Spotify, the world’s number one music-streaming service, is just about everybody’s favourite way to find new music, revel in old favourites, and collect together their favourite songs into custom-made playlists. So, too, is it liked for the infinite variety of playlists one can find, and the ease with which a user can collaborate on or share a playlist with a friend – allowing for the potentially exponential growth of your music library.
There is one thing, however, which Spotify users crave, and yet which is not built directly into the platform. Namely, the ability to merge playlists. We’ve all probably created a tonne of playlists in our time, only some of which we still use, and out of those, it would be really nice if there were an easy way to merge two or more playlists together, whether into an existing playlist or under a new, umbrella playlist.
Whilst there is no one-click button for this, merging playlists on Spotify is really simple. Just follow the steps below:
Merging Playlists in the Spotify Desktop App
I recommend that you merge your playlists on a PC, there is currently no simple way to do this yourself on an iPad, Android, or Apple phone. (However, check out the next method further down the page for an online third-party merger which can be of some use to mobile users).
- Open up the Spotify app on your PC and log-in if prompted
- From the left-hand sidebar, locate the first of the playlists you wish to merge
- Once you have selected the playlist, press CTRL + A simultaneously. This will ‘select’ (or highlight) all of the songs in your playlist.
- Now, right-click anywhere within the highlighted selection of songs. From the pop-up menu, select ‘Add to playlist’, and then either choose the playlist you wish to merge this playlist with or choose ‘New playlist’ to copy all of the selected songs into a brand new playlist
- Repeat steps 2-4 for all and any additional playlists you wish to merge with the first. If you are merging playlists into an existing one, remember that once finished you can edit the name of the existing playlist to reflect the newly merged songs. If you are merging playlists under a newly created umbrella playlist, you will be prompted to choose a name for the new playlist when you first create it
- Once you have merged all of the playlists you want to merge, you can delete the old playlists (if you like). To do so, simply right-click on them in the left-hand sidebar, and from the pop-up menu select ‘Delete’ and then when prompted, confirm the deletion by selecting ‘Delete’ once again
Merging playlists on Spotify using third-party playlist merging tool
If you don’t want to follow the instructions in the above tutorial, or only use Spotify on an iPad, phone, or other tablet, then I recommend using Spotify Playlist Merger, a free online tool which allows you to merge your Spotify playlists with a few clicks, rather than doing it manually via keyboard shortcuts, etc.
- Open up your preferred web browser and navigate to the Spotify Playlist Merger website
- Tap the ‘Connect with Spotify’ button
- Sign-in using your Spotify login details, and then authorize access to your Spotify account (including your saved playlists). To do so, tap ‘Agree’, to approve the granting of access by Spotify Playlist Merger to your Spotify account
- Back on the Spotify Playlist Merger front page, begin typing the name of the first playlist you wish to merge into the ‘Playlist Name or Link’ box. A list of potential matches will auto-populate. Select the relevant playlist from the list, clicking ‘Next’ to confirm your choice.
- Repeat step 4 for each subsequent playlist you wish to merge with the first
- Once you have selected all of the playlists you wish to merge together, toggle the ‘Do you want to combine them into a new playlist?’ slider to green, to ensure that your playlists are all merged together in a brand-new playlist. Otherwise, the songs will be copied into the first playlist you selected.
- If you choose to combine them, click ‘Next’ to continue on
- Give your newly merged playlist a name by typing it into the ‘New Playlist Name’ box, then tap ‘Finish’ to begin the merger.
- Once completed, you will find your new playlist on the Spotify mobile and desktop apps. Your old playlists will not have been altered, and if you wish to delete them, you can do so from within the Spotify app.
And there you have it! Though there may not be an integrated means of merging playlist built into the Spotify app, there is a really easy way to do so regardless, whether manually (on the PC) or via the recommended third-party website (on PC or tablet/mobile).
