Top 5 MUST KNOW Spotify Tips 2025 Guide

When it comes to streaming services there’s not many people that do it like Spotify—sorry Apple—but with seemingly endless features available to mix up your music listening, it’s hard to know if you’re really getting the most out of the streaming service. Well, I’m here to show you my five favorite tips and tricks that have taken my Spotify experience to the next level.

Quick Guide: The 5 Tips at a Glance

Tip	What it does	How to use / Where to find	Key notes
Smart Shuffle	Blends similar, brand-new tracks into your playlists so you get fresh music without losing your favorites.	Tap the Shuffle button on the Now Playing screen until you see the Smart Shuffle icon.	Typically adds a new track every 3–4 songs. Tap the minus button on Now Playing to fine-tune recommendations.
Daily Drive	Personalized mix of songs you listen to a lot + relevant news updates and podcast snippets.	Search “Daily Drive” or check the Made For You section on the Home screen.	Updates daily. Covers sports, tech, and what’s going on in the world.
Audio Settings	Customize playback: EQ, volume, gapless playback, crossfade, streaming quality.	Tap the little cog on Home > Playback and Audio Quality sections.	Mobile streaming quality affects data use. If you’ve got limitless data, crank it to Very High. Access may vary for free vs Premium.
AI DJ (UK)	An AI-powered, personalized “radio” guided by a realistic voice model (Xavier Jernigan).	Update to the newest Spotify > Music tab > AI DJ.	Beta in the UK. Premium required. Offers commentary, mixes of new releases, classics, and throwbacks. You can skip songs.
Spotify Blend	Creates blended playlists with friends (up to 10), combining your likes with theirs + recommendations.	Search “Blend” > Create a Blend or try pre-saved mixes.	Shows “taste match” percentage. Fun, surprisingly niche mixes exist (Goblin core, crazy bagpipes, mint).

1) Smart Shuffle

An absolute staple in my life has got to be Smart Shuffle. Now if you’re anything like me, you’ll know the feeling of making a quality playlist and getting the burning desire to just rinse and repeat it. We’ve all fallen foul to it before and I know it gets to a point where fresh music can be really hard to integrate with your daily listening sessions.

The Smart Shuffle feature basically takes all of the hassle away and blends brand new and similar tracks you might not have heard before into your playlist—so you get the best of both worlds. Don’t worry, it’s not overwhelming either. I reckon I hear a new track once every three or four songs maybe, which feels like an ideal amount so you’re still listening to your favorite songs most of the time.

It’s literally the easiest thing to use: you just tap the Shuffle button on the Now Playing screen until you see this icon and you’re good to go. Obviously it doesn’t hit the mark every time, but you don’t have to add the songs to your playlist and you can literally just tap the minus button in the Now Playing section and it’ll bear in mind that you didn’t like that sort of thing next time around and adjust its recommendations accordingly. I found loads is a new track this way so I definitely recommend you guys give it a go.

• Why it’s great:
  • Adds fresh tracks without hijacking your vibe.
  • New track roughly every 3–4 songs.
• How to use:
  • Tap Shuffle on Now Playing until the Smart Shuffle icon appears.
  • Tap the minus button on songs you don’t like to refine recs.

2) Daily Drive

Next up, tip two—another one that I use all the time—is the Daily Drive playlist. Now I know it’s been around for a while, but I do a lot of driving, whether it’s commuting to work or off on a trip, and sometimes I get a little torn about what I want to listen to. Daily Drive is literally perfect for me.

It’s basically a personalized playlist that combines songs that I listen to a lot with relevant news updates and podcast snippets that cover a whole range of topics—there’s sports, tech, whatever’s going on in the world at the moment—and it all changes on a daily basis.

It’s easy enough to find: you just have to search for “Daily Drive” in the search bar or have a look in the Made For You section on the Home screen, and your drives will be kicked up a notch for sure.

• What you get:
  • Your favorite songs.
  • News updates and podcast snippets.
  • Daily refresh.
• Where to find:
  • Search “Daily Drive” or check Made For You.

3) Get Your Audio Settings Sorted

Right—onto a little bit more performance space with tip number three, and although I’d have expected a lot of you guys to have done this already, if you haven’t, you’re missing out big time: get those audio settings sorted. I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t though, because Spotify doesn’t exactly signpost it.

If you tap the little cog in the Home screen section and have a look down the list, there’s loads of different settings that you can make the most of. The main area you want to tap into is Playback though, and there’s all of these settings which you can play around with to completely change how you listen to music.

• Playback settings to try:
  • Traditional EQ adjuster with different presets to give your music a little boost.
  • A toggle to adjust the volume settings if you want a little more oomph in your audio.
  • A personal favorite of mine is the Gapless Playback toggle and Crossfade slider. This basically gets rid of that awkward gap in between songs and lets each track run over each other for a smooth transition, which I personally prefer. Obviously it might not be for you, but it’s worth testing out and seeing how you feel.

