Spotify, one of the biggest digital music and podcast service available on iPhone includes among its features a section for recently played songs. In this section, all the albums, songs or podcast you have recently searched and played on the platform will be displayed.
While this feature can be helpful especially if you want to stay close to your favorite songs and be able to play them whenever, it some times can pose as a risk to your security and the best thing to do is to remove them.
In this article, you’ll learn how to delete recently played on Spotify iPhone as well as other details surrounding removing a recently played song on the Spotify platform.
How To Delete Recently Played On Spotify iPhone?
Given the number of iPhone users asking for how to delete recently played on Spotify, it’s evident that the feature is much desirable and it’s easy to understand why. Apart from being able to share your premium account with family who you may want to hide your taste of music from, your recently played is also displayed on your public facing profile.
Without a double thought, removing completely a playlist or album you do not want a second eye seeing is the best of options but unfortunately, times have changed and so did Spotify. You could delete recently played on Spotify in the past, but not anymore and has made it difficult more than ever not to leave traces of the music you play on Spotify.
While users all over the world are still bent on knowing why it should be this way, Spotify is yet to do anything about it and pretty sure, it’s not in their plan to lift it anytime soon.
This was a huge update that came in 2019, hence if you’re yet to update your Spotify app to the latest version, you’ll still be able to remove recently played on your account. If this is your case follow the below steps to delete recently played on Spotify;
- Login your Spotify account
- Scroll over to Recently Played on your iPhone and to the exact play list or song you want to delete
- Tap the three dots by the side to reveal more options
- Tap on Remove
It used to be that simple and if you’re yet to accept the update that made removing recently played impossible, I’d say you’re lucky, enjoy the above guide.
If however you’re already running the latest version of Spotify, then the above guide does not apply to you, rather we can employ some work arounds to help the situation. Note that this work around will not stop recently played from showing in your account, but what we’re about to do will stop Spotify from keeping tabs on your recently played on the platform.
Do not worry, if that doesn’t make sense to you, it’ll soon. Follow the method to stop songs you have recently played on Spotify from being displayed in your account.
Using Spotify Free Version
Spotify free offers the basic function of playing just about any song you want but some feature are only available for premium accounts. The premium account is not our interest here, the ability to play songs is.
Here’s the idea, instead of play songs, podcast or any playlist you don’t want being spotted on your Spotify premium account, why not play the songs outside of your account – I mean using the free version. Hope that makes some sense to you?
The Spotify free version can be used to play songs with or without an account. The idea is that you don’t play the songs you don’t want appearing as recently played on your account, but to play them outside of your account, that is, logged out.
If that sits well with you already, follow the steps below to prevent recently played from showing in your Spotify account.
- Launch the Spotify app on iPhone. I assume your account is already logged in.
- Scroll all the way to the top and tap the Cog icon – That’s the Settings icon on Spotify
- Scroll all the way down and tap the Log Out button at the bottom of the screen
- Confirm to the pop-up that appears that you want to Log out by clicking on Log Out again
This way you can play all the songs you do not want to keep track of outside of your account using the free version, they’ll never be recorded as recently played in your main account.
This is particularly helpful especially if you’re on a Spotify sharing plan as no member of the plan will know what exactly you’re up to. That’s how to keep your guard up.
Also, there’s something else you can do to prevent your Recently Played on Spotify from appearing on your public facing profile. If you do not already know, friends and family members who also use Spotify are allowed to see what songs you play on the platform. While this feature is well meaning and of good intention it’s not desirable if they must not see your Recently played activity.
To stop this from happening, you can do a little adjustment on Spotify to hide playlist or songs from your public facing profile. There are two ways to do this, follow the below guide;
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Hide a Single Playlist
It could be just a song or even a podcast, so long as it’s on your Recently Played, you can hide it from other eyes. People who follow you can see your other recently played on the app but not the one you have intentionally hidden.
Follow the below guide to hide a single playlist from your public facing profile;
-
- On Spotify, locate the playlist or song you want to make private.
- Tap on the three dots on the song or if a playlist click on it and then on the three dots located at the top.
- From the list of options that appear, scroll down and tap on Make Private with a lock icon.
Hide all Recently Played
Instead of hide just one song or playlist, you can make private all of your recently played and no one will be able to see them but you.
Follow the below guide to hide all recently played from your public facing profile;
- Tap on the Settings icon at the top
- Scroll down and tap on Social
- Scroll down to Recently Played Artists and toggle the switch to the right of the option to off.
It is that simple. Either of the ways discussed above, no one will be able to see songs you have recently played on the platform as they’ve been made private. However, note that these songs or whatever it is you have played will not leave your recently played session, they’re only not visible on your public facing profile.
Can You Remove Recently Played on Spotify iPhone?
No, there’s no way as of this writing to remove recently played on Spotify iPhone. You could this in the past with a previous version of Spotify, but not anymore on the updated version.
It is for so many reasons that boarder around privacy mostly that you may need to remove recently played on Spotify. However, Spotify has refused to take cognizance of that. In my opinion, they’re only more interested in making their social feature connecting friends and family members more robust, by giving them the ability to see what you’re up to on the digital music app. Giving users the ability to remove recently played will only defeat the idea for the most part.
What you can do instead is to hide your recently played from your public facing profile. This way, your playlist or albums are kept anonymous to other persons while still being visible in your Spotify account.
Conclusion
Persons with the most concern about their recently played songs on Spotify iPhone are people on a Spotify family sharing plan. Your activities on a plan like this cannot be kept hidden and that includes the playlist you do not want people on the plan to know about.
Other than people on this category, whether you’re on a personal premium or free account, your recently played cannot be accessed by someone else so long as they can’t access your Spotify account and secondly, you have hidden the playlist from your public facing account.
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