How to Download Your Spotify Data: What You Can Access and What to Expect
Spotify collects a significant amount of data as you listen — your streaming history, saved tracks, playlist activity, search behavior, and more. All of that information is technically yours, and Spotify provides a formal way to request and download it. Understanding what the process involves, what you'll actually receive, and how usable that data is once you have it depends on a few key variables worth knowing before you start.
What Spotify Data Can You Actually Request?
Spotify offers two tiers of data export under its privacy tools, both accessible through your account settings.
Account Data (the standard export) is the faster option and includes:
- Your saved tracks, albums, and playlists
- Your followers and who you follow
- Streaming history from roughly the last 12 months
- Search queries
- Payment and subscription information
- Inferences Spotify has made about your interests
Extended Streaming History is a separate, more detailed request that covers your complete listening history — every track, podcast episode, and stream you've ever played on the account. This is the option most people want when they're trying to do something meaningful with their data, like analyze listening patterns over multiple years.
The catch: the extended history request can take up to 30 days to fulfill, while the standard account data package typically arrives within a few days.
How to Request Your Spotify Data 📥
The process is handled entirely through Spotify's Privacy Settings, not the desktop or mobile app directly.
- Go to spotify.com and log into your account in a browser
- Navigate to Account → Privacy Settings
- Scroll to the Download your data section
- Choose either the standard data package or request your extended streaming history (you can request both)
- Click Request Data
- Spotify will send a confirmation email — you'll need to verify the request by clicking a link in that email
- When the data is ready, you'll receive another email with a download link
The download link expires after a set period (typically a few days), so download the files promptly once you receive the notification.
What Format Does Spotify Use for Your Data?
Your downloaded data arrives as a .zip file containing multiple JSON files. Each file covers a different category — one for your streaming history, one for your library, one for your playlists, and so on.
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a structured text format that's readable if you open it in a basic text editor, but it's not designed for casual browsing. If you want to analyze your listening history in any meaningful way — visualize it, sort it, search it — you'll need to either:
- Import it into a spreadsheet tool like Excel or Google Sheets (with some reformatting)
- Use a JSON viewer or parser (many free browser-based options exist)
- Work with it in a scripting environment like Python if you have that background
For non-technical users, the raw files can feel underwhelming. The data is all there, but extracting insight from it requires an extra step.
What the Data Does and Doesn't Include
| Data Type | Included | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Track play history | ✅ | Extended history = full account lifetime |
| Podcast listening history | ✅ | Included in extended history |
| Liked songs and albums | ✅ | Full library snapshot |
| Playlist contents | ✅ | Your playlists, not collaborative edits |
| Audio files of songs | ❌ | Not downloadable via data export |
| Offline downloads (music files) | ❌ | DRM-protected; not transferable |
| Your Spotify Wrapped data | ❌ | Not a separate export |
| Third-party app connections | ✅ | Apps you've authorized |
One important distinction: downloading your Spotify data is not the same as downloading music. The data export gives you metadata and activity records — not audio. Spotify's downloaded tracks for offline listening are encrypted and tied to the app; they cannot be extracted or transferred.
Variables That Affect What You'll Get
A few factors shape how useful your downloaded data actually is:
Account age and history length. The standard export only covers roughly the past year of streams. If you've had your account for five years and want the full picture, you need the extended history request — and the 30-day wait that comes with it.
Free vs. Premium account. Both can request data exports. The content is largely the same, though Premium users will have more robust download and offline listening activity to reference.
How you've used Spotify. If you've connected Spotify to third-party apps (fitness trackers, smart home devices, scrobbling services), those connection records will be included. If you primarily use Spotify on one device vs. many, your history will reflect that.
What you plan to do with the data. A casual user who just wants to see their top artists has simpler needs than someone trying to migrate listening history, audit data for privacy reasons, or build a personal analytics dashboard. The same files serve very different purposes depending on your intent and comfort level with data tools.
The data Spotify provides is genuinely comprehensive — but whether it's immediately usable, what format works for your goals, and how much effort the analysis requires all comes down to your specific situation and what you're actually trying to accomplish with it.