If you come out of there and scroll down and head into the Audio Quality section too, there’s a few settings you can change to alter the quality of your streaming as well. It’s worth noting the mobile streaming options will change how much data Spotify uses if you’re not on Wi‑Fi, but if you’re on a limitless data plan there’s no reason why you wouldn’t want that cranked up to Very High.

Access to all of these settings might vary depending on whether you pay for Spotify or are using a free membership, just as a heads up as well though.

• Where to go:
  • Home > Cog > Playback and Audio Quality.
• Quick wins:
  • EQ presets, Volume boost, Gapless + Crossfade.
  • Streaming quality (mind your data).

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4) AI DJ (UK Beta)

Okay, tip number four—and on to something a little bit newer for us UK users—and that’s a brand new AI DJ. We’ve all seen the hype: AI is taking the world by storm right now and Spotify has jumped on the bandwagon too.

Now before I get into it, it’s worth knowing this feature is in its beta phase at the moment, so it’s not perfect by any stretch, and you will need to be a Premium member to access it. But it’s a crazy eye‑opener into what’s coming for the future.

If you’re not sure what it is or how to get it, you want to make sure you’re updated to the newest version of Spotify and head over to the Music tab in the main menu. If you click on AI DJ, you’ll be greeted by this ridiculously realistic AI voice model by Spotify’s own Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier Jernigan:

“I’m here to guide you through a personalized mix of music just for you and a taste of some new tracks that I think you’ll love”

The DJ likes to be known as Expo and uses AI to analyze your listening history and preferences to create a mix of music that it thinks you’ll love. You’ll get loads of different stuff like new releases, classics, and songs you might not have heard before, and X will interject with commentary on the songs and artists to give you more information about the music you’re listening to.

I’ve heard loads of different stuff—like the other day it took me all the way back to 2017 and played me the songs I was listening to back then—as well as giving me loads of really cool facts like who’s top of the charts and things like that.

Obviously, like I said, this is in its earliest phase in the UK right now, but I’m seeing huge potential with it for the future, and I think it could be like listening to your very own personalized radio station with every single track being tailored to what you actually like. Admittedly, I have had some rogue songs thrown my way that I didn’t really vibe with, but you can literally skip the songs pretty easily so it’s not all bad. This is one for the future though and it’s definitely something I recommend for you guys going and testing out for yourselves because I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.

• Requirements:
  • UK, Premium, newest Spotify version. It’s in Beta.
• How to try:
  • Music tab > AI DJ.
• What to expect:
  • Expo’s commentary, mixes of new releases, classics, throwbacks, and easy skipping.

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5) Spotify Blend

Finally, tip number five is something called Spotify Blend. Now this is a feature that’s been around for a while, but I’ve only started making use of it recently—and it can be another good way of finding music you might like.

There’s a few ways you can use this one. If you just search “Blend” on Spotify you’ll see a specific genre. Then from here we’ve got the option to create a Blend and there are some pre‑save mixes below which you’ve probably seen before. These do feel like they’re getting more and more niche—I think I saw one the other day that was like Goblin core mix—yeah I’ve had crazy bagpipes—mint—yeah, so definitely niche, but that’s not what I wanted to show you.

I actually wanted to show you how I use Blend to create new playlists with some of my friends. So you can make a blended playlist with up to 10 friends and it will combine some songs that you have liked, songs they have liked, and give you some recommendations based on all of your music tastes.

So far I’ve only done it with individual friends where I know we have some common ground in our music taste. So I’ve actually got a Blend with Louis and as you can see we both like a bit of house—there’s actually some bangers in here. Fair bit of Marvin Gaye as well. And then just click this little circle up here and it’ll also tell you if you taste match, and this says 88—“if you’re not best friends you should be”—and to be honest I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Jokes aside, I genuinely have found some good tunes that Louis likes that I’ve actually never heard before, so they’ve been added to my regular mixes too.

Another thing that popped up on my Spotify last week was a recommended Blend between me and lizzo—it’s about damn time—so you can see here there’s a story which shows what our taste match is like and then gives a mix of our music taste. Now I wouldn’t have thought it’d have so much in common with alizo but there you go.

All in all, it’s a great way of finding new tracks and you can have a bit of fun with it seeing what everyone else likes, so no complaints there.

• Ways to use:
  • Create a Blend with up to 10 friends.
  • Try pre‑saved mixes (they can get niche).
• Perks:
  • Combines liked songs and adds recommendations.
  • Shows taste match percentage; can surface unexpected bangers.

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Your Turn

Whether you agree with me or not, I’m always keen to find any new hidden Spotify hacks—so I want to hear from you guys in the comments section down below. What’s your go‑to feature, and which do you think is going under the radar right now?

I hope you enjoyed this one, guys, and let us know if you’d like to see some more top tips for any other apps too. I’ll catch you guys in the next one.