Why Is Spotify Playing Random Songs? | How to Stop It?

Why is Spotify playing random songs that are not included in my “Playlist” or “album”? Sometimes, Spotify will first play all the songs in the playlist. After that, some random songs will begin to play automatically based on the musical preferences and song selection in the completed playlist.

In other cases, the random song(s) can play just after the first song in your playlist. Even worse, this random song may differ from the songs in your Spotify playlist, making the experience very frustrating. 

After researching how to fix this issue, I finally found some quick ways to stop Spotify from playing random songs during or after the playlist in 2023.

What is Spotify?

As we know, Spotify is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider based on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the immense music streaming service providers, with around 456 million monthly active users, including 195 million paying subscribers, as of September 2022. Spotify is listed on the New York Stock Exchange as an American depositary receipt.

Spotify offers digital copyright-restricted recorded music from record labels and media companies, including around 82 million songs. As a freemium favor, basic features are free with advertisements and limited control. In contrast, additional features, such as offline and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre and create, edit, and share playlists.

Why Is Spotify Playing Random Songs?

Spotify plays random songs not part of the playlist when the Autoplay feature is turned on, based on your choice of songs in the playlist. However, random songs may also play on Spotify when you have songs in your queue that are not part of the playlist or when someone has access to your account.

We’ll discuss why Spotify plays random songs and how you can end this issue or feature. It’ll also highlight why Spotify skips songs in between. Let’s driven in. I’ll clarify why the problem occurs and follow up presently with a quick fix for each issue.

Also, read about: Spotify Podcasts Not Working? Here are the 9 Fixes That Worked!

1. Autoplay Option is Enabled

The Autoplay feature is one of the most typical reasons why Spotify plays random songs that are not included in the playlist after the songs in the playlists have been played.

The way it works is that when you reach the end of your playlist, album, or selection of songs, Spotify automatically plays similar songs, so the music never stops.

In my knowledge, I don’t mind this feature as it helps me detect new songs that I end up adding to my playlist. However, the suggestions can be way off sometimes.

Suppose Spotify plays random songs after the playlist you chose and wants to stop this from happening. In that case, you need to disable Spotify’s Autoplay feature.

Disable Autoplay Option

Turning off the Autoplay option on Spotify will stop Spotify from playing random songs that are not on your playlist, album, or selection of songs. Here’s how to turn off Autoplay on Spotify:

• Open the Spotify app on your mobile phone or PC.
• Click on the settings icon.

• Turn off ‘Autoplay on this device’ and ‘Autoplay on other devices.’

Once you’ve turned it off, Spotify will stop playing random songs after the playlist.

Still, the random songs play after the first song in your Spotify playlist (or not after all the playlist's tracks have been played). In that case, the issue is most likely not coming from Autoplay. In that case, apply the next fix.

2. You’ve Random Songs in the Queue

Having seen many users report that turning off Autoplay stopped Spotify from playing random songs for them while I still had the issue, I wondered why Spotify is still playing random songs even when it is off.

However, suppose you have a different song that is not on the playlist in the queue. In that case, Spotify will assume you want to listen to it next after the song that is currently playing from the playlist. If you have multiple songs in the queue, all the songs will play first before the songs in your playlist continue playing again.

Sometimes, you can accidentally add songs or entirely different playlists/albums to the queue. Also, you may have songs left in the queue from the previous listening session.

So, How do you clear the queue so that Spotify doesn’t play random songs?

Clear Songs in Queue

• Tap on the queue icon at the right corner

• “Next in queue” section, select the songs you want to remove from the queue by clicking on the circle to the left of the title on the mobile app, then ‘REMOVE.’
• On the desktop app, click on the three dots, then ‘Remove from the queue.’

• To make it quicker, you can remove all the songs in the queue on mobile by clicking on ‘clear queue.’ This feature will assist you in removing all the random songs in the queue, leaving only songs in your playlist that you want to listen to.

• To clear on Desktop App, just click on the ‘clear queue.’

Once the queue has been cleared, Spotify will stop playing random songs, and you will play only songs in your selected playlist.

3. An Issue With Your Spotify App

Your Spotify App may have some issue that causes the random songs not to be on your playlist. These random songs could be coming from corrupt cache files. 

Consequently, many users have noted that simply removing the app and performing a fresh Spotify app installation fixed the issue for them.

Also, suppose you have installed Spotify from sources other than the official website, Google Play Store, and Apple store. In that case, you need to remove it and do a fresh installation from official sources. This method could also fix the issue.

In either case, maybe, there are two ways you can do to fix the app-related issues:

• Clear the cache files.
• Uninstall the app, and perform a clean installation from trusted sources.

A. Clear Spotify App Cache Files

Here’s how you can clear saved cache files on your device:

• Click on the settings icon on Spotify.
• Scroll down to the storage province and click on ‘Clear cache.’

