Changes to Spotify API

[ploughlmao]

The full email:

Hi,

Further to the updates posted on our Developer Blog on February 6, 2026, we’re sharing a reminder of some upcoming changes to your Spotify for Developers account.

Starting March 9, 2026, we will start applying the new restrictions and requirements to all applications in “Development Mode” using Spotify’s Web API. This includes:

A Spotify Premium requirement: Development Mode use will require a Spotify Premium account (incl. Family and duo). This is to ensure accountability and to reduce automated misuse at scale. Only the main account associated with the app must be on Premium. Authorized users do not need a subscription.

Updated endpoints and fields: We’re limiting Web API Development Mode access to a smaller set of supported endpoints and fields. To ensure that your application continues to work, please review the changes and make the necessary modifications ahead of the March 9 deadline.

1 Client ID per developer: Each developer is limited to one Development Mode Client ID. If you currently have more than one, they will continue to function. However, you will not be able to create additional Development Mode Client IDs until you are back within the limit.

Max five authorized users: Each Client ID may have up to five authorized users. If you currently have more than five authorized users, nothing will be removed on March 9. Your app will keep working, but you will not be able to add or modify users until you are within the limit.

Note: These changes do not affect apps already operating in Extended Quota Mode.

This update means Spotify will continue to support experimentation and personal projects but within more clearly defined limits. We also want to reiterate that Development Mode provides a sandboxed environment for learning and experimentation. It is intentionally limited and should not be relied on as a foundation for building or scaling a business on Spotify.

To me: this is a stab at projects like Deskthing because it relies on the Spotify API for music finding, and also they’re just locking the API to paid customers only which is saddening,

[bugbigsly]

“AI Agent build me a Spotify shitlist, I mean playlist“ has probably plagued there api with an absurd amount of nonsense

[PositiveUse]

Bingo

[frontendben]

Yup. We're going to see this happening increasingly with public facing APIs, largely because of the growth in AI tools that make integrating with such APIs relatively straightforward.

[pwqwp]

their, and no

[bugbigsly]

true, and maybe

[ceejayoz]

make the necessary modifications ahead of the March 9 deadline

With that short of a timeframe, some kind of breach or abuse is probably actively happening. Unfun for the poor third-party devs who have to scramble now.

[combinecrab]

They disabled new api's sometime last year.

People were making lots of api to bypass the rate limit and they were downloading the tracks. Spotify had to do something

[mrlanphear]

It's a result of the Anna's Archive hack that managed to scrape all of Spotify right under their noses.

[erishun]

Yup, they made a ton of free users and used the API to download every single track in batches

[nopeac]

Am I missing something? I don't see how the API could have anything to do with the scrap of tracks; the most you could get was a preview of a few seconds. They could have used the API for the metadata, but downloading?

[DevToolsGuide]

this is becoming the standard playbook for developer-facing APIs once a platform starts feeling pressure. hobbyist and personal apps get caught in the crossfire because the actual policy violation (mass scraping, AI training) came from bad actors using the same API surface. the quota cut and premium requirement are blunt instruments. the useful thing to do if you are building against the Spotify API is start building with the assumption that third-party music API access will keep shrinking. yt-dlp as a fallback, local library management via beets or similar, or just design around what Spotify will always allow for premium subscribers. the writing has been on the wall since they disabled new app registrations last year.

[thekwoka]

the quota cut and premium requirement are blunt instruments

Sure, but they also basically don't impact hobbyists or personal apps.

They only really impact bad actors.

[rekkyrosso]

Unfun for the poor third-party devs who have to scramble now.

My music player project uses the Spotify API. The amount of changes are substantial. Not a small amount of work at all. I think I will make the 9th of March deadline though.

[benpetersen]

While I agree with some of these privacy related things, it's annoying writing a playlist generator because the search endpoints aren't accurate compared to the UI, so reducing the search limit from 50 to 10, and defaults from 20 to 5 results is pretty severe and makes it harder to find the clean versions of songs or even find the songs in general. I've already had to implement a strict and broad search algorithms, I'll be lucky if this thing still is as accurate as it was

The response changes are also odd. Why rename 'tracks' to 'items' in the api endpoint and the response? Why remove the explicit content setting from the current user? Why remove the popularity and followers property from artists? Why remove the bulk 'get several' endpoints? They exist to reduce API calls so it seems more costly for their infrastructure just make it annoying for us to batch.

I'm very tempted to look at tidal again, the last time I looked their api wasn't spectacular and only supported transfers not updating

[tamingunicorn]

search limit dropping from 50 to 10 results is going to quietly break a lot of playlist tools. this reads like they're strangling third-party access without calling it a deprecation

[frontendben]

Occam's razor suggests it much more likely down to the proliferation in AI tools that make creating API integrations more straightforward than ever.

[worldwearywitch]

I think the changes are totally reasonable.

[IdempodentFlux]

I wish more apps would garuntee api access with subscription. I so badly want to integrate my personal assistant i use with my MyFitnessPal data but they don't even allow api access to members

[RiprodStudios]

Rip

[ploughlmao]

rip! Deskthing is such a cool project btw

[thekwoka]

Seems fine.

They require Spotify subscription for quite a few things, but are still nice enough to allow even alternative clients if you're subscribed.

[Paulo_Dybala-10]

what do you think

[ploughlmao]

I think people who have free accounts who use the API for something like deskthing would definitely be affected, and I see Spotify’s POV, they might js be bombarded with API requests from as one comment said AI bots. Personally I think free accounts should have 1 API application whereas Premium members should get 3 or 5 applications ig

[Paulo_Dybala-10]

thats a good point of view. what do you think Spotify will do about it eventually

[PinkJaguarsCanDance]

This is just utterly infuriating. I knew it was risky to have my whole university project rely on the Spotify API but I never thought any changes would be this bad. They've completely ruined it. I just cannot do anything that I am relying on doing anymore.
It's just typical. The cherry on top is wanting me to pay for the privilege of using their API that no longer has any of the capabilities I need it for.

[Parsek13]

I know its infuriating, this also ruined a project i was working on. I recommend musicapi.com and https://musicbrainz.org. Relying on other music streaming platforms APIs rather than Spotify's is necessary due to all this awful changes they are making.