Spotify storage...

[Reid Malenfant]

It was a toss up between here & blank canvas - please move if you feel this deserves to go elsewhere ;) Maybe abstract chat? However it is music related :eyebrows:

As i'm using a fairly old laptop with IDE HDD which doesn't have a huge 'C' drive i tend to notice when the available HDD space gets used up. Yesterday i was mysteriously down to 53% available so just before i defragged i clicked on some of the fragged files & discovered that Spotify leaves a shed load of stuff on your HDD which doesn't get cleared :rolleyes:

I figured they were some kind of temporary file & the PC would clear them, but this is simply not the case at all. I'm lucky that i use a defragger that allows me to search for all kinds of files, be they video, music, documents etc. Nothing would locate these files except a "large file" search of over 1Mb..

It appears Spotify is dumping lots of files of between 1.3 - 2.8Mb into my documents & setting folder :scratch: The only way to clear them was to highlight them & delete them.

I'm not sure how many of you will be able to get rid if you only use windoze standard defragger - probably none.


I'm just warning you if you are wondering why you are losing HDD space. Personally i have only listened to about three full albums off of Spotify & probably the equivalent of two more in bits & pieces. I dumped approximately 350Mb of spotify storage material :mental: I got 2% of my drive back, this shows the stuff i listened to ages ago hadn't been wiped as it only dropped from 54 - 53% & i'm now back to 55%, i hadn't used Spotify for a good long time, months!

[Beechwoods]

Mark, it's caching the files you listen to. You can set the amount of cache given to it in it's settlngs. The default is 'Automatic - use no more than 10% of free disc space'.

You can set it to use a specific amount as well.

[Reid Malenfant]

Ahhhh oohhh ah :eyebrows:

Cheers Nick, i know for future reference now & so does everyone else ;)

At least i know to wipe the sods as well :cool:


You can set it to use a specific amount as well.
That'd be as little as i could get away with then!

[Tim]

Hi Mark, not sure if you are aware, but Spotify is a file sharing protocol, so is writing data to your disk and then streaming music peer to peer across it's network whenever you are connected. The info on your disk is encrypted, so not easily located or deleted.

You can alter the amount of disk space used in the settings.

EDIT: Simultaneous answering, what service :lol:

[Reid Malenfant]

The info on your disk is encrypted, so not easily located or deleted.
Tell me about it, but i managed to give it the heave ho :eyebrows:

[Beechwoods]

Is Spotify P2P, Tim? I didn't know that... Cool if it is!

[Tim]

Is Spotify P2P, Tim? I didn't know that... Cool if it is!
From Spotify help:


Spotify uses a peer-to-peer network to relieve the pressure on our
streaming servers. We use a hybrid model where central servers and
peers work in unison to provide you the best, fastest experience in an
economically viable fashion.