Instead, you can clear it directly on your Android or iPhone settings. Here’s how:

On Android

• Open Settings.
• Tap your name/device name.
• Select iCloud.
• Select ‘Manage Storage.’
• Look for the Spotify app, and click on it.
• Click on ‘Clear Cache.’

On iPhone

• Open Settings and click on Apps.
• Select the Spotify App on the list of installed applications on your device.
• Select Storage and click on ‘Clear Cache.’’

Once done, go back and open a playlist on Spotify, and random songs should stop playing. However, if the issue endures, you must remove the app and perform a fresh installation.

B. Uninstall and Re-install Spotify App

A user on Reddit reported that they installed Spotify, the app from the Microsoft store, on a Windows laptop. After downloading it directly from the Spotify website instead, the method fixed the issue.

I can’t say whether the clean installation was the fix or, more importantly, using the most trusted source (the official website).

Irrespective, if you’re going to perform a fresh installation on your PC or phone, it’s best you just download the installer directly on the website instead of third-party stores like Galaxy store on Samsung phones or Microsoft store on Windows.

However, suppose you want to perform a clean installation on your Android or iPhone. In that case, you can use the Google Play store and Apple store.

4. You Don’t Have Premium Spotify Account

The Spotify premium account is not a direct fix for random songs playing on Spotify. However, the “queue” feature on Spotify is only accessible to premium users.

Since I explained earlier how you could fix this issue by clearing your Spotify queue, which leaves only songs in your playlist to be played, you may begin to understand where I’m coming from.

Many users have complained that they cannot find the “queue icon” and only find the share icon on the “now playing” screen. If this is the case for you, you need to upgrade to a premium plan to access this feature.

These are the following Spotify Premium account subscriptions prices:

• Premium Individual: $9.99/month
• Premium Duo: $12.99/month
• Premium Family: $15.99/month
• Premium Student: $4.99/month

Once you have a Premium Spotify account, you can quickly stop Spotify from playing random songs by clearing the queue.

5. Someone Has Access to Your Account

If someone has access to your Spotify account and plays a random song from their end, this can also change the song from your end.

Although, with a premium duo or family subscription, you can share your premium account with others and still have different songs across multiple devices. However, if you have an individual premium or free, you can only use it on one device.

If you’re not sharing your account, you need to activate some measures to ensure your account in case account is hacked.

1. Reset Your Account Password

The first thing you want to do is to reset your account password instantly. To do that, click on the reset link in an incognito window, enter your account username/email and pick a strong password you haven’t used earlier.

Also, assume you’ve services associated with your account, like your email address, Facebook, or Apple account. In that case, any of those accounts might be compromised too. In that case, you can also change the password to these services.

2. Remove All 3rd Party Connections

You can also remove 3rd party connections from your Spotify account. On your account page, go to Apps to review what’s connected to your account. You can remove access to all of them to ensure your account is secured.

In addition, go to the Spotify desktop app’s settings to review any connected Facebook accounts under Social. If there is one, click DISCONNECT FROM FACEBOOK to remove it.

3. Sign Out Everywhere

Eventually, you can sign out of every possible device which your Spotify account has been accessed from.

To do that, log in to your Spotify account page, scroll down, and click on ‘SIGN OUT EVERYWHERE.’

This can take up to 1 hour to take effect across all devices.

Once you’ve done that, sign in again to your Spotify, and your account should now be secure. So, Spotify was playing random songs because a third party had access to your account. Then this thing should stop once all these measures have been taken.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Below are some frequently asked questions on this “Spotify Playing Random Songs” and the quick answers:

Why is my Spotify playing random music?

Spotify plays random songs at the end or between of a playlist or album when the Autoplay feature is turned on, when you’ve songs in your queue that are not part of your playlist, or when someone has admission to your Spotify account.

Why is Spotify playing random songs even when Autoplay is off?

Even though Spotify plays random songs at the end of a playlist when Autoplay is turned on, it can still happen when Autoplay is off if you’ve random songs in your queue. In such case, the song(s) will play immediately after the song from your playlist and not even at the end of the playlist.

Why is Spotify automatically playing?

When you reach the end of the playlist, then Spotify automatically picks similar songs.

Bottom Line

Spotify playing random songs is not new; many users have been asking why this happens and how to stop it for a long time.

Although, these random recommendations can be good sometimes, especially when they come at the end of the playlist. Yet, people often just want to listen to their selected playlist or album, not some random songs that Spotify thinks they want to listen to.

To stop this from happening, you should start by turning off the Autoplay feature on Spotify. If that doesn’t fix your issue, you need to clear the queue, and this method assists should fix the issue. You need to upgrade to a premium account if you can’t find the queue button.

Finally, your account may be compromised, and someone has access to your account. In that case, you need to change your account password, sign out of every device from your account page and remove all third-party connections like your email address, social media account, Etc.

If you found this content helpful, kindly drop a comment below. Also, let me know which methods helped you stop Spotify from random playlist songs that are not in your playlist.