How to Add Friends on Spotify Mobile/Desktop

In this post, you can get multiple ways to add friends on Spotify, with or without Facebook. And whether you’re on desktop or mobile, we’ve lined up the easiest steps to make that happen. Adding friends is just the start: you can also sync Spotify playback with friends in real time, peek into their listening activity, or even build a playlist together with their favorite tracks in one place.

Sure, Facebook once seemed like a natural shortcut to bring all your friends to Spotify. However, the process requires third-party authentication and needless back-and-forth steps,  just to follow someone you already know.

Thankfully, Spotify itself now gives you far cleaner ways to track down your friends, follow their playlists, and build your own social circle on the platform. Here are all possible ways to add friends on Spotify, which don’t require the Facebook fuss.

Tip: Does Spotify Notify When You Follow Someone?

No, Spotify won’t ping or alert your friends when you follow them. The only way they’ll know is that they manually monitor their follower list and spot your name.

Way 1. Via Friend’s Profile Name

Adding a friend on Spotify only requires you to know their profile name. If you don’t have memorized it, no problem. Ask your friend to give you the exact name. They can do this by clicking on their Profile avatar at the top-left of the home screen. That’s it!

Once you’ve got that, here’s exactly how you can find and follow them.

On Mobile

1. Tap the Search tab at the bottom of the home screen. At the top, inside the search bar, type in your friend’s profile name.

2. Spotify will show a mixed list of songs, albums, playlists, and profiles matching the name as usual. To narrow it down, tap the Profiles filter at the top.

3. Once you see their profile (photo helps), tap it, and hit Follow on their profile page.

Done!

On Desktop

The process barely changes when you’re on the desktop. You just have a lot of extra space. Remember these steps whenever you have to follow a friend using their Profile name:

1. Launch the Spotify app. In the search bat at the top, enter the Profile name.

2. Apply the Profiles filter to cut through the stack of results. Click on the correct profile.

3. Press the Follow button once you’re on your friend’s profile page and the connection will be made!

Way 2. Add Friends by Their Username

Searching through Profile names is the easiest, but it isn’t always perfect. Visibility on Spotify is not the same for every user, and if your friend has a common name like Sam, Amanda, Monica, you’ll be digging through pages of people.

This is where the username helps: a unique tag that always lands on the right account. Here’s how to connect with your friend when you have the username:

On Mobile

1. Ask your friend for their username. For this, all they have to do is navigate to Accounts (on the Settings page) and the username will be visible at the very top (a string of letters and numbers).

2. Once you have the username, go back to the Search. This time, paste the exact username and the result will show one single profile.

All that’s left is to tap the profile, hit Follow, and the link is made.

On Desktop

Desktop Spotify app works the same way.

1. Paste the username into Search.

2. Spotify will show one result. Click on the profile and hit the Follow button.

Way 3. Through Friend’s Profile Link

Instead of digging through search bars and scrolling past dozens of similar names, just ask your friend to hand you their profile link directly.

They can grab it like this:

1. Open their Profile Page by tapping their profile icon at the top and select View profile.

2. Inside their profile, hit the three dots.

3. From the options, choose Share, then tap Copy link.

That link can travel to you where you both talk, WhatsApp, Telegram, Email, anything.

When you get it, all you need to do is tap. Spotify will jump right into their profile, hit Follow.

On Desktop

When your friend is using Spotify on a computer. They can copy their profile link via these steps:

1. Click on their avatar at the top right. Then select Profile.

2. Once inside, click on the menu (…) icon.

3. From there, they simply choose Copy link to profile.

As soon as they share that link with you:

1. Paste it into your browser’s address bar. Hit Enter.

2. Spotify will ask if you’d like to open the app or continue in the browser. Either way, once you land on their profile, tap the Follow button.

Way 4. By Friend’s Profile Code

Every Spotify profile has a built-in Spotify Code looking like a barcode, which unlocks their profile instantly. Here’s how you can ask your friends to share it with you:

1. Open their Profile page.

2. Tap the three dots near their profile picture.

3. In the options, they’ll find Show Spotify Code.

They can screenshot this and send it your way via WhatsApp or anything.

