By Hannah Davies
Senior Staff Writer
- iOS 15
- Spotify
Want to listen to your Spotify playlists at the highest quality possible? Here’s how to do it on the streaming service’s mobile and desktop apps.
One of the biggest perks of Spotify Premium is the increased audio quality. While Spotify Free accounts can listen at 160kbit/s, Premium subscribers can push that number up to 320kbit/s.
What you might not know is that you can increase the music quality to hear more details or turn it down to save data on your device manually. This can be a helpful trick for those with more limited data plans – especially as Spotify gives you the ability to adjust the quality for Wi-Fi and Cellular streaming separately.
There’s also an Auto Adjust Quality option to detect and reduce your streaming quality when your Internet bandwidth is poor, preventing your music from being interrupted (though you can switch this off if you prefer).
Follow these steps to learn how to change the audio quality on the Spotify smartphone and tablet apps, or scroll down to the bottom of this guide to learn how to do it on the desktop app.
What you’ll need:
- A Spotify account
- The mobile or tablet app
The Short Version
- Open Spotify
- Go to your Settings
- Tap Audio Quality
- Choose a streaming quality
How to change audio quality on Spotify
Step
1Open Spotify
You can follow these steps on the iOS and Android apps on your smartphone or tablet. For tips on how to change the audio quality on the desktop app, scroll down to the bottom of this guide.
Step
2Tap the Settings icon
This is the cog icon in the top-right corner of your screen.
Step
3Select Audio Quality
This will be in between Voice Assistants & Apps and Video Quality.
Step
4Choose the quality you want to stream at
You can pick different options for Wi-Fi and Cellular streaming if you’re concerned about using up your data.
Troubleshooting
How to change audio quality on the Spotify desktop app
To increase or decrease the audio quality on the desktop app, all you need to do is click the down arrow in the top-right corner and click Settings. Then click Audio Quality and choose your preferred settings.
Can you change the audio quality on the Spotify web player?
No, you can’t. While upgrading to Spotify Premium will take the quality from AAC 128kbit/s to AAC 256kbit/s, you’ll need to download the desktop or mobile app to improve the quality for either account type.
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By Hannah Davies
Senior Staff Writer
Hannah joined Trusted Reviews as a staff writer in 2019 after graduating with a degree in English from Royal Holloway, University of London. She’s also worked and studied in the US, holding positions …
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
