What is a Spotify Private Session? | IPVanish (2024)

In the digital world, everything is data. Nowadays, something seemingly innocuous like listening to music could impact your privacy. And as the most popular music streaming platform in the world, no one has a greater impact than Spotify. But you can still use Spotify without completely sacrificing your privacy. One of the best ways to do this is by starting a Spotify Private Session. So, what is a Spotify Private Session, exactly, and how do you start one? Here’s everything you need to know.

Spotify data collection

Before we get into the ins and outs of Spotify Private Sessions, it’s important to understand how Spotify works.

Spotify doesn’t just function as a music player; it operates as part social network, part advertising powerhouse. The platform collects a lot of data about its users, including listening habits and locations. This is in addition to the data you intentionally submit when you sign up, such as your name, email, billing information, etc. Essentially, Spotify tracks everything you do when you use it. What you search for, the songs you start, the ones you skip, when you pause –Spotify monitors it all.

When spelled out in Spotify’s Privacy Policy, this accounts for a significant number of data points. In fact, in aggregate, Spotify collects more than 100 billion data points from their users every day. Spotify breaks their data collection into four categories: usage data, technical data, general (non-precise) location data, and device sensor data.

Usage data

Usage data is the data Spotify gathers while you’re using the service. This includes:

• Your membership tier
• Your actions (including date and time), such as:
  • Your search queries
  • Your streaming history
  • The playlists you create
  • Your music library
  • Your browsing history
  • Your account settings
  • The interactions you have with other Spotify users
  • Your use of third-party services, devices, and applications in connection with Spotify
• Spotify’s own inferences and assumptions of your personal interests and preferences based on the way you use the service
• Content you submit when participating in any promotions, such as contests or sweepstakes
• Content you post to Spotify, such as images, audio, text, titles, descriptions, communications, and more

Technical data

While usage data covers the “how,” technical data covers the “what,” as in what device, operating system, browser, etc you’re using Spotify on. In total, this includes:

• URL data
• Your browser cookie data and IP addresses
• Device data, including:
  • Your device IDs
  • Your network connection type (Wi-Fi, 5G, 4G, LTE, Bluetooth, etc)
  • Your internet service provider and/or mobile carrier
  • Your network and device performance
  • Your browser type
  • Your language settings
  • Your device operating system
  • Your Spotify application version
• Additional data that helps Spotify discover and connect with third-party devices and apps, including:
  • Your device name
  • Your device identifiers
  • Your device brand
  • Your device version
  • Devices on your Wi-Fi network that can connect to Spotify (like Bluetooth speakers)
  • Devices made available by your operating system when connecting via Bluetooth, plugin, and/or installation
  • Spotify partner apps

General (non-precise) location data

Now for the “where.” Spotify may use the technical data they collect, such as your IP address and language settings to:

• Determine your country, region, and/or state
• Meet geographic licensing and copyright requirements
• Serve you content and ads relevant to you and your location

Device sensor data

Finally, device sensor data. This is one of the more unique data categories; it covers “motion-generated or orientation-generated mobile sensor data” such as your accelerometer or gyroscope.

In its Privacy Policy, Spotify isn’t entirely clear about the purpose of this data collection. Essentially, however, it’s a way for Spotify to make inferences about your activity while listening, such as driving or running.

What is a Spotify Private Session?

So, to feed its advertising machine, and to make its service more engaging for sustained use, Spotify collects (and shares) tons of data. Furthermore, by default, the artists, songs, and albums you listen to, as well as the playlists you create, are public – anyone who follows you on the platform can view them. So, those guilty pleasure tracks you thought were secret? Others may know about them.

To help mitigate this, however, you can start a Spotify Private Session. Spotify Private Sessions prevent others from viewing your listening activity and limit some of the data collection Spotify uses to run its recommendation algorithms. In essence, it functions a bit like your browser’s incognito mode. While it’s not a perfect solution, and it won’t prevent Spotify from collecting data altogether, it does help create a more private experience.

Do Spotify Private Sessions count towards Spotify Wrapped?

