Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Spotify to fix app that writes gigabytes of junk data to storage devices

Mark Coppock
By

spotify app writing junk data killing storage devices version 1478807592 mac
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Spotify is a tremendously popular streaming music service, with free, ad-supported, and subscription options. It’s so popular, in fact, that literally millions of people use the Spotify app on a number of platforms many times a day to get their music fixes.

Unfortunately, some of those users are reporting a rather pernicious problem with the Spotify app running on Mac, Linux, and Windows machines. The bug apparently is causing the app to write gigabytes worth of junk data to users’ storage devices, according to Ars Technica.

Recommended Videos

The information comes from numerous reports on the Spotify forum, Reddit, Hacker News, and on other sites around the internet. The Spotify app is writing massive amounts of data to hard drives and SSDs, even when idle, a behavior that Ars Technica was able to duplicate in their own environment.

Related

The issue is so significant, in fact, that the Spotify app can write as much as 5GB to 10GB of data an hour to a drive, and accumulate up to 700GB of junk when the app is left running for more than a day. Not only does this use up space unnecessarily and potentially cause issues with machines running out of space, but writing so much extra data to a drive adds unnecessary wear and tear and shortens its lifespan.

Since the issue was first reported, Spotify issued a statement to 9to5Mac, and it’s good news. The company said, “We’ve seen some questions in our community around the amount of written data using the Spotify client on desktop. These have been reviewed and any potential concerns have now been addressed in version 1.0.42, currently rolling out to all users.”

The issue seems to involve database files including the “Mercury.db” string, and there are manual methods for dealing with it. The informal solutions are rather obscure, however, and it’s likely best to shut down the app completely, or uninstall it, and wait for Spotify to issue their fix. While it’s nice to enjoy hours and hours of streaming music, it’s not so nice to suffer the early demise of a hard drive or SSD. Better to be safe than sorry and maybe give another streaming music service a try until the new version rolls out to your machine.

Updated on 11-11-2016 by Mark Coppock: Added Spotify’s statement about an impending fix.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Mark Coppock
Mark Coppock
Computing Writer
Mark has been a geek since MS-DOS gave way to Windows and the PalmPilot was a thing. He’s translated his love for…
Beware — even Mac open-source apps can contain malware
A pair of glasses rests on a desk in front of multiple computer monitors filled with code.

Installing apps on a Mac is generally considered to be safer than doing so on Windows and open-source software is usually benign but there are exceptions to both of these assumptions that can do untold damage to your privacy and security.

A recent discovery by Trend Micro provides a startling example of this risk. An open-source app designed to help Mac owners with iPhone and iPad app signing has been altered to include a nasty hack that steals your Apple Keychain data. The original app is called ResignTool and it’s available for free on the popular open-source site, GitHub. The app is six years old and both the code and the ready-to-run app can be downloaded from GitHub. That isn’t the problem.

Read more
Vivaldi builds mail, calendar, and feed reader right into your browser
Vivaldi browser with a built-in email client.

Vivaldi has just released an update introducing a number of useful features that are built into the browser itself.

Starting with today's patch, the browser features a full-blown email client, as well as a calendar and feed reader. Should Vivaldi's competition begin to worry?

Read more
This MacOS Trojan stealthily lifts your data, says Microsoft
The screen of the 2021 MacBook Pro.

You might think that your Mac is invulnerable to viruses and other security threats, but you might want to think again. As part of its commitment to intelligence sharing and collaboration, Microsoft recently exposed the evolution of a MacOS Trojan that can stealthily lift your personal data.

First spotted in September 2020, Microsoft says this piece of malware, known as UpdateAgent,  has increasingly progressed to "sophisticated capabilities." Though it also indicated that the latest two versions are still more "refined," Microsoft does warn that the malware is again being developed, and more updates could come soon.

Read more