On your side, this is what you have to do:

1. Open Spotify, tap Search icon, and instead of typing, hit the camera icon at the top-right. That opens Spotify’s scanner.

2. Point the camera at their code.

3. Or, tap Select from photos and pull the screenshot from your gallery. You’ll be taken directly to your friend’s Profile page. Hit Follow and that’s it!

To connect with friends who are still in your Friends list but you’re not directly in touch with, you can still make use of the good-old Facebook method. Here’s how to link your Facebook and Spotify accounts to find friends and discover their evolved music taste.

On Android/iOS

You will find the Add Friends option buried on the Profile page. So, let’s start with that:

1. Start by tapping your profile icon. Choose View Profile and then hit the three-dot menu to bring up the options. Tap Find Friends.

2. Spotify will pop up the Login with Facebook screen. Enter your Facebook account login credentials and give necessary permissions.

3. Once you do that, Spotify will show you a whole list of Facebook contacts who have linked their Spotify account.

4. You can tap Follow All at the top. Or, tap the tiny follow icon (a person with a + icon) to follow manually.

That’s it and all added friends will show up in your following list.

On Windows/Mac

The Friends option is clearly visible on the computer. Here’s how to add your friends:

1. Right beside where your profile picture sits, you’ll see the Friends icon. Click that.

2. The Friends Activity sidebar will appear. Right at the top, click the Add Friends icon.

3. Spotify will show Connect with the Facebook icon. Hit that. Then, log in to your Facebook account and hand over necessary permissions.

4. Once you do, all your Spotify-connected Facebook friends will pop up.

5. For each friend, you want to follow, hit the plus icon beside their name.

Adding friends to your Spotify’s following list is only the start. You can also bring them into your Spotify playlists and let everyone’s music taste collide. With Spotify’s Collaborative Playlist feature, you can invite up to 1000 friends to shape a playlist together and each friend can add their own favorites. Here’s how to set it up.

1. Start with a playlist you own.

2. At the very top of the playlist screen, you’ll spot the Invite Collaborators button. Tap it.

3. A special invite link will appear, along with a Copy Link option at the bottom. Tap to copy.

Quick Tip: This link has a 7-day shelf life, so send it to your friends right away and ask them to follow asap.

4. When they open the link, they’ll land on a Join Playlist screen. One tap and they’re officially part of the playlist.

Once inside, they can add tracks, remove tracks, and even rearrange songs. And you’ll always see who did what because their profile pictures show up next to every change they make.

Spotify collaborative playlists evolve by the second. One song added today could vanish tomorrow. So, if you want to lock in a version, saving those tracks offline and to your device (outside the Spotify’s control) is the smartest move.

StreamFox for Music gives you the simplest way to save collaborative playlists as local files on your computer. You can grab songs, playlists, albums, podcasts, and audiobooks in MP3, AAC, FLAC, or WAV, all in full 320 kbps quality, so the sound stays as rich as it was inside Spotify. You play these converted songs on another app, like VLC and Windows Media Player, or on another device, like your car and phone. 

StreamFox for Music

• Export large Spotify playlists 10x faster into a folder without changing the song order.
• Even with a Spotify Free account, you can convert endless collaborative playlists in high quality.
• In-app Spotify browser lets you grab and save playlists with simple drag-and-drop.
• Converted Spotify songs come with album art, artist names, and every essential ID3 detail. 

Download Download

Steps to Convert Spotify’s Collaborative Playlists to MP3

1. Install StreamFox for Music on your Windows or Mac using the official download button shared above. Once installed, launch the tool and choose Spotify.

2. You’ll land directly inside StreamFox’s built-in Spotify browser. Sign in using your existing Spotify account credentials, whether it’s a free account or a paid Premium subscription.

