I’m working on a music sharing application and need help with fetching real-time listening data from friends on Spotify. Currently I can retrieve my own active track using the playback API endpoint. I’m also able to pull any user’s favorite songs by passing their profile ID to the charts endpoint. However, I’m stuck on how to fetch what songs my friends are currently streaming. Is there a specific API method or authorization scope needed to access other users’ live playback status? I’ve checked the documentation but can’t find a clear solution for this use case. Any guidance on the proper approach would be really helpful. Thanks in advance!
Nope, you can’t access other users’ real-time playback through Spotify’s API - privacy restrictions block this. The API only lets you grab your own playback data, not your friends’ stuff. Even with all the right permissions, Spotify doesn’t give third-party apps access to friends’ streaming info. Your best bet is having users manually share what they’re currently playing on your platform. I’ve seen people try scraping activity feeds, but that’s unreliable and probably breaks Spotify’s terms. Focus on user-initiated sharing instead of trying to automatically pull friends’ playback data.
Nope, can’t fetch friends’ current playback through Spotify’s API. They block this on purpose for privacy - the user-read-playback-state scope only works for your own session. Hit this same wall building a social music app last year. I ended up creating a sharing system where users could opt-in to broadcast what they’re listening to inside my app. You could also try Spotify’s collaborative playlists or recently played tracks instead. Some devs mess with activity feed data, but it’s spotty and might break their terms. Best bet is rolling your own friend activity system where users decide what to share.
yeah, spotify’s privacy settings won’t let u access friends’ listening data. ran into this same issue while building my app. you can only pull your own playback info, not anyone else’s. try the recently-played endpoint instead, or just let users share tracks manually.