I streamed over 90,000 minutes worth of music on Spotify last year—you could say I’m a bit of a connoisseur. While the official Spotify app is solid, there’s certainly a lot of room for more “power user” features. I’ve recently discovered an easy way to make it even better with a nifty tool.
Modifying Spotify Using Spicetify
Spicetify is a CLI (Command-Line Interface) tool that you inject into Spotify, allowing you to customize your Spotify app on Windows, Linux, or MacOS. Spicetify doesn’t actually add any features by itself; it merely lets you install mods. Most notably, you can use it to install the Spicetify Marketplace, which contains various Spotify modifications that add to or alter the functionality of your Spotify.
Using Spicetify to modify your Spotify client may be considered a violation of Spotify’s Terms of Service, which could lead to account suspension or termination.
Custom Spotify Apps and Extensions
Spotify isn’t exactly packed with features. In fact, the exact opposite is happening. Spotify keeps removing features that fans love—there’s no longer a “Create Similar Playlist” option, and they even removed lyrics from the free plan.
That’s where Spicetify’s custom apps, extensions, and snippets come in. Snippets are the simplest modifications available on the Spicetify Marketplace. For example, they can round off the edges of the “Now Playing” bar and images, automatically collapse the friends list, move interface elements around, make them hoverable, fix bugs, etc. I like their lightweight nature because they let me fine-tune how my Spotify client looks and feels.
Next up are extensions, which are mods that can completely change how Spotify operates. Some of the most popular extensions include Auto Skip Videos, Bookmark, Christian Spotify (auto skip explicit songs), and Keyboard Shortcut. My personal favorite is the Trash Bin, which lets you permanently ban songs from appearing in your shuffle by auto-skipping them. I also like Cat Jam Synced. It’s a silly one that puts a synced version of the popular Catjam GIF on top of your Spotify client.
Apps are the most complex mods, and they need to be installed manually. To give you a rough idea, Spicetify Marketplace is technically considered a custom app. They add stuff like audio visualizers, mini-games, and playlist mods.
Cool Themes for a Unique Look
Spotify is one of the few popular apps that only has a dark mode. While I personally use dark mode on everything, my fiancée hates it and would prefer that her Spotify was light themed. If you agree with her, Spicetify has a nice selection of themes to choose from. I currently use the Default (Ocean) Spicetify theme that modifies the default color scheme from the dull dark gray to a sleek dark blue.
My theme is pretty lightweight, but there are some themes that have very vibrant colorways and alter various interface elements. For instance, StarryNight replaces the whole background with a starry night sky and moves the player to the top-right corner.
It’s worth noting that most themes also have several completely unique colorways. My favorite part about how themes are implemented in Spiceitfy is that they don’t break your extensions. As you can see from my screenshot, the Catjam extension moved to the corner together with the player. Everything just works, which is a rare sight in any modding community.
How to Add Spicetify to Your Spotify Client
Installing Spicetify on your PC couldn’t be easier. Just note you need to install the latest version of Spotify before you can install Spicetify. On Windows, open the Start menu, type “PowerShell,” and click on the tool to open it. Next, copy-paste the following command and hit Enter:
iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spicetify/cli/main/install.ps1 | iex
After 20–30 seconds, you’ll get a confirmation in PowerShell that Spicetified has been successfully installed. To install the Spicetify Marketplace, paste the following command:
iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spicetify/marketplace/main/resources/install.ps1 | iex
MacOS and Linux users can use their respective Terminals and this command to install Spicetify:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spicetify/cli/main/install.sh | sh
For the Spicetify Marketplace, use the following:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spicetify/marketplace/main/resources/install.sh | sh
That’s it! You can now access the Marketplace in the top-left corner and use it for further modding. Both Spotify and Spicetify and its mods update automatically, but you should still occasionally check for new updates, just in case.
Regardless of whether you have Spotify Premium or not, Spicetify is a must-have tool if you use Spotify on your PC. Even if you don’t care about customizing the appearance of your client, there’s at least a handful of useful extensions that’ll make your music-listening experience way more enjoyable.
