Spotify Just Added a Winamp-Style Miniplayer
Spotify’s desktop and web apps have always been convenient and full of useful features (with new features being added all the time ), but they haven’t been compact: to see what’s playing and control playback, you have to open the full interface for those programs, and third-party apps satisfy the need for something more optimized.
Now that has changed. Spotify has finally gotten around to releasing a mini player for its desktop apps for Windows and macOS, and the announcement is so effusive about how good the mini players are that I’m wondering why it took the Spotify team so long to introduce it. It’s “designed to give us maximum control over our music and podcasts with minimal intervention, ensuring workflow isn’t disrupted”—and that’s a well-worded summary of the benefits of this smaller interface.
Similar to the mini player available in Apple Music, the Spotify mini player gives you a quick overview of what’s playing, as well as playback controls for starting and stopping audio and moving through playlists. It sits on top of other windows you use and is available in a variety of sizes, although it’s (at least for now) exclusive to Spotify Premium subscribers.
How to Use the Spotify Mini Player
Assuming you’re using the latest version of Spotify for Windows or macOS and are a fully paid-up member of the Spotify Premium Club, you should find that a mini player is built right into the software. Look for a new icon in the lower right corner, to the right of the volume slider – it looks like two rectangles of different sizes.
You can click this button regardless of whether there is audio currently playing and you will see a small window. There are now two instances of Spotify running on Windows or macOS (as you’ll see from the two windows in the taskbar or dock): the main Spotify app interface and a new mini player that shows you what’s currently playing.
The main application window doesn’t disappear immediately, but when you open other program windows and move them, it moves to the background while the mini player remains in view. Drag the dotted rectangle at the top of the mini player to move it, and the cross in the top right corner (Windows) or top left corner (macOS) to close it.
You can resize the mini-player like any other window: just drag its edges. When you change the size and shape of the window, its contents will change, and in the smallest you will just see the cover art, track information, a pause and play button, and a track skip button. If the window is larger, you get more controls (including a volume slider), but they only appear when you hover over the mini-player window.
Vastly Improved Experience
Listening to music (or podcasts or audiobooks) through the Spotify desktop app is greatly improved by using the mini player – more than you’d think, considering it seems like a relatively small addition. What I like is that it doesn’t replace the main app window: you can still access all your playlists and library in a couple of clicks.
I love following Spotify recommendations and other new music I’ve never heard before, and the mini player means I don’t have to stop what I’m doing when I want to see the name of a new song I like the sound of. —I just need to look at the corner of the screen. You can click on the track and artist information in the mini-player to go to the corresponding sections in the main program window.
There’s also skipping tracks because I also tend to download huge playlists where I don’t necessarily need to listen to every song. Jumping forward now requires one click rather than several, and I can immediately see what the next tune will be – before the mini player, I had to dig under all the other open app windows to find Spotify.
If you’re of a certain age, you might remember the halcyon days of Winamp , the infinitely customizable desktop music player that helped define the MP3 era—it, too, had a compact mini-player mode that could stay on top of any other window. While a lot has changed in technology and music since Winamp launched nearly 27 years ago, Spotify’s new mini player finally comes close to the same experience: easy and intuitive access to all your tunes from your desktop.