How To Clear the Recently Played List in Spotify

Your recently-played tracks and playlists on Spotify can be accessed by anyone who follows you. While not everyone is secretive about their musical preferences, others might not want to share this information. For that reason, you may be wondering how to clear your recently-played list.

Fortunately, Spotify offers a solution, only it’s not available for mobile devices. Read on to find out more.

Clear Recently Played List in Spotify on an iPhone

It’s currently impossible to clear the recently-played list in Spotify on your iPhone. However, all is not lost. There is a way to hide your activity from your followers by enabling Private Sessions and disabling the Listening Activity option.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Launch the Spotify app on your iPhone.
   
2. Go to the Spotify home screen.
   
3. Tap on the gear icon in the top-right corner.
   
4. Scroll down to the “Social” section.
   
5. Toggle “Private Session” on.
   
6. Toggle “Listening Activity” off.
   
7. Swap to your PC to clear the recently-played list.

While following these instructions will hide the activity from others, it remains recorded. That’s what makes a PC mandatory if you want to clear the list. Note that these instructions also work on an iPad.

1. On your PC, open the Spotify desktop app.
   
2. Go to the section called “Your Library.”
   
3. Select “Recently Played.”
   
4. Hover over any playlists and tracks and click on the triple dots.
   
5. Click on “Remove From Recently Played.”
   
6. Repeat for everything.

Private Listening won’t track your sessions. What you listened to during this period, therefore, doesn’t affect your music recommendations. Remember that the feature reactivates after extended inactivity or restarting Spotify. Hence, you’ll have to turn it on again.

Clear Recently Played List in Spotify on an Android Device

Android devices don’t have the option of clearing the recently-played list on Spotify either. Similarly, you need to turn Private Sessions on and Listening Activity off.

1. Open Spotify on your Android device.
   
2. Go to the app’s home screen.
   
3. Select the gear icon.
   
4. Look for the “Social” section by scrolling down.
   
5. Turn “Private Session” on.
   
6. Disable “Listening Activity.”
   
7. Change to your PC.

Until Spotify updates its services, you’ll need the desktop app.

1. Open the Spotify desktop app on your PC.
   
2. Go to “Your Library.”
   
3. Click on “Recently Played.”
   
4. Hover over any played tracks or playlists.
5. Click on the triple dots.
   
6. Select “Remove From Recently Played.”
   
7. Repeat these steps until you’re satisfied.

With Private Session on, Spotify won’t show others the songs you’ve been listening to.

Clear Recently Played List in Spotify Web Player

While you can listen to Spotify on your browser, the web player doesn’t have the capability to delete recently-played songs. However, you can still start Private Sessions.

1. Go to the Spotify web player.
   
2. Click on your username’s drop-down menu.
   
3. Select “Private Session.”
   

Next, you can head to the Spotify desktop app.

1. Go to “Your Library.”
   
2. Select “Recently Played.”
   
3. Move your mouse over some tracks.
4. Click on the triple dots.
   
5. Select “Remove From Recently Played.”
   
6. Repeat until you’ve deleted everything.

Unfortunately, Spotify doesn’t offer an easier way to delete your recently-played list. You can only hide your activity on a phone. Even the desktop app doesn’t let you delete all data instantly, which would be a convenient option.

No Good Solutions

Spotify is clearly lacking in the privacy department, as there’s only one time-consuming way to delete your recently-played tracks from the list. What’s more, you can only do so on the desktop app. Nevertheless, it’s still possible even if it involves a little bit of work.

Have you ever tried to clear your recently-played list on Spotify? If so, how did you work around the platform’s limitations? Let us know in the comments section below.