Looking to make new music friends, or to discover new music through those who follow your Spotify playlists (and are thus clearly into the same genres/artists as you)? Or are you simply curious to know who those ‘3 followers’ are on your perfectly curated Early Noughties Punk & Ska playlist are?
Whatever your reasons, it would be really ideal if you could see and thus visit the profiles of those who follow your public playlists. Unfortunately… you simply cannot.
Spotify doesn’t allow you (anymore) to see who follows your playlists, so instead, we’ll be showing you how to tell how many people follow your playlist, and then how to see who follows you as a Spotify user.
For additional information and queries, see the FAQs at the bottom of this article.
Table of Contents
How to see how many people follow your Spotify playlist on desktop
- Open up the Spotify app on your desktop PC and if necessary, sign in
- Click ‘Your Library’ from the navigation bar to the left (alternatively, your playlists – those you created and those you follow – should appear below the menu options further down the sidebar)
- Locate a playlist of yours, and open it by clicking on it.
- Below the name of the playlist, and to the right of your Spotify username, you’ll see [NUMBER] Like(s) – the number corresponds to how many people have ‘liked’ (i.e. follow) your playlist.
- Unfortunately, you cannot see any more information pertaining to these followers
How to see how many people follow your Spotify playlist on mobile
- Open up the Spotify app on your mobile/tablet and if necessary, sign in
- Tap ‘Your Library’ from the icons at the bottom of the page
- Locate a playlist of yours, and open it by clicking on it.
- Below the name of the playlist, and to the right of your Spotify username, you’ll see [NUMBER] Follower(s) – the number corresponds to how many people currently follow your playlist.
- Unfortunately, you cannot see any more information pertaining to these followers
How to see who follows your Spotify profile on Spotify desktop
- Open up the Spotify app on your desktop PC and if necessary, sign in
- Click on your Profile name with the downward-facing arrow in the top-right of the screen
- From the drop-down menu, click ‘Profile’ – you’ll be directed to your Spotify profile
- Underneath your name, you’ll see ‘[NUMBER] Followers’, ‘[NUMBER] Following’ – corresponding to the number of users who follow you and the number of users/artists you follow. Click on ‘[NUMBER] Followers’
- You’ll be presented with a grid of all of the profile pictures of the Spotify users who follow you; you can visit their profiles by clicking on their pictures, and can from there explore all of their own public playlists, and the bands/artists/other users they also follow
How to see who follows your Spotify profile on Spotify mobile
- Open up the Spotify app on your mobile/tablet and if necessary, sign in
- From the home page, tap the cog-icon for the Menu located in the top-right of the page
- Tap on your Profile name/picture to take you to your Profile
- Below your username, you’ll see ‘[NUMBER] Followers’, and ‘[NUMBER] Following’ – corresponding to the number of users who follow you and the number of users/artists you follow. Tap on ‘[NUMBER] Followers’
- You’ll be presented with a list of all of the profile pictures of the Spotify users who follow you – a green tick next to their name means you already follow them back; you can visit their profiles by clicking on their pictures, and can from there explore all of their own public playlists, and the bands/artists/other users they also follow
And that’s about it! Really frustratingly, Spotify does not allow you to see exactly who follows your public playlists – displaying instead only the number of people/users who have liked/followed your playlists. This is to help preserve the privacy of users, but does make using the app for musical/friendship exploration purposes rather frustrating.
Still, we hope you’ve managed to get something out of this How To article. If you’ve any unanswered questions, queries, or you want some additional information, see our FAQs below.
Frequently asked questions
What is Spotify?
Spotify is the world’s largest and most popular streaming service for music, though it also caters to podcast listeners, too. Available as an app for the PC, Apple, and Android mobile phones and tablets, it attracts millions and millions of unique users every day, from all around the world.
What does it mean to follow a playlist?
When you find a playlist that you like on Spotify, whether it’s one of Spotify’s own, a friend’s, partner’s, or the playlist of a completely random stranger, you can ‘follow’ it to effectively add it to your library. Once you’ve ‘followed’ a playlist on Spotify, it will appear in your list of playlists whenever you use the app (whether mobile or PC), provided you’re signed in to your own account.
This means that whenever the creator/contributors of/to the playlist alter it in any way (adding or removing songs, etc.) these changes will show in the playlist you’ve followed.
If you decide you like a playlist so much you want to have access to it offline, and thus ‘download’ a playlist, then any changes made to it will be affected in your downloaded version of it the next time you’re connected to WiFi (or cellular data, if you have the relevant setting enabled).
Why would I want to know who follows my playlists?
Sharing music is one of life’s greatest joys, and knowing who follows your playlists, might just open pathways to new friendships or, at the very least, to a new world of music. By finding out who follows your playlists, you could visit specific users’ profiles, and from there explore their playlists, or all of the other playlists that they follow, and so on, building up a fantastical new library of music as you go. Unfortunately, Spotify does not allow you to see this information.
Can I stop people from following my playlists?
Yes, of course – you just have to make your ‘Public’ playlist ‘Secret’. To do so, load up the Spotify app on your device, navigate to the playlist of yours which you wish to make private, and right-click on it (or tap and hold it). From the pop-up menu, simply click ‘Make secret’.
Alternatively, click/tap on the playlist, and then click/tap the three horizontal (or vertical) grey dots at the top of the page, and from the drop-down menu, click ‘Make secret’. To reverse this, simply repeat and click ‘Make public’ instead.
When a playlist is made secret, none of the people who had been following it will now be able to see or access it, unless you make it public again. You can still share this playlist with friends, or even make it collaborative, so long as you share it with them via the Spotify app directly.
