How-To

How to Listen to Spotify with Friends

By Brian Burgess

Last Updated on March 6, 2022

Sharing and collaborating on Spotify playlists is great, but you can also listen to Spotify with friends via a remote group session. Here’s how.

You can add friends on Spotify to share and discover new music. The company also has added a Group Session feature that allows you to listen to a song or podcast simultaneously. The feature allows you to share a link via text or a social media app. Once a person accepts the invite, they can control playback, choose a new song, or add one to the playlist.

Here’s how to listen to Spotify with friends using the built-in Group Sessions feature.

Note: To use this feature, you need to have an active Spotify Premium subscription. Also, it’s only available via the mobile app and not on the desktop app.

How to Listen to Spotify with Friends via Group Sessions

If you’re a Spotify premium subscriber, you can add up to seven friends to listen together through a Group Session.

To start a group session on Spotify, use the following steps:

1. Launch the Spotify app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.
2. Begin playing a song (or podcast) and tap the Connect button at the bottom.
3. When the Other devices screen appears, tap the Start a remote group session option.
4. Next, tap the Invite friends button.
5. Now, share the invite with your friends or family via SMS or copy the link and share it using a different method like email or a Twitter DM, for example.
6. When your friend opens the invite, they can participate by tapping the Join session button.
7. When you open the Connect menu, you’ll see a group session running and the participant’s icons. Note that you can add up to seven users in the remote group session.
8. If you want to stop the group session, tap the End session button and tap Confirm to verify.

Note that anyone with a link to your session can listen and control playback, so you’ll want to add trusted friends or family. Of course, the person you invite can always decline the invitation.

Sharing Music on Spotify

Creating a remote group session is a fun way to listen to Spotify with friends. However, there are other ways to share and discover music on Spotify, like creating a collaborative playlist. Once you’ve completed the perfect playlist, you may want to copy the playlist on Spotify to make a new one or use it as a backup.

Spotify has other features you might be interested in, such as transferring playlists to a new account. You can also add your own music files to Spotify, which is handy when a song isn’t available or for offline listening.

Of course, Spotify isn’t perfect—you might run into an issue where it stops out of the blue. In that case, check out how to fix Spotify keeps stopping. If you’re not satisfied with the service, you may want to try Apple Music and delete your Spotify account. But before doing that, make sure to transfer playlists from Spotify to Apple Music.