How to Make Spotify Download on Wi-Fi Only

Spotify is burning through your cellular data and you want downloads to wait until you are on Wi-Fi. The phone app has one toggle for this, and a separate quality setting that decides how much data streaming uses when downloads are not involved. TV and desktop apps have no cellular setting because they do not need one.

Open Spotify settings on your phone

Tap your profile picture in the top left of the Home tab, then Settings and privacy.

Turn off downloads over cellular

Tap Data-saving and offline and turn off Download using cellular. On older versions of the app the same switch lives under Data Saver or Storage. From now on, downloads only run while the phone is on Wi-Fi. Leave Wi-Fi mid-download and it pauses, then picks up where it left off the next time you connect.

Lower cellular streaming quality

Downloads are not the only data cost. Go back to Settings and tap Media quality, called Audio quality in older versions. Set Cellular streaming to Low or Normal and leave Wi-Fi streaming where it is. Turning on Data Saver at the top of Data-saving and offline does the same thing in one tap and also stops Canvas videos and video podcasts on cellular.

Download while on Wi-Fi

Connect to Wi-Fi, open a playlist or album, and tap the download arrow. Anything you queue while on cellular waits, with the arrow showing as pending, until Wi-Fi is back. Downloading music needs a Premium plan; free accounts can only download podcasts.

Skip the TV and desktop apps

Spotify on Samsung, LG, Android TV, Google TV, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku does not download anything. It streams only, so there is no download setting to find and nothing to worry about, and a TV on home Wi-Fi is not using cellular in the first place. The Mac and Windows apps have no cellular concept either; they download over whatever connection the computer is on. If the laptop is tethered to a phone hotspot, pause downloads or turn the hotspot off.

Offline mode forces the app to play only downloads. Turn it on under Data-saving and offline (under Playback in older versions) before a flight or a trip with no signal, and the app stops trying to stream at all. Turn it off afterward or new music will not load.

The cellular toggle is per device. Each phone and tablet keeps its own setting, so a second device signed into the same account needs the switch turned off separately.