Spotify Wrapped is a popular feature that was first introduced by the steaming platform in 2017. it allows users to view detailed analytics about the music they listen to on Spotify.
When does Spotify Wrapped start and stop tracking?
Spotify Wrapped data is tracked from January 1st to October 31st in most cases. This means that there is an analysis period of between 10 and 11 months in total.
Spotify Wrapped doesn’t count analytics for a full calendar year.
The analytics provided by Spotify Wrapped include the user’s most listened to songs and artists, in addition to a lot of other information.
This can then be shared by the user to compare their listening habits with their friends or social media followers – which is a clever marketing tactic by Spotify as it helps them reach many potential subscribers.
When Does Spotify Wrapped Start (And Stop) Tracking?
It’s often assumed that Spotify Wrapped provides 365 days of analytics because it is released in December. It is seen as an end-of-year summary of the user’s activity on the platform, but in reality, it doesn’t actually span the entire calendar year.
The data tracking process of Spotify Wrapped begins on the 1st of January and generally commences on the 31st of October. However, in some cases, Spotify has been known to extend the cut-off until the first week of November.
Therefore, it’s difficult to state exactly how long the tracking period for Spotify Wrapped lasts, but we can definitively say that it is always between 10-11 months long.
This gives Spotify time to process all of the analytical information for its hundreds of millions of users, and prepare the Spotify Wrapped feature to be released in December each year.
Spotify Wrapped was officially introduced in 2017, but its roots stretch back two years prior when the Year in Music feature was added to the platform.
This feature allowed users to reflect on the previous 365 days of activity, viewing the most played songs, the number of hours they listened to music, and the artists they listened to the most.
This feature didn’t take off as Spotify had hoped it would, and therefore they went back to the drawing board. The result was the introduction of the new and improved analytical tool, Spotify Wrapped, which quickly became one of the platform’s most popular and unique features.
Does Spotify Wrapped Count Offline Hours?
Many Spotify Premium subscribers choose to download their favorite music to listen to offline, rather than streaming it. This allows them to save on data usage, in addition to ensuring that they can always enjoy their music even if they don’t have a connection to the internet.
Offline listening works by the user simply selecting the songs or albums that they want to add to their Spotify downloads. They can then play them anytime by opening the app, regardless of their internet status.
This raises the question of whether Spotify can track the data required to form the analytic reports of Spotify Wrapped even when a listener is using the offline feature. If it was unable to do so, surely this would mean that the Spotify Wrapped statistics would be inaccurate, as millions of people use the offline download feature.
There’s a reason that Spotify is considered the gold standard of music streaming platforms – they rarely miss a trick with this kind of thing. As you’d expect, Spotify has taken the measures required to ensure that all offline plays are counted and used in the analytics provided by Spotify Wrapped.
Identically to online streams, the offline play will be counted as long as the user listens to at least 30 seconds of the song. Spotify then receives the data from the app when the user’s device is next online.
This ensures that all of the plays that artists receive after their tracks have been downloaded by a user are counted by Spotify, and they receive their royalties in the same way that they would if the music was streamed via an internet connection.
How Does Spotify Calculate Wrapped?
In theory, Spotify Wrapped seems like quite a simple concept – it monitors the number of plays that songs, albums, and artists get then compiles them into analytical data. But how exactly does the streaming platform track all of the plays, and how does it compile the information?
Firstly, for a play to be counted on Spotify it must last for over thirty seconds of a song. This is to prevent people from re-clicking the play button on their music to get more streams.
Another interesting thing about the way Spotify calculates the Wrapped statistics is that each user’s top songs are chosen based on the play count, rather than the total time that they have spent listening to that piece of music.
Furthermore, when you look at your top 100 playlists in Spotify Wrapped, only the first ten songs you see are actually in order of play count. The rest are sorted by the name of the artist that created them.
Also, Spotify doesn’t solely focus on music when calculating your total listening time on the platform. They also add the time you spent listening to podcasts to get the final number, which is likely to increase it significantly.
The top artists that you are presented with in your Spotify Wrapped analytics are calculated similarly to the top songs. Rather than focusing on the total time you spend listening to an artist, Spotify considers the total number of play counts,
Is Spotify Wrapped Accurate?
Spotify Wrapped is pretty accurate when it comes to tracking your data across the 10-11 month period that it runs for. Some argue that it should also include the month of December, as many people listen to music over the Christmas period.
Other than criticisms of the length of time that Spotify Wrapped runs for, it manages to gather accurate analytics that correctly represent the way that you like to use the platform.
Spotify Wrapped has become one of the platform’s most popular features since it was introduced in 2017, and people often share their analytics on their social media pages which only boosts its popularity.
While the data track may not be 100% accurate, Spotify’s statistics are pretty reliable. You can get a definitive answer to who is your most listened to artist or song, and you can see how long you’ve spent using the platform.
There are certain things about the feature that perhaps could be improved, but it is a work in progress. I suspect that as time goes on, Spotify will make certain tweaks to improve the accuracy and functionality of Spotify Wrapped.
Check out this YouTube video on Spotify Wrapped.
Is Spotify Wrapped Free?
Spotify Premium users get access to many different features that aren’t available on the basic, free version, These include offline downloads of songs and podcasts, ad-free streaming, and higher audio quality.
However, one feature that is available on both Spotify Premium and Spotify free is Spotify Wrapped. This may come as a surprise, as one would assume that gathering analytical data for all of the free accounts in addition to the Premium accounts would be a lot more work for the Spotify team.
From a marketing perspective, it makes perfect sense, though. So many Spotify users screenshot their analytics and post them to their social media followers, that Spotify gets a tonne of free exposure every December when the analytics are released.
If the platform made Spotify Wrapped exclusive to Premium members, they would be missing out on all of that free advertising that basic subscribers bring. Therefore, you can see why this is one of the rare advanced Spotify features that is available to both free and paying subscribers.
Related Questions
Can you revisit old Spotify Wrapped?
You can access any of your previous Spotify Wrapped analytics since the feature was introduced in 2017. To do this, simply search the year you want to find, for example, “2019 Spotify Wrapped” in Google, and then log in to the platform.
Why isn’t my Spotify Wrapped showing?
If you can’t see your Spotify Wrapped on your iPhone or Android device, you need to go to spotify.com/wrapped on a browser such as Chrome or Safari, then log in to see the feature.
How do I see my Audio Aura on Spotify?
To find your Audio Aura, you need to open your Spotify Wrapped page from 2021. Then, once you’ve opened your Spotify Wrapped page, you will be presented with a slide that is named “Your Audio Aura”, and you can select this to open the feature.
