Spotify downloading local files across computers

2. Social Media
3. Spotify
4. How to Sync Local Spotify Tracks over Wi-Fi

By Kim Gilmour

Spotify has one of those killer features: the capability to copy local tracks stored on your computer to the mobile app, without having to use cables. These local tracks can be anything on your computer that’s listed in your Local Files folder.

They could be files you ripped from a CD long ago or an album you bought yesterday from iTunes. You can also transfer tracks that appear in your Downloads list on your computer that you bought from Spotify’s store (the store hasn’t yet launched in the U.S.).

And the best thing? This isn’t just a Premium feature: It’s available for everybody who uses Spotify.

You can choose to sync all the local files in your Library to your mobile phone — you’re limited only by your mobile phone’s storage capacity. The best method is to create playlists that contain a selection of local files, and then sync these playlists to your mobile device. These local files are copied over, and you can play them on your mobile device.

(You need Spotify Premium to sync any tracks in playlists that you don’t own as digital files. If you aren’t on this subscription plan, you need to purchase the missing tracks first in order to sync them.)

The longer Spotify and other streaming services like it reign, the fewer people end up buying digital tracks to store on their computers or portable music devices. But many still own digital tracks as MP3 files. There’s still a huge market out there of people who want to own a digital track so that they can do what they like with it and listen to it at any time.

Spotify recognizes this market, which is why it introduced its download store in Europe (still unavailable in the U.S.). People on Spotify Free plans might want to buy the odd track here and there after they reach listening limits, for example. Spotify’s download prices are very attractive.

Even Premium customers who have streaming literally at their fingertips may find gaps in Spotify’s library that only local files can fill. You can copy your local versions of songs by the Beatles and Led Zeppelin (which don’t appear in the Spotify library) to your iPhone by using the syncing function and listen to them on Spotify Mobile.

Local syncing frees you from the burden of having to go hunting for that cable to connect your mobile device to your computer. And it means you don’t have to use an alternative music player or app to listen to tracks while you’re on the move.

There’s another reason to use local syncing: After you painstakingly build up and subscribe to a load of Spotify playlists, it’s easy to keep listening to those playlists because they’re stored centrally, and it’s hard to export Spotify playlists to other music apps (pretty sneaky of them, eh?).