Even if you don’t have a premium subscription, you can still choose playlists on Spotify and, with limited skips, navigate through said playlists. Spotify randomly playing songs out of the predefined playlists is not a feature and this points to something else. Either your account is compromised or there’s something wrong with the app.
Whatever it is, you should fix it easily with the steps we provided below. If you still have issues after taking these steps, make sure to contact Spotify Support and report the problem to them.
Table of contents:
Why does Spotify play random songs?
Disabling Shuffle and Autoplay in Spotify Settings are obvious but the nature of this problem probably doesn’t have much to do with those. Also, check the Queue list if there are some songs that you added to the queue by mistake. After that, go straight to Account Overview and change your password. You should probably remove access from third-party apps, too.
On Android, you can clear the local data or reinstall the app. On the web, disable browser extensions and clear data for Spotify.
1. Change the password
Whenever you have a suspicion that someone else has access to your Spotify account, the first step should be to log out of all devices and change the password ASAP. The best and fastest way to sign out and change the password on Spotify is in the Account settings.
What you need to do is navigate to the Account Overview page and sign in with your Spotify account. Alternatively, you can access the same page from the in-app settings on Android, iOS, or Windows.
Once there, scroll down and click/tap on the Sign out everywhere. After that, select Change password and add a new password.
2. Check integrations with other apps
Changing the password and signing into all other devices is a good starting point but you should also remove access from third-party apps and services that have access to Spotify. This option is also available in the Account Overview settings menu that we used to sign out of all devices and change the password.
Here’s how to remove Spotify access for third-party services:
- Navigate to Account Overview.
- Sign in with your Spotify account credentials.
- Select Apps from the left pane.
- Remove access from apps you don’t trust. Apps like Musixmatch or Google Maps connect to well-known sources and there are no apps (at least to our knowledge) that can access Spotify and start randomly playing songs. However, if you are not absolutely sure, it’s better to remove access and grant it again later on.
3. Reset the app
If the steps focusing on securing your account didn’t help, you can try tackling possible app issues. I’ve been using Spotify for years and never have I run into anything remotely similar to this problem. This doesn’t mean that others had the same experience. In this case, it can be a bug of sorts, possible data corruption, or some kind of automation (e.g. Tasker).
Here’s how to reset Spotify on Android by clearing all local data:
- Open Settings.
- Select Apps.
- Open Spotify.
- Select Storage.
- Tap Clear data. Have in mind that this will erase all downloaded music so you’ll need to download it from your library once more.
4. Reinstall Spotify
In the end, you can try reinstalling the Spotify app on your Android. This isn’t all that different than clearing all data but it’s worth a shot. Especially since our troubleshooting options are rather limited in this scenario,
You can reinstall Spotify from Play Store and, after a reboot, install it again. Hopefully, this will address the problem.
And, on that note, we can call it a wrap. Thank you for reading what was, hopefully, a helpful article. Don’t forget to share your thoughts, questions, or suggestions with us in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you.
Editor’s note: This article was initially published in March 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
