How to organize a virtual group listening party

If you can't get together with your friends or family, you can take advantage of Spotify's virtual listening feature instead. This allows five Spotify users to listen to the same songs or podcasts simultaneously.

Spotify 's group listening feature is purely for listening - you can't chat with each other while you listen, but each user in the virtual party can play, pause, ignore and add their own content for each member to listen to. You will each need a Spotify Premium subscription to take advantage of this feature, as well as the Spotify mobile app for Android , iPhone or iPad .

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Creating a Spotify group session

To create a new session Spotify Group (as these virtual listeners are called), you need to start listening to a song or podcast in the mobile app first. These steps should work for you whether you are using an Android, iPhone or iPad.

With music or a podcast playing in the Spotify app, tap the "Available devices " icon in the lower left corner.

This will bring up a list of devices available on which you can play your Spotify content. If you are a premium subscriber, however, you will also see a new option to start a group session.

To do this, select the "Start session button. ".

This will start a new group session for other Spotify users to log in. Other users can join your session by sharing the special invite code with them.

If the other user is near you, they can scan the group session code directly at the bottom of the menu. You can also tap "Invite Friends " to share your code, which you can then share through a third-party messaging service on your device.

You can also press "Copy link " in the share menu to copy a special share link that other users can use to join your session. This will allow remote users to connect to the same group session.

You can then share this link manually with other Spotify users to connect to.

Join an existing Spotify group session

If you want to join an existing group session, you can do so by first playing music or podcast in the Spotify app.

From the menu playback, select the "Available devices " icon in the lower left corner.

In the "Start a group session " section, press the "Scan to join " button, directly below the larger Start session button.

If another member of the group session is nearby, you can use the camera on your device to scan the code directly.

This will only work for nearby users. If you want to join a remote session, you will need to useer a shared link.

If the user has sent you a link share, click on this link open the S applicationpotify and ask if you want to join the session.

Press "Join session to group the listening part" or "Not now if you want to decline the invitation."

Once you have joined a session, the commands Playback from the main Spotify playback screen control the session. Each user can add, delete, stop, play or skip content as they wish, controlling playback for all connected group members.

End a Spotify group session

If you want to end a group session, open the Spotify app, view the song or podcast that's playing, and then tap the icon "Available devices.

In the "Connect to a device" menu, press the "End session " button.

You will need to confirm that you want to end this session - this will also end it for all logged in users. Select the "Confirm button to confirm your choice.

Once confirmed, your group session will end. You will need to create a new session if you want to resume listening to Spotify content with other users.