site for your device.
Videos
Videos use more data than music due to larger file sizes, but our data usage is comparable to other popular video channels.
Videos on podcasts
Some podcasts feature videos. You can’t turn these videos off, but they only play when you have them on-screen. If you navigate away from the podcast or lock your device, only the audio plays.
Note: When downloading a podcast, only the audio is downloaded, not the video.
Now playing moving visuals
The moving visuals in Now Playing is a feature called Canvas - a unique form of artistic expression on Spotify.
These are short and looping, so use very little data. After they’ve looped once, they don’t need any more data to keep playing. They also don’t continue to run in the background.
If don’t want Canvas, you can switch it off:
- Tap Home .
- Tap Settings .
- Switch Canvas (under Playback) off.
Bandwidth
Does Spotify Music App Use Data Encoder
The app uses some of your device’s internet bandwidth to play music without buffering.
To reduce bandwidth usage:
- Close any other open applications using the internet
- If you have Premium, download music to listen offline
- Use the web player
How much data does Spotify use? It depends on the sound quality you choose. The higher it is, the more data the streaming service will burn through. In any case, Spotify uses way less data than video streaming services (more on this later) and probably less than most people think.
The Spotify Android app lets you choose between five sound quality settings: Low (24kbps), Normal (96kbps), High (160kbps), Very high (320kbps), and Automatic (dependent on your network connection). You can access these options by heading to Settings > Music Quality on your Android phone.
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To simplify things as much as possible, I’ve prepared an overview of how much data each setting uses per minute and hour as well as how long you’d have to stream music for to burn through 1GB of data. Keep in mind these numbers are approximate. Spotify can cache songs you’ve previously listened to, meaning they may not eat up the same amount of data the second time you play them.
Low (24kbps):
- Per minute: 0.18MB
- Per hour: 10.8MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 92.5 hours
Normal (96kbps):
- Per minute: 0.72MB
- Per hour: 43.2MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 23.1 hours
High (160kbps):
- Per minute: 1.2MB
- Per hour: 72MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 13.8 hours
Very high (320kbps):
- Per minute: 2.4MB
- Per hour: 144MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 6.9 hours
Now that you know how much data Spotify uses, let’s see how the numbers compare to video streaming. Watching HD content on Netflix uses up to 3GB of data per hour or as much as 7GB when the resolution gets bumped up to Ultra HD. Medium quality (SD) is a lot less data hungry, burning through 0.7GB per hour. Still, that’s almost five times as much as streaming music with the best sound quality available (320kbps).
Does Spotify App Use Data
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Does Spotify Premium Use Data
What about Spotify’s competitors? Google Play Music and Deezer both offer a maximum audio bitrate of 320kbps, which uses approximately 144MB of data per hour. So does Tidal, although it also has a Hi-Fi plan with a bitrate of 1.411kbps for improved sound quality. It’s a lot more data hungry, using around 635MB per hour. Apple Music, on the other hand, has a maximum bitrate of 256kbps, which translates to around 115MB of data per hour.
An important thing to keep in mind is that Spotify — as well as other streaming services mentioned in this post — lets you download songs to your phone, which means you don’t have to use any data at all when listening to music.
Does Spotify Use Data
How many hours per week do you listen to music on Spotify or other streaming services? Let us know in the comments!