Everyday Use

Middle-click autoscroll

On Windows, since 0.8.0, and on Linux once turned on, middle-click a scrolling list or its empty background, then move the pointer away from the starting point. That list follows the pointer, faster as the distance grows. Moving across another pane keeps the original list in control. A small dead zone prevents an ordinary middle-click from moving the view. Click again, press Esc, turn the wheel, or switch to another window to stop. Buttons and text fields keep their normal middle-click behavior.

This works automatically on Windows, with no setting to enable. On Linux, turn on Middle-click autoscroll under Settings > Appearance. It is off by default, because Linux desktops usually paste the primary selection on middle click. macOS retains its existing middle-click behavior.

Scrolling shelves

Point at a horizontal shelf, such as Made for you or Recently played on Home, and hold Shift while turning the mouse wheel. The shelf moves while the surrounding page stays put. Release Shift to scroll the page normally.

Podcasts on Home

Since 0.10.0, Home has a Your podcasts shelf below Recently played. It lists episodes you have started and not finished, with the time left, followed by each podcast’s newest episode if it came out in the last 30 days and you have not started it, marked New. It covers the eight podcasts you saved most recently and the five newest episodes of each. Audiobooks are left out. The shelf is hidden when there is nothing to show. Click a card to open the podcast, or use its play button to play the episode. An episode you have started continues from where you left it. The same is true of Play on a podcast page, a saved episode, or a search result.

Dragging beyond the visible list

Since 0.8.0, hold a dragged song near the top or bottom of an editable playlist’s visible area to scroll. Scrolling gets faster closer to the edge and stops when you move away or release the mouse. This lets you move a song from the end to the beginning without dropping it along the way. Clear filters and sorting before reordering playlist songs.

Since 0.8.0, drag a song from the player bar, the queue, or another list into an open editable playlist. The line between rows marks its insertion position. Dropping below the last row appends; the blank area of an empty playlist accepts its first song. The source song stays in its list or queue, and playback continues unchanged. Dragging a row within the same playlist still moves that row.

Since 0.8.0, select several songs with Ctrl-click (Cmd-click on macOS) or Shift-click, then drag any selected row. The whole selection travels together in its displayed order, even if you selected the rows in a different order. The preview names the first song and counts the rest. Drop it on a sidebar playlist to append, between rows of another editable playlist to insert, or on Liked Songs to save every selected song. Selected rows have a translucent neutral highlight. Keyboard focus uses the row highlight without an extra outline.

Dragging an unselected row copies just that song. Reordering within a playlist still moves one song at a time. Several selected songs dropped back between the rows of their own open playlist stay where they are. Dropped on that playlist in the sidebar, they ask before being added again.

Copying and pasting songs

Since 0.10.0, press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on macOS) in a playlist, album or Liked Songs to select every song the list shows. A filter narrows the selection to the matching songs. In a long playlist that is still loading, it selects the songs loaded so far.

Ctrl+C (Cmd+C) copies the selected songs’ open.spotify.com links, one per line, ready to paste into another playlist, a message, or Spotify’s own apps. Ctrl+V (Cmd+V) in a playlist you can edit adds every song link on the clipboard to its end. Links copied from Spotifast add their rows at once; links from elsewhere appear as soon as Spotify names the songs. Songs already in the playlist ask before being added twice, and links that are not songs, such as albums, are skipped.

Ctrl+X (Cmd+X) in a playlist you can edit copies the selected songs’ links the same way and removes the songs from the playlist, so Ctrl+V in another playlist moves them there.

These keys edit the text instead while a search, filter or other text field has focus.

Clear any playlist filter or sort before placing songs between rows, so the visible positions match Spotify’s order. A duplicate confirmation keeps the chosen position when you select Add anyway. Dragging near the top or bottom of the playlist scrolls to positions beyond the visible rows.

The Library sidebar also scrolls near its edges when you drag a song toward a playlist or reorder its entries. Only the list under the pointer scrolls.

