How-To

Take Control of Your Music: How to Exclude Playlists from Spotify Recommendations

By Brian Burgess

Published August 5, 2024

You love listeing to music, but you might want to remove certain playlists from Spotify recommendations. Here’s how to exclude them.

If you are a music fan and listen to Spotify, you want to have as much control over your listening experience as possible. For example, most of us create playlists on Spotify that include our favorite tunes. However, one annoyance is getting Spotify recommendations for music you don’t want to hear.

The music streaming giant uses your music to create recommendations by building a taste profile. However, you might have a playlist of music you don’t want included in the profile. For instance, you might not want to merge different genres. If you listen to opera occasionally, you may not like that fueling your recommendations when listening to rock or metal.

Excluding playlists from Spotify recommendations is straightforward on the desktop or your phone. This guide will show you how to do it step-by-step.

Excluding Playlists from Spotify Recommendations on Your Phone

Whether on Android or iPhone, you can exclude specific playlists from Spotify recommendations using the following steps.

1. Launch the Spotify app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.
2. Tap the Your Library button at the bottom of the screen.
3. Locate the playlist you want to exclude and tap the three-dot menu button under the playlist information.
4. Tap the Exclude from your taste profile option when the menu appears.
5. Once you complete the step, a confirmation message will appear. It lets you know the playlist will have less impact on your recommendations.

How to Exclude Playlists from Spotify Recommendations on the Desktop

As noted, the steps for excluding playlists from Spotify recommendations are straightforward on the web or desktop app.

1. Launch the Spotify desktop app or sign into your account from a web browser.
2. Click the Expand Your Library menu button.
3. Click the Playlists button.
4. Click on the playlist you want to exclude and click the three-dot menu button.
5. Select Exclude from your taste profile from the menu that appears.
6. A verification message will appear once you complete the action, just as the mobile app does.

Taking Control of Your Music Tastes on Spotify

This is a welcome feature if you want to take back control of your music and manage Spotify recommendations. Perhaps you have a playlist for a specific situation and don’t want those tracks added to your taste profile.

It’s also important to note that those songs won’t appear in your Spotify Wrapped when you follow the above steps. However, if you play those songs outside of the playlist experience, they will be added to your profile and recommended. In addition, songs that you exclude from a playlist still appear in your “Recently Played” section of Spotify. In addition, I tested podcasts on Spotify and there isn’t an option to exclude them from recommendations. This is annoying for many users, but hopefully, the ability will be added in the future.

Still, having more control over your “taste profile” and managing the recommended songs for future usage is a nice feature. Happy listening!