One of the most fun parts about being a Spotify subscriber is Spotify Wrapped. Even if you’re not a Spotify subscriber, you may be familiar with Spotify Wrapped; Spotify subscribers eagerly share their personal Spotify Wrapped results on social media each December. Essentially Spotify Wrapped is an annual review of each user’s listening habits. It summarizes which artists, songs, and genres individual subscribers have listened to the most each year.

But what about if you start a Spotify Private Session? Many subscribers have wondered if that music counts towards their year-end Spotify Wrapped. The simple answer is no. While the number of minutes listened during a Private Session will be reflected in Spotify Wrapped, songs, artists, and genres will not.

This reveals a potential added benefit of Private Sessions. Maybe you consider certain music to be a guilty pleasure; maybe you share your account with your kids. If you don’t want certain music included in your personal Wrapped, simply start a Private Session before you play it.

Do Spotify Private Sessions count towards Instafest?

Like Spotify Wrapped, Instafest is a summary of your most listened to music. It uses data from Spotify (or Apple Music/Last.fm) to create a fictional music festival lineup out of your top artists. And similarly to Spotify Wrapped, Instafest is a popular source of content for social media users.

The similarities don’t end there. Just as with your Wrapped, any artists you listen to during a Private Session won’t count towards your Instafest. So if there are certain artists you don’t want to appear in your Instafest, starting a Private Session whenever you listen to them will ensure they won’t headline your fictional musical festival.
If your main concern with regards to Instafest is privacy, it’s worth pointing out that Instafest operates under a privacy-friendly privacy policy. While we’ve established Spotify collects and stores a significant amount of your personal data, this doesn’t appear to to be the case with Instafest. In fact, no “account data used by Instafest is stored or collected, and it is not shared with any third parties. The information is only used on your personal device to generate your Instafest graphic.”

How to start a Spotify Private Session

Fortunately, starting a Spotify Private Session is simple. Here’s how:

How to start a Spotify Private Session on mobile/tablet

1. Open the Spotify app.
2. Tap the Home icon.
3. Tap the Settings icon.
4. Tap Social, then toggle Private Session to on.

How to start a Spotify Private Session on desktop

1. Open the Spotify app.
2. Click the dropdown arrow next to your profile display name.
3. Click “Private session.”
4. Once enabled, a closed padlock should appear to the left of your profile photo and display name.

How to further optimize your Spotify privacy settings

Because Spotify is desperate for data, Private Sessions automatically end each time you restart Spotify, or following a long period of inactivity. But there’s a way around this. To enable permanent Private Sessions, and to further limit data collection, follow the step-by-step guides below.

How to optimize Spotify privacy settings on mobile/tablet

1. Open the Spotify app.
2. Tap the Home icon.
3. Tap the Settings icon.
4. Tap Social.
5. Toggle “Private session” to on.
6. Toggle “Listening activity” and “Recently played artists” to off.

How to optimize Spotify privacy settings on desktop

1. Open the Spotify app.
2. Click the dropdown arrow next to your profile display name.
3. Click “Settings.”
4. Scroll to “Social.”
5. Make sure the “Connect With Facebook” setting is turned off.
6. Toggle “Make my new playlists public,” “Share my listening activity on Spotify,” and “Show my recently played artists on my public profile” to off.
7. Toggle “Start a Private Session to listen anonymously” to on.

Take your privacy to the next level with a VPN

Optimizing your Spotify privacy settings is important, but it shouldn’t be the endpoint in your online privacy journey. Thankfully, you can level up your privacy both on and off Spotify with a VPN.

A VPN, short for virtual private network, secures your connection to any network with encryption. This is especially important when you’re connected to public networks, such as free Wi-Fi hotspots. These networks are unsafe to use by default because anyone else with network access can eavesdrop on your individual activity. With your VPN active, however, you can safely access hotspots and shield your personal traffic from snoopers.

A VPN is also useful to pair with Spotify because it allows you to change your IP address and mask it with the IP address that matches your VPN server. This limits the accurate location data Spotify can collect from you, and in turn share with third parties.