Spotify had been the darling new streaming service of the industry, but its recent announcement to only accept users with Facebook accounts brought the honeymoon period to a screeching halt. Nonetheless, usage has continued to climb as subscribers—disgruntled but not dissuaded—jump on board with the application’s heavy Facebook integration and ability to share tracks.
But this new sharing feature might be too much of a good thing. It swallows up your entire listening history in a kind of all-or-nothing public music policy. And sometimes, you don’t need your private jam sessions broadcast to the entirety of your Facebook contacts. To ease that pain, Spotify will be introducing a private listening mode. CEO Daniel Ek announced via Twitter, “We’re rolling out a new client as we speak where you can temporarily hide your guilty pleasures. It works like a browser’s private mode.”
The feature will be available soon, so keep refreshing your Spotify client when you see that little blue bar flashing an update. Ek says it will be available under the File menu, and here you can toggle it on and off. At the moment, you can visit your Preferences and turn Facebook integration on and off altogether, but if you do occasionally want to engage in social listening this is something of a hassle.
Mac users are posting imagines to Twitter showing the update has hit, with the Private Listening mode located under Spotify. We’re still waiting to see the new feature, but it should be on the way. So put off listening to that embarrassing playlist just a little longer. Your Facebook friends will thank you for it.
[Update]
Looks like a prompt to update installed the new setting. Here it is!
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