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Comment by adam_albrecht | Hacker News Reader

Another tip: Spotify seems to ignore anything you listen to during a "Private Session".

I listen to a lot of ambient and instrumental music while I work, but I don't want recommendations based on this, so I always start a private session.

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Woah, thanks! My 2020 list was topped by some tracks off kids albums which...are for my toddler!

Mentioned to the below responder, but you should give this a try if you're on a family plan, I heard it helps with that problem: https://www.spotify.com/us/kids/

There's not Desktop version for this though, right?

Yeah, same here. Spotify should offer a 'kids' account with every premium subscription, the way video streaming services do.

The family subscription actually does! https://www.spotify.com/us/kids/

Unfortunately, "private session" resets every X hours.

After 6 hours of inactivity or app restart specifically if you plan on utilising this

That's an awful idea for a privacy feature.

You can disable sharing altogether if you want. This is specifically for a single "session." Like if you want to listen to a guilty pleasure and don't want your friends bugging you about it

It's also useful if you have a second musical "life" that you don't want to involve in your recommendations. Parents with kids' music, for instance. In my case, I turn on private listening when I go to bed, because my sleeping music is repetitive and nothing like the music I want to discover.

Of course. But even then I wouldn't want the session to end without confirmation. A prompt/reminder after six hours would make sense.

Wait wait wait, Spotify notifies my friends of what I am listening to (not a user, so honest question)?

No no, but in the UI you can see what your friends are listening to (if you're added as friends). Example I found online (the right bar is the friends feed):

https://miro.medium.com/max/3836/1*C_ImLXQdMOGljMRhLcV-Yw.jp...

And to be clear, this is an optional feature.

Appreciate that clarification. Good to know.

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