Spotify is rolling out “User Notes” in select markets for users 16 and older on free and premium plans. The new feature lets listeners attach personal captions and memories directly to individual tracks across their playlists and libraries, creating a more personal music discovery experience.
Spotify is giving listeners a fresh way to document their listening habits by letting them attach text directly to individual songs. The streaming service launched User Notes in select markets, allowing people to write personal captions that sit beneath tracks in their playlists and personal libraries.
The feature bridges the gap between a standard music playlist and a personal journal. Instead of relying on memory alone, users can record why a specific song earned a spot in their rotation, whether it was discovered while walking the streets of Paris on vacation or playing during a first date, as TechCrunch reported. TL;DR Spotify is rolling out User Notes, a new feature that lets listeners add short personal captions to tracks in their library and playlists.
How User Notes Work in Playlists and Libraries
Accessing the new tool requires just a few taps within the application. Users who are 16 and older on both free and premium tiers can navigate to a self-created playlist or a collection containing tracks they have added, open the three-dot menu next to any song, and select the option to add a note. From there, they can type a note and then save it.
Once typed and saved, the annotation appears beneath the track. When applied to shared playlists, those notes become visible to other users who can see the playlist, with the author’s name linking directly to their profile. That design turns standard playlist sharing into something closer to a shared memory log or collaborative commentary, making it easier to attach memories, context, or meaning to music.
“User Notes transforms playlists from a collection of songs into a more personal space for music discovery — bringing together personalization and added context around the music that listeners love.”
Spotify
The company expanded on that thought in an email to TechCrunch, noting that over time, these notes paint a picture of the music listeners love and the moments that shaped it. That emotional hook gives static song collections a durable, narrative layer, serving as small time capsules attached to each track for users who revisit old mixes.
A Distinct Shift Away From Algorithmic Feedbacks
The introduction of User Notes arrives alongside separate experiments within the app, though industry watchers emphasize a clear distinction between them. Spotify is also testing broader “Notes” functionality tied to recommendation controls, but that appears separate from the newly announced User Notes feature. While that separate, earlier set of reports points to written feedback influencing what users see on Home to improve recommendations and Taste Profile behavior, User Notes focuses squarely on human expression and personal memory rather than algorithmic adjustment.
By letting listeners attach context to songs representing weddings, road trips, late-night study sessions, or breakups, the platform creates a distinct journaling-like feature that differentiates itself from rivals like Apple Music and YouTube Music by offering capabilities not available on other platforms. Early reports highlight that the feature functions as part memory log, part social layer, and part playlist commentary.
Broader App Updates and What Comes Next
User Notes is not the only update announced by the company on Thursday. Alongside the journaling feature, Spotify debuted a new Running Mode that cues up songs based on different phases of a run and selects tracks based on a user’s preferences and pace, available to premium users in select countries.
These rollouts align with Spotify’s broader push toward more interactive, personalized in-app experiences, following features like Messages, which launched for select users in 2025 and later expanded to group chats. As User Notes continues its rollout to eligible free and premium accounts in select regions for users 16 and older, users and analysts will be watching to see how widely the feature expands and whether collaborative nostalgia becomes a permanent fixture of modern music streaming.
