Spotify Keeps Pausing? Here’s What You Should Do

Spotify is one of the best music streaming apps in the world, but often it keeps pausing for no reason. If Spotify keeps pausing whenever you listen to music, here are a few reasons why.

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Unstable internet connection (network buffering)

If you’re using Spotify with mobile data, perhaps you are in an area with lesser cellular coverage. Try lowering the audio streaming quality which often helps.

You won’t be able to listen to songs with the best audio quality, but it helps to prevent Spotify from pausing all the time. You’ll also save some of your available data.

Here’s how you can change your audio settings:

To change the audio quality on the desktop, all you need to do is click the down arrow in the top-right corner and click Settings. Then click Audio Quality and choose your preferred settings.

On mobile and tablet, tap Home (at the bottom of the screen). Go to Settings (the cogwheel icon) and tap Audio Quality. From here, you can select your streaming quality.

Alternatively, you could also enable the Data Saver mode.

Spotify’s Data Saver mode is a feature that reduces the amount of data used when streaming music over a cellular data connection by showing fewer images and reducing audio quality.

Once turned on, it sets the music quality to the equivalent of 24 kbit/s and disables artist canvases (short videos that appear in Now Playing).

You can turn on Data Saver mode by going to the Spotify home screen, tapping the gear icon in the top-right corner, tapping “Data Saver,” and toggling the feature on.

Multiple active devices using the same Spotify account

One of the most common reasons why your Spotify keeps pausing is because the account is being used on two devices at the same time.

If someone is using the Spotify account at the same time as you, every time the other person presses “play” on their device, your playback will pause.

To fix this, simply sign out of all devices.

Go to your Spotify Account Overview by logging into your Spotify account on your browser and heading to your Profile tab. Scroll down and click Sign out everywhere.

In some cases, you might have forgotten to log out on a different device (you’ve used in the past) and a friend or family member is unknowingly listening using your Spotify account.

This can be solved easily with the following two steps:

Change your Spotify password.
Log your account out from all devices it’s logged into.

If you have a Facebook-created Spotify account, you’ll need to change your Facebook password as well and log your Facebook profile out from all devices.

Someone gained access to your account

Unfortunately, one of the reasons why Spotify keeps pausing could be due to a hacker trying to listen to music on your account at the same time as you.

If you’re sure that you’re not playing Spotify on any other devices, someone may have gained access to your account and is trying to stream music while you are using Spotify.

Make sure to log out of all devices and change your password. Here’s how:

Log in to Spotify in an incognito window on your browser.
From your Spotify Account Overview, click on Set device password.
Choose a secure password.

After changing your password, go to your Spotify Account Overview and head to your Profile tab. You’d need to scroll down and click Sign out everywhere.

Also, check for third-party connections by going to the Apps section in your Spotify Account Overview to see what apps and devices are connected to your account.

After clicking on Apps, a list of connected devices will appear. If you recognize something, like an app you’ve never used before, disconnect it by clicking Remove Access.

Too many apps running in the background

Having too many apps running on your mobile phone or too many tabs open on your desktop browser, especially ones that play audio, can cause Spotify to keep pausing.

Spotify pauses the music you’re listening to when it detects another audio source, such as something on Facebook or Twitter, so you don’t get interrupted. This is expected behavior.

For example, if you open Twitter and come across a Tweet with an auto-playing GIF or video, Spotify will automatically pause its audio playback to allow you to watch the video on Twitter.

As of the time of writing, Spotify doesn’t have administrator audio access, so the operating system gives priority to whatever is in the foreground that requests multimedia access.

I’ve talked more about Spotify stopping whenever you open other apps, so you can learn more by visiting that article. There are solutions for every other app interfering with Spotify.

Too many temporary or cache files

Another reason why Spotify keeps pausing is due to too many temporary or cache files. All you need to do is to delete the Spotify cache and temporary files.

The cache is a temporary folder that stores data to help apps load faster. Over time, this folder can become cluttered and cause issues, like Spotify audio playback keeps pausing.

Deleting the cache will be different for different devices.

To clear the Spotify cache on iOS devices, open your Spotify account and go to Settings. Navigate to Storage and click on the Delete Cache button.

To clear the Spotify cache on Android devices, open your Spotify account and go to Settings. Navigate to Storage and click on the Clear Cache button.

To clear the Spotify cache on Windows and Mac, open your Spotify account and go to Settings. Scroll down and look for Offline storage location. You will see where Spotify stores its cache.

Navigate to that folder and empty it to clear the cache.

Your device is trying to save battery

Whenever your mobile device is trying to save battery via Low Power Mode or Power Saving Mode, it may cause some apps to not perform at their maximum capacity.

Because your device is trying to conserve its battery levels, Spotify can keep pausing because the app is not running at its best. You’ll need to turn the power saving mode OFF.

How to turn off Low Power Mode on iOS:

Go to your Settings.
Click on Battery and toggle off the Low Power Mode switch.

How to turn off Power Saving Mode on Android:

Go to your Settings.
Click on Battery and device care.
Click Battery.
Toggle off the Power Saving.

Something is wrong with Spotify’s installation

If Spotify keeps pausing even after trying all of the above suggestions, there may be something wrong with the Spotify installation on your device.

It’s a good idea to try a reinstallation to see if that solves the issue. Here you can find different Spotify Answers which explain how to do a thorough reinstallation of the app.