Spotify has rolled out a major update giving its free-tier mobile users more control over their listening experience, a change that ends years of shuffle-only restrictions.
The streaming giant announced on Monday, September 15, that non-paying users can now take advantage of features once exclusive to premium subscribers. These include the ability to pick and play specific tracks, search and instantly play songs from results, and listen directly to shared links.
Free account holders are also allowed to create fully customized playlists, including their daily “daylist” generated by Spotify’s algorithm, and design playlist covers using the app’s AI image generator. Even the Lyrics function, previously highlighted under the Now Playing view, is now available without a subscription.
Despite the expansion of features, Spotify emphasized that some perks remain exclusive to premium members. Ad-free listening, offline downloads, higher audio quality, unlimited skips, and queueing songs still require a paid subscription. The upgraded skip limit for free accounts is said to remain capped, though higher than the previous six per hour.