Starting a playlist and resuming

Since 0.8.0, with Shuffle off and the playlist in its original order, its Play button explicitly starts at the first available song. The selected song appears in the player immediately, including while local playback reconnects. The full playlist remains the playback source, even when only its first page is loaded.

Double-click a song to start at that row. Sorting the table plays its chosen order when Shuffle is off. Shuffle chooses a random starting song unless you choose a specific row. To resume the current song at its paused position, use Play in the bottom player bar or press Space.

The Shuffle button beside Play selects the playback order without starting the playlist. Select Shuffle first, then press Play.

When you start a song from a sorted playlist or Liked Songs, it appears in the player bar straight away while playback connects. Sorting changes the order you hear without rearranging the playlist saved on Spotify.

Sorted and filtered views omit unavailable songs and local files from playback. The rows stay visible, and selecting a repeated song starts that occurrence. Filtering a playlist or Liked Songs plays only the matching songs, including repeated entries. Play is disabled when the view has no playable songs; it never falls back to the unfiltered playlist in that case. Clearing the filter restores the original view. Existing Shuffle behavior is unchanged.

Right-clicking a song in an editable playlist offers Remove from this playlist even when the list is sorted or filtered, since removal does not depend on position. Move up, Move down, and drag-reorder stay on the default order, where the rows on screen match the order saved on Spotify. Right-clicking the playing song in the player bar offers the same removal while it plays from a playlist you can edit.

Refreshing a playlist

Since 0.8.0, choose Refresh in a playlist’s … menu to reload its details and songs, including changes made in another Spotify client. The menu item reads Refreshing… and is disabled while loading. Current songs, filtering and sorting stay visible. Spotifast finishes saving your edits before loading changes from Spotify. If loading fails, your songs stay visible and you can choose Retry.

Playing from the sidebar

Double-click a playlist, Liked Songs, album, artist, or podcast row in the Library sidebar to start playing it. A single click still opens the row’s page. Pointing at a row’s cover art also shows a play button, but only when the sidebar is not in compact mode.

Search from a launcher

In development, not included in 0.8.0: a Spotify search link opens Search and fills the box without starting playback. To try it in a development build, set a launcher or keyboard shortcut to run:

spotifast 'https://open.spotify.com/search/here%20comes%20the%20sun'

This starts the app if needed or opens its existing window. When signed out, the latest search link waits for sign-in. Use https://open.spotify.com/search without a query to open an empty, focused search box.

On Linux, playerctl --player=spotifast open accepts the same search link when the app is running. Links to songs, albums, and playlists still start playback as before.

Finding a setting

The Settings page has its own search field under the title. Type to narrow the page to matching rows; sections without matches disappear. Clear the field to see everything again.

Keyboard and screen readers

Right-click a search, filter, settings or playlist-editing text field for Cut, Copy, Paste and Select all. Cut and Copy require a text selection. The usual keyboard shortcuts, including Undo, still work. Since 0.8.0, Ctrl, Cmd and Alt arrow keys move the caret while a text field has focus. Playback and navigation shortcuts on those keys remain available from song rows and other controls.

The main window provides screen-reader names for playback controls, library and song rows, menus, sliders, and settings switches. Tab and Shift+Tab move keyboard focus, shown by an outline. Enter activates the focused control; on a song row, it plays that song. The row’s More button opens its menu from the keyboard too.

In a playlist, album or Liked Songs, focus a song row and use the up and down arrows to move between whole rows in the displayed order. Rows scroll into view as you move; Enter plays the focused song. Tab still reaches artist links and each row’s Like and More controls. Arrow navigation selects only the destination song. Hold Shift with up or down to extend or shrink the selection from its anchor. Press Delete to remove selected songs from a playlist you can edit, just like Remove from this playlist. On macOS, both Delete and Fn+Delete work. Text fields, dialogs and open menus keep Delete from acting on the list.

