Back in July, an enterprising engineer named Riley Walz ambushed some high-profile government officials, tech executives and journalists by publishing what he contended were their Spotify playlists on a public website called the Panama Playlists.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (reportedly a fan of Dixon Dallas), FTX villain Sam Bankman-Fried (The Weeknd) and even Vice President JD Vance (Backstreet Boys) were all caught up in the expose, but they were likely no more surprised than the average Spotify user — “You mean all of our playlists are public?!”
Spotify playlists have always been public, but the Panama Playlists serves as a reminder that even playlists not shown on your profiles could be accessed by anyone on the service.
The confusion stems from a long-time Spotify practice of calling playlists that weren’t on users’ profile pages “Private Playlists.” The company clarified that in the settings in 2021 and added the option of making playlists truly private.
If you’d like to make your Spotify playlists invisible to the public, read on to learn how to change the setting and even make all your future playlists private if you like.
How to make your Spotify playlists private
Spotify playlists are publicly shared by default. That means that anyone with a Spotify account can view all of your playlists that you haven’t designated as private, either with a direct link or via Spotify search.
In order to keep a Spotify playlist secret, you’ll need to specifically mark it as private. Here’s how to do it on your iPhone, iPad, Android device, desktop or web versions of Spotify.
Set a Spotify playlist to private on iPhone, iPad or Android device
It only takes a couple taps to make a playlist private on a mobile device.
- Open your Spotify app
- Browse to the playlist that you would like to set as private
- Tap the 3-dot menu right next to the share button
- Scroll down and tap Make playlist private
Set a Spotify playlist to private on desktop or the web
The process for making a playlist private with the desktop or web-based Spotify software is nearly identical to what it is on mobile. The only differences are the name of the setting and the number of options in the drop-down menu.
- Open the Spotify app and browse to the playlist you want to set private
- Click the 3-dot menu that’s on the same row as the Play button
- Scroll down and click on the option that says Make private (below “Download”)
Unfortunately, you cannot set multiple Spotify playlists to private in bulk. You can only make playlists private one at a time.
How to make all of your future playlists automatically private
You can set all future playlists to be private but only on iOS, iPadOS or Android. The feature isn’t available on web or desktop app.
On the mobile app:
- Tap your profile image
- Tap Settings and privacy
- Tap Privacy and social
- Scroll down to Playlist visibility
- Toggle off the slider next to Public playlists
The settings change only affects new Spotify playlists. You’re still on the hook for hiding all those embarrassing old mixes individually.
What does setting a Spotify playlist to private actually mean?
Setting your Spotify playlists to private will make them inaccessible to anyone but you. Links to the playlist that you shared previously will no longer work and the playlist will no longer be returned as a Spotify search result. If you had previously added the playlist to your public profile, the link to that playlist will disappear from your profile after becoming private.
You can still share a link to a private playlist to family and friends, but that URL will expire after 7 days. If you want to make a private playlist permanently available to someone else, you’ll need to add them as a contributor.
Are you likely to end up on a website for celebrity Spotify playlists? Doubtful. But do you really want your new crush to accidentally find your My Little Pony Equestria Girls ultra megamix? (That might be my special concern.)
I’m still on Spotify, and I’m not afraid to share my playlists… at least the ones on my profile page.
Actually, wait a minute while I make a few playlists private…
…
OK now I’m not afraid.
