Guide to Starting and Organizing a Spotify Group Session with Friends

Everyone has a different musical taste and preferences. Usually when your phone is playing music at a party, your friends and family members ask you to play their favorite song. It can be tedious to look for desired songs and make changes to the current playlist. Wouldn’t it be fun to share a listening session with your friends to discover and enjoy songs? Spotify is trying to achieve this with the new Spotify Group session in the app.

Spotify, the world’s largest streaming music service, is pushing ahead with aggressive pressure on the podcast industry. That doesn’t mean Spotify isn’t focusing much on the music department. The company recently launched a Group session for Premium subscribers. Group sessions allow you to listen to songs in real time with your friends. Users in a group session can choose what to play and control the music together.

This feature can also be useful when you’re thousands of miles away from your friends and want the team to listen to the same music at the same time.

So how does it work? How to set up and host Spotify Group sessions with friends? How to end a group session? We have all the answers for you. Lets start.

availability

Group session is only available for Premium subscribers for now. The feature is accessible from the Spotify mobile and tablet app. There is no information regarding the launch of Group session feature on Spotify desktop or web app.

Organize a Spotify Group Session with Friends

To control the music together, you need to create a Group session and ask your friends to join the group to play and control the music. Follow the steps below to set up a Spotify Group session.

Stage 1: Open the Spotify app on your device.

Step 2: Play any song. Open the music player screen and tap the multi-device icon in the lower left corner.

Stage 3: The following screen will present you with a number of connectivity options such as AirPlay or Bluetooth. You will see Group sessions with Start Session and Scan to Join options. Tap the Start Session button.

Step 4: The next screen will show the unique Spotify Group session code. You can ask your friends to scan the code using the scan to join option or tap Invite Friends to create a Group session link.

Step 5: Send the link using Messages or any social media chat app like WhatsApp or Telegram.

Step 6: When your friend (he must be using Spotify Premium too) opens the link, it will take him to the app with an invitation to join the Group session.

Step 7: They can join the session or use the not now option to ignore the message.

Step 8: When the other user joins Session, the Spotify app will offer two options to listen to music. Let’s understand the action of each option.

If you select ‘Join on same device as friend’, you will not be able to hear the song next to you. The playlist will continue to play on your friend’s device. However, you can check the upcoming songs and add your preferred songs to the queue. You can always pause or skip the song.

This option is for parties and functions where you do not want the same music to continue playing on each group user’s device. Instead, it will only play on the admin’s device while giving control to all members in the Group session. In short, everyone becomes a DJ.

If you go with the ‘On my own device’ option, the same music will play alongside you. In this case, the music will play on all users’ devices. This is useful when you want to listen to the same music while away from your friends.

Group Session Controls

A user can add up to five members to a Group session. All participating members can play, skip, forward, rewind, and pause a song. You can also add your favorite song to the group playlist.

Go to a song you like and tap the three-dot menu. Select Add to Queue from the menu below. And this will add the song to the group playlist.

From the song’s playback screen, you can see how many members are listening to the current song, and if you joined the group as ‘Join on the same device as your friend’, you will see the host device name the song is currently on. playing.

How Much My Information Can Be Used by Group Members

Invited members can see your name, device name, and current Spotify playlist. They can also look at your Spotify profile with follower numbers and public playlists. However, they cannot see your private playlists.

Does It Work With Podcasts?

Yes, the Group session works fine on podcasts too. The procedure for creating a group session remains the same as above.

How to End/Leave a Group Session

You can leave or end the current Group session at any time. Go through the steps below.

Stage 1: Open the Spotify app and go to the music playback screen.

Step 2: Tap on the multi-device icon and select Sign Out from the menu below. If you are the group administrator, you will see the End Session option.

Play Music Together

The group session feature is like a breath of fresh air in the music streaming space. Spotify’s Group session functionality is pretty handy and the general app is in place. I can’t help but see Spotify take the lead in the music streaming app race. Go ahead and try the Group session with your friends on Spotify. I’m sure you and your friends will have a lot of fun discovering and enjoying new music.

Next: Does the Spotify desktop app open automatically on startup on Mac or Windows? Read the post below to learn how to turn off the behavior.