Press and hold the player bar’s volume slider to update local volume without moving the pointer. Remote volume is sent on release. The seek slider previews on press and seeks on release.

The default local output smooths volume and mute changes over 30 ms. Explicit track changes and play/pause/stop use nominal 50 ms fades. Stopping can shorten the fade to the queued audio. Natural track transitions remain gapless.

Left and right arrows adjust a focused volume slider by five percentage points, or the seek slider by one percent of the song. Screen readers can also read and set these sliders’ values. Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on macOS) focuses search. Since 0.9.0, Space plays or pauses the current song even when a song row or control has focus. Text fields keep Space for typing. Unmodified letter shortcuts still yield to the focused control.

This is the first part of screen-reader support. Windows testing with NVDA remains tracked in #262. Winamp skins do not yet have equivalent accessibility coverage.

Keyboard shortcuts

On macOS, Cmd replaces Ctrl. A focused text field keeps its usual keys for its own text.

Controlling it from the command line

The spotifast command controls the copy already running, on every platform. Each verb prints nothing on success:

spotifast play-pause          spotifast volume 40
spotifast play                spotifast volume-up [percent]
spotifast pause               spotifast volume-down [percent]
spotifast next                spotifast mute
spotifast previous            spotifast shuffle [on|off]
spotifast seek 15             spotifast repeat [off|context|track]
spotifast seek -- -15         spotifast like
spotifast seek-to 90          spotifast play-uri spotify:playlist:37i9…
spotifast show                spotifast transfer <device-id>
spotifast now-playing [--raw] spotifast devices [--raw]

shuffle and repeat toggle when used without an argument. Pass a state to set it directly. like adds or removes the playing track from your library.

now-playing prints one readable line. --raw prints tab-separated fields: state, title, artists, album, position_ms, duration_ms, volume, shuffle, repeat, art_url, saved, and device. saved is yes, no, or unknown while loading. New fields are appended to keep older scripts working.

devices lists Spotify Connect devices with the ID first and the active one marked with *. --raw prints JSON. The command refreshes the device list, so the first call after startup may be empty. Run it again if needed.

A verb exits non-zero when Spotifast is not running.

spotifast <link> opens a Spotify link, a spotify: URI or an open.spotify.com address, in the running app, or starts the app on it. This is what the desktop runs when a link is clicked. On Linux, Spotifast is also an MPRIS player, so playerctl --player=spotifast play-pause and media keys work too.

Launchers such as Raycast or Alfred, and the Stream Deck plugin, can use these commands. They reach Spotifast through a private channel only your user can open (on Windows, a loopback port that answers only requests carrying a random token). Use the command rather than the channel itself.

Updates

The Windows installer, Mac app, and portable Windows and Linux downloads update from inside Spotifast. Click the green update button to download a release, then choose when to restart and install it. Settings can enable automatic background downloads; restarting always waits for your click. Closing the update window keeps a download running. You can also check for a new release from Settings, or on macOS from the application menu.

Spotifast checks each download before installing it. An interrupted or damaged download leaves the running app alone, and a failed startup restores the previous installation. Updates keep your settings and sign-ins. On macOS, move Spotifast to Applications before updating it.

Package-managed installations update through their package manager, including Homebrew, Flatpak, apt, dnf, pacman, Nix, and Cargo. Other installations, the AppImage among them, use the Download page. Portable archives identify themselves with spotifast-portable.txt.

Library order

Since 0.8.0, the menu below the Library filters selects an order for each section. Name and Recently played are available throughout. Albums and podcasts also offer Recently added, using their actual save dates. Spotify does not supply equivalent dates for followed playlists or artists, so those sections do not offer that choice. Entries with missing save dates come last.

Spotify custom order follows your playlist order and folders from Spotify. Set up playback on this computer to load that order. Your playlists stay visible while it loads, and Spotifast remembers the last order for your account. Items you pin in Spotifast remain at the top, including items from a closed folder. Sorting or dragging Library items changes their order only in Spotifast; it does not rearrange your Spotify library.