3. As soon as you’re in, drag the collaborative playlist you want to save and drop it onto the + icon you’ll spot at the top right corner.

4. Hit Convert All to begin. Every song in that playlist will be stored neatly as a folder on your computer, saved in 320 kbps quality, in MP3 or any other format you choose.

Every now and then, some functions on Spotify like the Follow button get blocked or don’t show at all. And it’s nothing serious. It usually is a result of outdated data or technical glitches. If that’s the case, these two fixes should restore the Follow button functionality.

Fix 1: Clear Spotify Cache

You can follow these steps in the Spotify mobile app:

1. Tap your profile icon and step into Settings.

2. Inside Settings, locate Storage (or Data Saver & Offline if you’re on Android).

There you’ll find Clear Cache. Tap it and confirm when asked. Spotify will toss the temporary mess out.

Fix 2: Reinstall Spotify

Instead of simply updating, try to clear all the files associated with Spotify on your mobile or computer and then reinstall Spotify again. This will fix the Follow button not showing or working because of temporary glitches. Here’s an example of how to do this on mobile devices:

1. Long press the Spotify app icon, choose Remove App or Uninstall, and confirm.

2. Head to your App Store or Play Store and grab a clean new copy of the Spotify app.

Spotify also lets you sync up every beat with your friends, whether they’re right next to you or scattered across the world. With Spotify Jam (previously called Group Session), everyone hears the same thing and anyone can add songs to the queue at the same time, just like passing the aux.

The feature is available across both mobile and desktop. However, since the desktop got this option not too long ago, let’s see how to use it there.

1. Start playing any track, album, or playlist.

2. While it’s playing, right-click either the playlist title or the Now Playing bar. From the menu that appears, select Start a Jam.

3. Spotify will open a side panel, offering two ways to invite your friends:

• Copy Link — that you can share with remote friends.
• And the QR Code — nearby friends can scan this via their phone.

Just a quick note: Friends who join remotely (through the link) need to be Premium members, while friends sitting next to you can join by scanning the QR code as Free users.

Once you’ve added your friends on Spotify, there’s another perk: you can see what they’re playing or listening to, even in real time. However, you can do this only when you’re on the desktop app.

Note: To make this work, head to Settings > Display inside the desktop app and make sure the toggle for See what your friends are playing is enabled.

Steps to View Friend Activity

1. Open the Spotify desktop app.

2. Click the Friends icon near the top-right corner.

The sidebar will show what your friends are currently listening to or what they’ve just played. And no matter the friend list size, this feed will show updates from all of them.

Spotify offers two simple ways to hide your activity if you don’t want friends or followers to see every track you play.

Important Note: These settings don’t sync across devices.

Way 1. Turn off Listening Activity

This is the better choice when you want to go off the radar indefinitely. Once you disable this option, your friends won’t see what you’re playing, no matter how long you stay offline.

Steps to Turn off Listening Activity (iOS & Android)

1. Head to Settings > Privacy & Social.

2. In this section, you’ll see a toggle called Listening Activity. Simply disable it. And from that moment, your listening history will become completely private.

Way 2. Use Private Session

This works when you want to hide your listening only for a short period because Private Sessions automatically turn off after 6 hours of activating it.

Steps to Enable Private Session (iOS & Android)

1. In the Privacy & Social tab, switch on toggle for Private Session.

At the bottom, you will see a message, confirming that you’re in a Private Session. That’s your visual cue to when Private Session will end, as there is no countdown or something.

Final Words

Adding friends on Spotify is easy, whether you use Facebook or not. We’ve shown you every way to do that. Each one works, so pick what fits. You also learned how to start a Jam and sync music in real time. You can also see what friends are playing or hide your own activity from them if needed. And of course, you now know how to create collaborative playlists that everyone can shape together.

Even better, if you ever want to save the collaborative playlists or anything else on the Spotify platform to your device forever, StreamFox for Music makes that effortless. It converts every track in 320 kbps, saves all metadata, and does it without needing a Premium account.