How much data does Spotify use? It depends on the sound quality you choose. The higher it is, the more data the streaming service will burn through. In any case, Spotify uses way less data than video streaming services (more on this later) and probably less than most people think.
With the new feature, Spotify users can listen to music or podcasts from Spotify over WiFi or cellular without having to have an iPhone nearby. There has been a Spotify Apple Watch app available. Spotify has started rolling out standalone streaming support for its Apple Watch app. This update allows users to listen to Spotify music and podcasts by directly streaming via a cellular.
The Spotify Android app lets you choose between five sound quality settings: Low (24kbps), Normal (96kbps), High (160kbps), Very high (320kbps), and Automatic (dependent on your network connection). You can access these options by heading to Settings > Music Quality on your Android phone.
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- How much data Spotify uses on the mobile app. If you are using the Spotify app on your device (iPhone, Window's Phone, Android, etc.) then you can stream the music on it at three different rates, unless you are using the free service. Then you are limited to the two lowest ones. Here are the streaming bitrates for Spotify on the app.
- Instead of just using one connection, Speedify allows your iPhone or Android smartphone to connect to the Internet over both Wi-Fi and mobile data simultaneously. This instantly increases your connection bandwidth and reliability and provides a better and uninterrupted Spotify streaming experience so you won’t experience the slightest “hiccup” (buffering) or disconnect issues.
To simplify things as much as possible, I’ve prepared an overview of how much data each setting uses per minute and hour as well as how long you’d have to stream music for to burn through 1GB of data. Keep in mind these numbers are approximate. Spotify can cache songs you’ve previously listened to, meaning they may not eat up the same amount of data the second time you play them.
Low (24kbps):
- Per minute: 0.18MB
- Per hour: 10.8MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 92.5 hours
Normal (96kbps):
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- Per minute: 0.72MB
- Per hour: 43.2MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 23.1 hours
High (160kbps):
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- Per minute: 1.2MB
- Per hour: 72MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 13.8 hours
Very high (320kbps):
- Per minute: 2.4MB
- Per hour: 144MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 6.9 hours
Now that you know how much data Spotify uses, let’s see how the numbers compare to video streaming. Watching HD content on Netflix uses up to 3GB of data per hour or as much as 7GB when the resolution gets bumped up to Ultra HD. Medium quality (SD) is a lot less data hungry, burning through 0.7GB per hour. Still, that’s almost five times as much as streaming music with the best sound quality available (320kbps).
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What about Spotify’s competitors? Google Play Music and Deezer both offer a maximum audio bitrate of 320kbps, which uses approximately 144MB of data per hour. So does Tidal, although it also has a Hi-Fi plan with a bitrate of 1.411kbps for improved sound quality. It’s a lot more data hungry, using around 635MB per hour. Apple Music, on the other hand, has a maximum bitrate of 256kbps, which translates to around 115MB of data per hour.
An important thing to keep in mind is that Spotify — as well as other streaming services mentioned in this post — lets you download songs to your phone, which means you don’t have to use any data at all when listening to music.
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How many hours per week do you listen to music on Spotify or other streaming services? Let us know in the comments!
I had to revert my Spotify Desktop App back to previous version and at the same time I decided to revert all the way back to the version 1.0.25.127.g58007b4c so I got my Bell Icon back at the same time. I will never update to the newest version again. Spotify desktop app display driver update. Do you mean getting the Spotify icon on taskbar (the bar where the start button sits) or the desktop? To get something to taskbar, you can right-click on the Spotify icon and 'pin to taskbar'. To get the Spotify icon to the desktop, do this: Find the Spotify icon in your Start menu and try to drag it to your desktop. It should create a shortcut. Hi Sonos Cohorts! I am running the Spotify desktop app on Windows and I have found that the display does not update and it appears to just stop working (I can't pause or change songs). Here is an example - I browse to Your Daily Drive. Spotify displays 'Its Thursday' s the first track, but it's Tuesday. Windows 8.1 x64 / 8gb ddr3 1600mhz ram / amd fx 8-core cpu / nvidia gtx 690 with latest WHQL drivers / latest spotify version (stable). Solution: i just have to disable 'hardware acceleration' in spotify settings menu. Then the problem is gone. Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.