Drag playlists to choose Local custom order. New playlists appear below the pinned group. Selecting Name, Recently played or Spotify custom order keeps the saved arrangement, so selecting Local custom order restores it. The playlist context menu’s Sort by recently played also preserves it.

Upgrading keeps the previous default: a saved local playlist arrangement wins; otherwise available Spotify folders keep their order, and a flat playlist list uses recent plays. Other sections keep their supplied Library order until you select a sort. Choosing a sort loads the rest of that Library section in the background. If loading fails, choose the order again to retry.

Liked Songs starts pinned at the top. Drag it between pins to choose its position, or below the pin block to unpin it and put it in Local custom order. Other pins can sit above it. Its right-click menu also offers Unpin and Pin to top; pinning adds it after your existing pins. The arrangement survives restarting Spotifast and switching sort choices.

When unpinned, Liked Songs follows Name or Recently played like the other rows. In Spotify custom order, it appears after the playlists because it has no place in Spotify’s playlist tree. Returning to Local custom order restores its saved position. Dragging a song onto Liked Songs still saves that song, wherever the row sits.

Player bar visualizer in Settings > Appearance shows the song moving behind the player bar’s controls: Spectrum draws glowing bars from bass to treble with peaks that hang and fall, and Waveform draws the sound’s wave as a glowing line, both in colours drawn from the cover. It follows the equalizer, not the volume, and moves only while the song plays on this computer. It is off by default. Clicking the player bar’s empty space switches it, as Winamp’s visualizer did: off, then Spectrum, then Waveform, then off again. Disable Click player bar to change visualizer in Settings > Appearance to prevent accidental changes.

In Settings > Appearance, Compact track list puts each song on one line. In narrow lists, the added date follows the artist credits with a spaced bullet; each artist name remains a separate link.

Windows taskbar controls

Since 0.8.0, hovering Spotifast’s taskbar button offers Previous, Play/Pause, and Next beneath its window preview. They control the same playing device as the player bar, update immediately, and are disabled when there is no song or the device refuses controls. The icons follow the system appearance and display scaling.

Since 0.8.0, clicking or double-clicking the Windows tray icon shows and raises Spotifast. Use Show or hide Spotifast in the tray menu to hide it again.

Closing to the tray removes the window and its preview. Reopening the main window or switching to the Winamp window creates its controls again. Media keys and the system’s now-playing controls continue working while the window is closed.

For the Winamp mini player, turn off Show in taskbar under Settings > Winamp skins, or Show in taskbar in its options menu. The choice survives restarts. The mini player stays visible; the tray icon, Ctrl+M, the skin logo, and launching Spotifast again remain ways to reach the app. Returning to the main window always restores its taskbar button. Changing the option while the mini player is open replaces that window while playback continues. This setting is available on Windows and in Linux X11 sessions, where it hides the mini player from panels and task switchers that follow the window manager’s skip-taskbar state. Wayland has no standard way for an app to leave the taskbar, so the option is not offered there; use your desktop’s window rules instead. It does not change the macOS Dock.

A window saved on a display that is no longer connected opens on the primary display instead: on Windows and X11 it moves to the middle of the primary monitor as it opens, and on macOS a position whose title bar would be on no screen is not used. Positions on connected secondary displays still restore. Reinstalling preserves settings; it is not needed to recover a position left on an unplugged display.

macOS Dock menu

Right-click or Control-click Spotifast’s Dock icon for Play (or Pause while music plays), Next, and Previous, above the standard Dock items. They control the same playing device as the player bar and keep working while the window is closed to the menu bar.

Keeping the mini player above other windows

Always on top works on Windows, macOS and X11. On Wayland the app’s controls are unavailable, because your desktop manages which windows stay above others. Use your desktop’s window rule or shortcut instead. In KDE Plasma, configure Keep Window Above Others under Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Window Management. Your saved preference remains available when you use Spotifast on Windows, macOS, or X11 again.

