How to Follow a Playlist on Spotify

Following a playlist saves it to your library and keeps it updated as the creator adds tracks. Here's how to follow, unfollow, and find your followed playlists on any device — mobile, desktop, and the web player — plus what the follow actually does behind the scenes and how it differs from saving individual songs or downloading a playlist for offline listening.

Quick answer: Open the playlist and tap the Follow (heart/save) control — on mobile it's the + / Save or heart icon at the top of the playlist; on desktop it's the Follow button under the playlist title. The playlist then lives in Your Library and updates automatically whenever the owner adds or removes tracks. You never have to re-download or re-save it.

How to follow a playlist (mobile)

On the iPhone and Android apps, following takes one tap once the playlist is open. The control sits directly under the playlist's cover art and title.

1. Open the playlist — from Search, a shared link a friend sent you, the Made For You hub, or from someone's profile under their public playlists.
2. Tap the Save/＋ or heart icon near the playlist title. On newer app versions this is a plus (＋) that fills in once tapped; on others it's an outline heart that turns solid green.
3. It's added to Your Library and will update automatically when the creator changes it. No confirmation screen appears — the filled icon is your confirmation.

To check whether you already follow a playlist, just look at that icon: a solid/filled heart or a filled ＋ means you're following it, while an outline means you're not. You can also open Your Library, filter by Playlists, and search — if it's there, you follow it.

How to follow a playlist (desktop and web player)

The desktop app (Windows and Mac) and the browser-based web player at open.spotify.com behave the same way. The difference from mobile is that the action is a labelled button rather than an icon.

1. Open the playlist in the desktop app or web player — from search, your Home feed, or a pasted share link.
2. Click the Follow button beneath the playlist title, next to the large green play button.
3. It appears in your left-hand library list. Once you're following it, the button label changes to Following, which is how you confirm the follow took and how you later unfollow.

Following is not the same as downloading. On Premium, an extra Download toggle (a downward arrow) saves the audio for offline playback; following alone keeps the playlist in your library and streaming-ready but does not store it on your device. You can follow a playlist without downloading it, and you generally need to be following (or the owner) to download it.

How to unfollow a playlist

Unfollowing simply removes the playlist from Your Library. It is fully reversible — you can re-follow the same playlist at any time and it will look exactly as it does now, because the playlist itself still belongs to its owner.

• Mobile: open the playlist → tap the filled heart to toggle it off, or tap the three dots (…) menu → Remove from Your Library.
• Desktop / web player: click the Following button (it toggles back to Follow), or right-click the playlist in the sidebar → Remove from Your Library.

Unfollowing removes it from your library; it doesn't delete the playlist, affect the creator, or notify them — there is no alert sent when someone unfollows. The only thing the owner sees is their follower total tick down by one, with no indication of who left. You can follow people too, not just their playlists, and unfollowing a person works the same low-key way.

Where to find playlists you follow

All followed playlists live in Your Library — the shelf icon on mobile, or the left-hand panel on desktop and the web player. Playlists you created and playlists you follow both appear in the same place, so a mixed library is normal.

To find one quickly, apply the Playlists filter chip at the top of the library, then use the sort control to order by Recently added, Recently played, Alphabetical, or Creator. Sorting by creator groups a playlist owner's playlists together, and the search box inside Your Library lets you type a name directly. On desktop you can switch between a compact list and a grid, and pin your most-used playlists to the top of the sidebar so followed playlists you rely on stay one click away.

What following a playlist does (and doesn't do)

The core benefit is the automatic sync. When you follow a playlist, you're subscribing to a living copy that the owner controls, not taking a frozen snapshot:

• It saves the playlist to Your Library and keeps it auto-updated as the owner edits it. If they add ten songs next week, those tracks simply appear in your copy — you don't re-follow or refresh anything.
• Because it's a live link, if the owner removes tracks or deletes the playlist entirely, those changes flow through to you as well, and a deleted playlist disappears from your library.
• It adds +1 to the playlist's public follower count, the number shown under the playlist title.
• It does not let the owner see you specifically — they only see the total count, never a list of individual followers. More on exactly what's visible in who can see your playlist.

For the owner, that follower count is the main signal a playlist is resonating — it's a rough popularity metric, but it deliberately hides identities, so following someone's playlist is a private, no-pressure action. This mirrors how Spotify followers work more broadly across profiles and playlists alike: counts are public, identities are guarded, and follows rarely trigger notifications. Note that saving a playlist is different from saving an individual song to your Liked Songs — following captures the whole evolving collection, while liking a track only pins that one song.

Want to see all your public playlists in one place, alongside your top artists and tracks? Open Music Profile Viewer, a free Spotify profile viewer — read-only and stores nothing.