I’m working on a project that lets people see what music their friends are playing right now on Spotify. I know how to get my own current track using the player model. I can also get someone else’s top songs by using their username in the toplist model. But I’m stuck on how to find out what song another user is playing at this moment. Does anyone know if there’s a way to do this? I’ve looked through the Spotify API docs but couldn’t find anything clear about it. Maybe I’m missing something obvious? Any help or tips would be really appreciated!
I’ve actually worked on a similar project before, and unfortunately, there’s no direct way to view other users’ currently playing tracks through the official Spotify API. This is mainly due to privacy concerns. Spotify doesn’t expose real-time listening data for individual users to third-party developers.
Your best bet might be to use the ‘Recently Played Tracks’ endpoint, which gives you a user’s play history. However, this requires explicit user authorization and only works for users who’ve granted your app permission. It’s not ideal for real-time tracking, but it’s the closest you can get within the API’s constraints.
If you’re set on real-time data, you might need to explore alternative approaches, like building a custom solution where users voluntarily share their listening status. But that’s a whole different ballgame.