For as long as I’ve owned an iPhone, a music app has occupied the fourth spot on my dock and for nearly as long, that app has been Spotify. Those who saw my last post about what’s on my homescreen will notice it’s been removed from the dock. That’s because I have an even easier way to use access Spotify.
After dipping my toes in some Workflow ummm… workflows?… I started playing around with other things I could do which lead me to my Spotify workflow. Spotify lived in my dock primarily so I could have quick access to one of the few playlists I listen to while driving, but the app isn’t as intuitive as I’d like so I usually ended up fumbling around. That all changed with one simple workflow that I can access from a Today widget.
Tapping on “Open a Playlist” gives me access to my top three playlists from anywhere on my phone simply by swiping down. Even better, it was a breeze to set up because Spotify allows you to copy the deep link directly from the app (either the Mac version or iOS version). You can modify the workflow for yourself by going the the album or playlist and clicking the three dots to access the Share menu where you’ll have the option to “Copy the Playlist Link”. Once you have the link, you’ll need to modify it a bit so that it opens the Spotify app rather than Safari. Your link should look something like this (minus the quotes):
"spotify:user:yourusername:playlist:playlistcode"
I’m toying with the idea of adding a 4th option to search Spotify entirely, but for now this has been sufficient. It’s also a heck of a lot simpler than fumbling through Spotify’s unintuitive app layout.
According to Andrea 
Hey there! I tried out your workflow and I was able to enter my playlist urls and make it work when I open the workflow app in IOS 10. But when I try to run the workflow from the today window it doesn’t open spotify….any idea why? Thanks!
Hey! Thanks for stopping by. I tried downloading a new copy of the workflow from this post, and it launched fine. The only thing I ran into is that you need to run it from inside the workflow app first, otherwise the widget will show a message asking you if you’re sure you want to run it and only give a cancel option. You may want to double-check that your playlist URL is correct. Hope that helps.
Nice trick. Been thinking about this for a while and you saved me having to work out the URL format. Thanks.
Maybe in time Spotify will get a full workflow API, then could possibly link with Siri/Shazam and add anything you here to the playlist with one tap.
I’m so glad you found it helpful. Some sort of API to add anything with one tap would be incredible. Fingers crossed Spotify has that in the works for the future. You never know!
Thanks a lot!!!
Hey Andrea,
Thank you so much for this!! One question, I’m trying to get a podcast to open not a playlist. I tried changing “playlist” to “podcast” and “show”. Neither worked. Any thoughts?
I don’t use Spotify for podcasts, but it looks like there’s a Copy Show Link found in the Share action of the Spotify app. That’s how I got the playlist URLs. Hope that helps.
Yeah unfortunately that doesn’t work. Thanks anyway!
Hmmm. Can’t think of anything else. Good luck.
Ai, happy someone found out how this works!!!
Ideas:
Is it possible to open my playlists directly without choosing one?
Would be great to get a workflow that shazams a song and adds it automatically to a given spotify list. Any ideas?
You should be able to just use the playlist URL directly. I added the menu purely to pick playlists.
No idea about the Shazam idea though as I don’t use it.
Thank You! worked fine
I also additionally added the workflow “Open Playlist” to my Home screen so not only I have it as a widget.
Thanks again
Great! I’m happy you found it useful. Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you!!!! Perfect.
You’re very welcome. Thanks for stopping by!
I can’t get this to work. I’m trying to get my Discover Weekly playlist to load on my iPhone. When I click the playlist in Workflow, Spotify opens, but nothing else happens.
This is the URL for my playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/37i9dQZEVXcG0eLA4UGSZz?si=ouQOnFuASFKLc2yu2ty_Dg
Is the playlist code 37i9dQZEVXcG0eLA4UGSZz ? (spotify:user:ghostgrifter:playlist:37i9dQZEVXcG0eLA4UGSZz)
And I swapped Safari for Open App -> Spotify.
Thanks for any help
Correct. Your playlist code is the part before the “?”
Hey Andrea, i’m wondering, do you know if it’s possible to do the same thing with deezer ? i’ve been looking around and i don’t know what to write after Deezer:
that is annoying
i don’t know how to code?
I wish I could help, but I’m not familiar with Deezer. You might try posting to the r/workflow subreddit which has a lot of helpful folks there.
Best of luck,
Andrea
It works! This is the best, thank you for posting!!! Breathes new life into workflow for me, looking forward to playing with it. And I can’t believe I never thought to visit r/workflow. Cheers!
Thanks for stopping by! Glad I could help.
Hi Andrea – new to Workflow here, running the public beta of iOS 12 and trying to get Siri to do more for me in the car…thanks to your workflow I was able to automate the playing of three of my favourite playlists on Spotify using Siri…thank you very much for this.
I was wondering if you’ve found any URI code that will make Spotify shuffle play the list? I can’t find mention of it on the internet, perhaps it’s only a function of the playback software?
Hi Jason! You’re so welcome. Using the workflow in the car was exactly my motivation for this too. It’ll be even better in iOS 12 when I can call up the playlist. I wish I could be of more help with the shuffling. I just hit shuffle when it loads. The button’s big enough that it’s not that big of a deal.
Yes, that was my thought too, I’ll just press shuffle. Any reason why you’re not on the public beta already? I’m using it on my work phone (well, my only phone) and no dramas at all, so far…
That’s actually partially the subject of my post coming out today. I’m on it now, but in short I had some major phone troubles that were just resolved yesterday, so I couldn’t put it on there until it was taken care of. No issues so far here either.
Hi Andrea, thanks for the share. I am not a coder as I came to know about this options only after ios12:). I knew it has to be a simple command and can’t believe you wrote this article 2 years ago. It works great. Thanks for the share. Now only thing left to figure out how I can make it start playing automatically :).
I’m so glad you found it helpful. It’s hard for me to believe I wrote it 2 years ago too! It’s even harder for me to believe Apple purchased Workflow and it’s getting the attention it deserves after so many years! 🙂
Thought I would post that since the release of iOS12 and the Shortcuts app, some enterprising persons over on Reddit have created some very nifty workflows for Spotify indeed. One of them, which I’ve assigned to “hey siri, spotify” allows you to specify a track, album or artist…they don’t all “autoplay” once selected, but it still saves time in the car.
Here’s a link, if I’m allowed to post such…the *really* good shortcut is listed in the comments on the thread, but requires you to create a (free) Spotify dev account.
I’m in awe of what these folks, and Andrea, have done with Shortcuts…the best one I’ve created is to remove all completed reminders from my To-Do list… 🙂
Hi Jason! Thanks for sharing this. Reddit is definitely a great place to check out for sample shortcuts.