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by cyxxon 2334 days ago
I don't use Apple Music, but Spotify, so I am a little confused about the idea that Spotify does not have a library, or "the concept of a library". I mainly use Sptify via their library, and only rarely use curated playlists or anything like that. Am I missing something here?
4 comments

Can I rip my own CDs and import them into Spotify or am I limited to the music provided by the Spotify streaming service?

I think this is what is meant by a “music library”

Yes, this feature has been available for a while. You must have a Premium subscription to do it on mobile, though.

https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/listen...

Cool! This feature was not available when I last used Spotify, which was admittedly years ago.
I don't know the current state and never used it much, but you can specify local folders with music that it will play, but it doesn't upload tracks to the cloud, and I'm not sure how well it works with search.
Yes, if you do this on the desktop app they'll transfer to your phone's local storage over wifi. It's so much easier than trying to figure out how to get music onto an iPhone the Apple way.
Apple Music (especially when coming from iTunes) has a very tight concept of a "Library". If you add an album to your library, all the songs are also in your library. If you add a playlist, you have the option to add all the songs to your library.

In my (arguably limited) experience with Spotify Premium, I can't browse all my songs in my "Library". If I'm missing something in the UI, please let me know; I would love to hear otherwise.

I kind of miss the feature that I can upload local files to Spotify (I can, but it is not as seamlessly integrated as I want), but when I "like" an album on Spotify, it is added to my library. I think that the individual songs are not added in the Songs tab. This is a bit different maybe, but in a way, it also keeps that list uncluttered. That might be the problem? So you have the song in your library, you just have to navigate to it via the album.

What I really, really miss is hierarchical filtering/navigating. Genre - Artist - Album. Maybe Release Year. Whatever criteria floats my boat. But so far I have not seen one of the big streaming apps do that, and at the moment I am using Spotify, because it most closely aligns to my UX preferences... but of course YMMV.

I guess after clicking on "Your Library" he isn't switching to the "Artists" or "Albums" tabs. Then again, I don't know what it looks like when you're not a subscriber. The Spotify app doesn't "see" your music in your iTunes library, perhaps that is the complaint?
Yeah, I came here to say this. If you want to access all the songs you've ever liked or added to a playlist or saved then you literally press the "Your Library" button at the bottom of the screen and you can sort by playlist, artist, or album. The author is totally ignorant of this fact.