Spotify Connect, which allows you to connect with and cast to any Spotify-ready device from another, cannot be disabled. Unfortunately, Spotify doesn’t want you to be able to play your music from different devices simultaneously unless you’ve paid for multiple separate accounts.
Without jailbreaking your phone or meddling with the app through third-party software, it’s simply impossible to disable Spotify Connect. Thankfully, however, we’ve found a way to get around it. A loophole, if you will.
To learn how to ‘disable’ Spotify Connect, just follow our tutorial below. For all other information, or if you have further questions, please see our FAQ section at the end of this article.
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How to ‘disable’ Spotify Connect (the loophole)
- On one of your devices, open up the Spotify app and sign into your account
- First step is to offline sync/download all of the music you’d like to listen to on this first device
- Locate the playlist(s), album(s), or episode(s) you want to be able to listen to offline
- Tap or click the ‘Download’ arrow/toggle the Download button to download them to your device
- Repeat as necessary
- Locate the playlist(s), album(s), or episode(s) you want to be able to listen to offline
- Now, put this device’s Spotify app into ‘Offline’ mode
- Navigate to ‘Settings’ from the homepage (Account > Settings on desktop; gear-shaped Settings icon on mobile)
- Under ‘Playback’, toggle the Offline button to ON/green
- Navigate to ‘Settings’ from the homepage (Account > Settings on desktop; gear-shaped Settings icon on mobile)
- With one device offline, you can now listen to the music and shows you’ve downloaded onto that device, whilst on a secondary device you remain online and stream whatever you like, simultaneously
And there you have it! Our very own loophole. It may not be as versatile as if we were actually able to disable Spotify Connect, but since going offline on one device makes Connect impossible, it has a similar effect. We hope you have fun!
If you’d like more information or have any further queries, please read our FAQs below.
FAQs
What is Spotify Connect?
Spotify is the world’s most popular and beloved music streaming service, used by millions of people every day. Whilst it provides its users with a ton of neat customization options and tools to help them optimize their listening experience, there are some features that have proved controversial. Spotify Connect is one of them.
Spotify Connect is the feature within Spotify that allows you to quickly and easily sync your Spotify listening from one Spotify-ready device to another. For example, if you’re lying in bed using Spotify on your smartphone, but want to hear it through your desktop computer’s speakers, then you can use Spotify Connect to effectively ‘cast’ your listening session from Spotify on your phone to Spotify on your computer.
Spotify Connect is available whenever you have two or more versions of Spotify open and connected both to your Spotify account and to the same internet connection (i.e. the same WiFi signal). It is symbolized and accessed via an icon shaped like a computer screen hiding behind a speaker – found in the bottom-right of the desktop app, and below the Speed/Shuffle button on the play screen of the mobile app.
Why would I want to disable Spotify Connect?
Whilst Spotify Connect can be super handy and effective at doing what it’s designed to do, it can also be a pain. With other streaming services such as Netflix, you can stream your favorite shows through several devices at once, whilst using the same account. Spotify Connect stops you from being able to do this, limiting you to one streaming session, on one device, at a time.
Disabling Spotify Connect would allow you and your kids, say, to listen to their favorite music on their respective devices through the same account, without having to be ‘connected’ to each other. You can imagine how handy this would be at all times, but especially if you were apart from each other.
Spotify doesn’t allow this, though, and doesn’t allow you to disable it either. This is because doing so would, in their eyes, lose them money. Instead, they encourage you to upgrade your plan to one in which you can have multiple different accounts, each of which can listen to sessions simultaneously. Plans like the Family Plan.
Can I re-enable Spotify Connect after disabling it?
Unfortunately, Spotify does not allow you to disable Spotify Connect. Instead, however, you can offline sync playlists, albums, and podcast episodes to download to your device, and then play these offline on one device, whilst another device remains online.
To re-establish Spotify Connect (having ‘disabled’ it using this method) at any time, all you’d have to do is to put your offline device back online, and it will instantly be re-enabled.