Since 0.8.0, the top bar reserves room for the device and update badges beside Search. In narrow windows those badges show only their icons. The bar stays above the page. Library, Queue and Lyrics keep their full height. When the window narrows, Library, Queue and Lyrics give up width before the top bar runs out of room, and return to the widths you chose once it widens. With Queue or Lyrics open, the window cannot be made narrower than the room they need beside the page. Hover to read the device name or available version; click to open the device picker or update window.

MacBook notch widget

On macOS machines equipped with a display notch, Spotifast displays an interactive Now Playing floating island under the notch when the main window is minimized, in the background, or closed to the tray.

Hovering over the notch expands the widget with album artwork, title, artist, elapsed and remaining time, a seek bar matching the player bar, and playback controls (shuffle, previous, play/pause disc, next, repeat, save to library, and Spotify Connect device). Scrubbing the seek bar seeks within the playing track.

When music is paused, hovering still reveals the controls so you can resume playback directly from the notch.

To turn on the notch overlay, check MacBook notch widget in Settings under Playback on this computer.

Recent

The queue panel’s second tab combines Spotify’s history with tracks played through Spotifast, which Spotify does not record.

Since 0.8.0, choosing any Recent row starts that song on its own, and the player bar shows the selection immediately while playback starts.

A song is added after about 30 seconds, or halfway through a shorter song. Paused time and seeking do not count.

Since 0.8.0, each repeat remains a separate play, including songs shorter than a minute. A newly loaded local repeat earns its own listening time; pausing or seeking the current play does not create another entry. The same play reported both locally and by Spotify appears once.

The local list is stored in history.json and is never uploaded. Settings → Storage shows its location and has a Clear history button.

On Windows, the main window’s minimize, maximize, and close buttons share the top bar with Spotifast’s controls. Drag an empty part of that bar to move or snap the window, and drag a window edge or corner to resize it.

Radio

Since 0.10.0, Go to song radio in a song’s menu opens a page of songs Spotify picks to go with it, without starting playback. Playlist, album, and artist menus have Go to playlist radio, Go to album radio, and Go to artist radio.

Spotify mixes a radio afresh each time it is asked, so the page keeps the songs it shows: Play, Shuffle, and a double-clicked row play those songs, and the queue names the radio. Choose Refresh in the page’s … menu for a new mix. Save as playlist creates a private playlist named after the radio with the songs on the page.

Radio comes from Spotify’s playback service, so it needs playback on this computer to be set up; the page can then play on any device.

Playlist covers

In development, not included in 0.8.0: open a playlist you own and choose Edit details → Change cover. Select a JPEG or PNG, check the preview, then choose Upload cover. Cancelling the picker leaves your previous selection intact. An upload error keeps the preview so you can try again. Uploading the cover is separate from Save, which saves the playlist name, description, and visibility. Spotify doesn’t let apps remove a description, so clearing the field keeps the current one. You can replace it with other text instead.

If Spotify refuses permission, sign in again and approve image uploads. If you use a personal Spotify app, reconnect it in Settings as well.

Lyrics

Choose the microphone button in the player bar, or press L, to open lyrics. Synced lyrics follow the playing line automatically. Scroll to pause following, choose Follow to resume it, or choose a line to jump to that part of the song.

The expand button opens lyrics in full screen. Press Esc or choose the shrink button to return to your previous window size. Full-screen lyrics scroll smoothly and highlight the playing line automatically. Scrolling by hand pauses following; choose Follow to resume. Since 0.11.0, a wide window shows the song’s cover beside the lyrics, the two centred together, and a song without words, such as an instrumental, shows just its cover in the middle of the screen. Since 0.10.0, quitting while lyrics are full screen no longer leaves the next launch stuck in full screen: the window returns to its previous size.

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