Spotify Finally Fixes Parents’ Playlist Problem
Spotify is expanding a new feature designed to solve a long-standing problem for parents: children's music infiltrating their personalized playlists and recommendations. The streaming service announced that managed accounts are now available for Premium Family subscribers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
The feature follows successful pilot programs in 10 markets with smaller user bases. Dubbed 'Managed Accounts,' it allows parents to create separate music experiences for listeners under 13 years old within the main Spotify app.
How Managed Accounts Work
With a Managed Account, children can add songs to favorites, create their own playlists, and receive personalized recommendations based on their listening habits. The big practical difference is that their activity remains completely separate from the main account holder's profile, preventing kids' music choices from affecting parents' algorithm-generated playlists like Discover Weekly or year-end Wrapped results.
Parents maintain control over the child's access through several built-in tools. They can filter explicit content, block specific songs or entire artist catalogs, and hide videos and Canvas animations, which are looping videos that play alongside tracks. According to Spotify, interactivity features are limited on managed accounts, with age-gated features like messaging other users completely disabled. (Source: spotify.com)
Availability and Setup
Managed accounts are exclusively available through Spotify's Premium Family plan, which costs $19.99 monthly and includes six individual Premium accounts for household members. (Source: theverge.com)
To create a managed account, Premium Family plan managers can access their account settings, tap "Add a Member," and select the option to add a listener under 13. The managed account provides a music-only listening experience, giving children their own space to explore while parents maintain oversight.
What's Your Opinion?
Have you experienced a child's Spotify choices polluting your playlists? Would you prefer using managed accounts within the main app or have your child use the separate Spotify Kids app? Should Spotify make managed accounts available on lower-tier subscription plans beyond Premium Family?
My name is Dennis Faas and I am a senior systems administrator and IT technical analyst specializing in cyber crimes (sextortion / blackmail / tech support scams) with over 30 years experience; I also run this website! If you need technical assistance , I can help. Click here to email me now; optionally, you can review my resume here. You can also read how I can fix your computer over the Internet (also includes user reviews).
We are BBB Accredited
We are BBB accredited (A+ rating), celebrating 21 years of excellence! Click to view our rating on the BBB.
Comments
children are smart
what prevents that kid from opening a "free" spotify account and STILL LISTEN to whatever nasty music they want? there is no "age limit" to these accounts and all Spotify is doing is dumping the age-control back onto parents. there should be an G, PG, X and M system for the music as well as TV. in fact, there should be an age control on ALL of the internet access because it is too darn difficult to stop the brainy kids from getting access to whatever the latest item is.
when I was a kid (back in the Iron Age) we could also access things too mature for us, like the alley behind the bar or the ADULT section in the library or sneaking into the girls locker-room at the pool or listening to mom and dad's Redd Foxx lps. but what we got into was mild compared to what today's kid can expose to him/her self. I can no more control what my kids listen to on the internet than my dad could control my roaming in the alleys looking for cigarettes and beer. that job was the bar owners job and he/she could be sued if he/she didn't do it.