You’ve probably used Spotify’s Add to Queue feature countless times. Although a bit clumsy, it gets the job done. But did you know that the app also supports the much faster queue feature, allowing you to add songs to the queue with just one swipe? Here’s how it works and why you should start using it.
How Spotify’s drag to queue feature works
Swipe to Queue has been a staple feature of Spotify’s mobile apps for a while. It works fairly straightforward; Much faster and more elegant than the regular Add to Queue feature which you can access by tapping on the three-dot menu.
Instead of going through two steps (tapping the three-dot menu and then adding a song or album to your queue), simply swipe right on the song you want to add to your queue. That’s it. You can do this from almost anywhere in the app, including artist and album pages, playlists, and more.
You can also add songs to your existing playlist directly from the queue. Simply open your queue and swipe left on the song you’d like to add. The only songs you can’t add include the song currently playing and songs you’ve already added to your queue, which are marked with the green “Add to Queue” icon, as shown in the screenshot below.
While swiping right adds a song to the queue, swiping left performs two different actions depending on the context. When you’re on the queue screen, swiping left removes the song from the queue. When you’re on the album, single, or EP page, swiping left adds the song to your ‘Liked Songs’ playlist.
Unfortunately, the swipe left gesture is not available everywhere. From what I’ve noticed, you can’t swipe songs left on artist pages or within playlists — either ones you’ve created or added to your library.
I use swipe in queue all the time because it’s awesome
I’ve been using the Swipe to Queue gesture all the time since discovering it because, frankly, it’s one of the best Spotify features out there.
I find it especially useful when I want to add double albums to my queue. Spotify counts double LPs as one album and always adds both “discs” to the queue when you use the “Add to Queue” option in the three-dot menu. This isn’t ideal, as most of the time the second CD has live instruments or songs, which I usually don’t care for.
Case in point Mastodon’s Crack the SkyeIt is a double album, as the second disc includes musical versions of the album’s songs. Instead of adding both discs using the Add to Queue feature, I simply swipe right on the songs from the first disc to add them to the queue, which ultimately takes less time than adding the entire album and then manually removing songs from the second disc.
It’s the same story with special edition albums, remasters, etc., which often come with a bunch of bonus songs. Instead of adding the entire album and then manually removing the songs I don’t want to listen to, I just scroll through the songs I want to listen to.
Swiping to the queue is also great when I’m listening to an artist’s radio, or playlist, and find a great song from a band I’ve never listened to before. I can just visit their artist page, swipe some popular songs at the top of their artist page, add them to my library if I liked what I heard, and continue listening to the playlist.
Swiping to queue is especially useful for Spotify’s Jam feature
There is another situation where dragging to a queue is useful. You may have heard of (and used) Spotify’s “Jam” feature. I use this feature almost daily with my partner while cooking, and the Swipe to Queue feature is perfect for that.
I usually create a Jam and invite her (the auto-invite over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is unstable, so I share a link with her instead), and then we add the songs to the shared queue while she’s cooking. We usually add songs on a rotating basis, so the queue will play my song, then her song, and so on. However, you can add multiple songs one at a time, and then the other person can add multiple songs if you prefer that way.
Thanks to Swipe to Queue, we can add songs in a flash, filling our shared queue in just a few seconds with enough songs to last us through the plate.
The Jam feature, along with the swipe-to-queue gesture, is also great for parties because you can create Jam content and share it with everyone in attendance, and then everyone can contribute to the shared queue by swiping on songs they want to add. Jamming together allows all participants to add songs, but also to remove them; Removing songs is not limited to the person who created the Jam content.
The good news is that you’re not limited to using Jam with people in the same room as you. You can invite your friends, family or partner regardless of their location, allowing you to share the music listening experience no matter how far away you are physically.
The swipe-to-queue gesture has become the one action I use most often in Spotify. It’s intuitive and easy to use no matter if you’re an album, playlist or song oriented listener. Plus, Swipe to Queue and Jam make for the perfect combination when you want to enjoy a shared listening experience, whether with loved ones right next to you or those farther away.