One of my favorite things about Spotify is that, beyond its core features, there are many third-party apps and add-ons that give you insights into your listening habits. Here is everything you need to know.
1 last.fm
A great way to track your Spotify listening habits, access stats, and get recommendations is through last.fm. It uses something called “scrobbling,” which is when it tracks the music you listen to and automatically adds it to your music profile. last.fm lets you connect your Spotify account and track what you listen to. With a Spotify Premium account, you can also use “Spotify Playback,” allowing you to play tracks on last.fm.
After connecting to your Spotify account, start playing your favorite songs and go back to last.fm: you will now see that your recent tracks are updated. From here, you can view your top songs, artists, albums, and recommendations. last.fm also gives you weekly, monthly, and yearly listening reports and allows you to set an obsession track.
Playlists can be created in the last.fm app or imported from Spotify. With the “Live” tab, you can view a global scribble counter that lets you discover spiking (and related) artists, see what people around the world are listening to, and see real-time charts.
You can download last.fm on Android, iOS, or use the web app. Apart from Spotify, it is also compatible with services like Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal, Deezer, Soundcloud, and more.
2 Obscurify
If you are a fan of feeling like your music taste is quirky and different, an app that lets you check your Spotify stats in a unique manner is Obscurify. As its name suggests, the web app highlights the more “obscure” part of your listening patterns. By logging in to Spotify, you can instantly see your music’s “obscurity rating,” which compares how obscure your Spotify listening habits are against other users in your country. The higher this rating on a scale of 0-100%, the more obscure your music taste.
You can also see your most obscure artists, a neatly visualized stack of your favorite genres, and current favorite artists and songs. Obscurify shows you a chart of how obscure your music taste is compared to other users in your country, and you can change the country for more detailed comparisons.
Stats for your music moods in comparison to these users and the most dominant decades of your songs are also displayed. You can filter your favorite artists and songs by “current” (past six weeks), and “all-time.”
Obscurify brings in the community feeling with its share feature, which lets you create a unique URL and share it with your friends so you can compare your obscure music tastes. Beyond this, you get recommendations from Obscurify, which you can make into a playlist with the tap of a button. This gets reflected instantly in your Spotify library, which is a bonus for music discovery.
3 Receiptify
Beyond Spotify Wrapped, there are many ways to see a neat snapshot of your listening habits on Spotify. Receiptify is a simple way to generate a virtual “receipt” of your Spotify listening patterns. After connecting your Spotify or last.fm account to Receiptify, your personal receipt is instantly generated, showing your most listened-to tracks from the last month.
You can change this receipt by artists, genres, and stats (this includes the popularity and mood of your music). You can also filter this further by time (up to the last year), change the length of your receipt from 10 to 50, and switch fonts. Receiptify lets you build a custom receipt that includes custom titles and handpicked songs or albums.
All your receipts can be downloaded as images, or saved as a playlist on Spotify. I find Receiptify a great way to get a free Spotify Wrapped-style receipt around the year.
4 PlaylistAI
Making playlists on Spotify can be a chore, and this is where apps like PlaylistAI come to the rescue. This is an AI playlist maker that you can use in ChatGPT, on the web, or, for iOS users, download as an app from the App Store. To use this app through ChatGPT, after logging in, you can simply type out a prompt for a playlist (or use the smart suggestions that PlaylistAI suggests for you). You get a list of songs, and you can tweak this according to your liking. Once your playlist looks ready to go, you can ask PlaylistAI to convert the list into a playlist for Spotify, as well as other apps like Deezer, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
5 Soundiiz
If you have ever switched music streaming platforms, finding an app or service that transfers your playlists and favorite songs can be a headache (especially if you are someone with an insanely large music library like me). Soundiiz lets you easily transfer and recreate your music collection across 43 music streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal.
While some playlists or albums may be read-only or not accessible on a few platforms, Soundiiz is still, overall, an easy-to-use and compatible service that syncs all your playlists across the multiple platforms you use to stream music.
The free version of Soundiiz lets you connect all your favorite music platforms, convert playlists (with a maximum of 200 songs) one by one, and access standard tools. With the Premium plan ($3/month billed annually, or $4.50/month billed monthly), you can transfer all your music data, sync playlists, and manage albums, tracks, and artists. If you are looking for a one-time transfer while jumping platforms, your best bet is to get the Premium plan and cancel the subscription after the transfer is completed.
6 Discoverify
Spotify has some great built-in features, such as Smart Shuffle, song stations, and mood playlists that help you discover new music and expand your library. But a Spotify add-on that takes discovery to the next level with daily curated music playlists is Discoverify. Based on your listening history, you can access a daily playlist of 30 songs.
Before your final playlist is created, you can customize the songs by acoustics, danceability, energy, instrumentality, popularity, and mood. After you link Discoverify, you can automatically get daily playlists every day.
7 Stats.fm
To have a comprehensive look at your music listening stats on Spotify, Stats.fm is a staple. Beyond basic stats, Stats.fm gives you the stats that you cannot find on your Spotify app. By connecting to your Spotify account, you can view your top artists, songs, genres, and albums, apart from other listening stats that paint the big picture of your music taste.
Unlocking Stats.fm Plus ($5.99/year or $12.99 for lifetime access) lets you access more interesting stats like total minutes listened, your 10,000 top tracks, and view advanced charts like streams and minutes per day. You can even find your “music soulmate” that matches similar music tastes. You can also access features like listening clocks, advanced sorting, and custom timeframes.
Stats.fm is available on Android and iOS (for iPhone and iPad) or as a web app that you can use on your favorite browser.
There are many add-ons and apps out there that help you make your Spotify experience the best it can be. A good starting place, however, is exploring the hidden features in your Spotify app that you may not be aware of.
