spicetify tut

You mentioned GitHub, so you might know about Spicetify?

If not, I'm about to open some insane doors for you. If you do, and already have it, skip down to my theme/extension recommendations. I wrote this like you have no idea what I'm talking about, though.

Firstly, this is entirely safe, you're just modifying the CSS and javascript for the app on your computer, and it's easily removable. Spotify will have no idea cause you're doing nothing wrong. You won't be modifying anything consequential, just how your installed Spotify looks and behaves.

This is a lot of text, but this will take 10 minutes at most.


You'll need Powershell; if you're on modern Windows, you'll have it, right-click on the start button and open Terminal, not Admin. This does work on Mac and Linux, you'll have to double-check the instructions on these sites and follow the right ones.

Here is Spicetify: https://github.com/spicetify/spicetify-cli

Easy installation instructions and info are linked at the bottom of the page. Once you run and install the script, I would also run the script to install Marketplace.


Once you have it, you'll need a theme to change how Spotify looks. My favorite theme is Nord-Spicetify (https://github.com/Tetrax-10/Nord-Spotify), it's very customizable especially colors wise, and it can even change the entire UI colors based on the colors of the album you're listening to. You can also make the pages of any artist/album/song/playlist show more art in the background by default, I have a lot of that turned off, though. There are lots of screenshots on their git. (here's a screenshot showing mine with the sidebar (https://i.imgur.com/ed76hzF.png), you can also drag the sidebar out to make the art larger (https://i.imgur.com/xHU2vce.png).)

There are plenty of theme options, most less customizable than this. I'll hit on that later.

Scroll all the way down to the bottom to see the easy script to run and install it.

Spotify should restart, and on the top left you'll have a new settings icon where you can customize the theme to your liking. You'll want to ensure the 'Nord UI mode' is set to 'Stock' to make it resemble the old/better UI we miss. Besides that, mess around with the settings until you get it looking perfect for you.


You can also quickly install some 'custom apps' (https://spicetify.app/docs/advanced-usage/custom-apps) that come included, and honestly, I recommend all 3; they are super useful. Being able to click 'New Releases' on your sidebar, and it will scan all your followed artists and very quickly load it all, from the current day back (https://i.imgur.com/ZVNBX3n.jpeg).


After that, if you click 'Marketplace' on the sidebar, there's an easy way to find and install all kinds of excellent extensions for Spotify. From tiny UI changes to incredible usability upgrades like being able to right-click something and have it Play Next instead of just adding it at the bottom of your queue and adding the genres of your now playing under the track and artist name like in my screenshot. Hide all mentions of podcasts. Etc.

If you get the extension 'Full-Screen Mode, ' you can get a super-enhanced full-screen mode for a second monitor or something. Like any extensions, click on them before installing to ensure there aren't any extra steps; this one will tell you to install the lyrics-plus custom app to run. Here's with lyrics on (https://i.imgur.com/SOi0PdC.png) and with lyrics off (https://i.imgur.com/FsIAq8F.png). If you right-click on any empty space, the settings menu will appear, and you can customize the hell out of it. I have this animated background based on the album art turned on, and this is what my second monitor looks like most of the time (https://i.imgur.com/qaPqmgA.gif) without the gif compression.


And there you go, have fun. I love having the album art always viewable and large myself, I had the perfect solution, so this was my question to answer, lol

In Marketplace, if you want to explore other themes, you can. Since I had you install Nord with the script, you'll need to go back and run the uninstall script on their git to remove it. Also, most themes that aren't basic color swap themes will ask you to run a script and NOT install it straight from Marketplace. If you click on one, read it before installing, or your Spotify will be a black screen, and you'll have to restore it to default, then start over. They usually come with extra javascript files and stuff that won't work correctly with how Marketplace handles installing and auto-updating your stuff.

If you can help it, don't let Spotify update. It likes to do it on its own though; if it does, you'll need to run the commands:

    spicetify upgrade

    spicetify backup apply

If it doesn't work after that, run:

    spicetify restore

And it'll go back to default shit; you'll either have to wait for Spicetify to get updated (they're quick) or reinstall a lower version of Spotify that you can find by Googling. Doing that sucks, and I don't recommend that. If Spicetify has an update, there will be a button on the top of Spotify letting you know; clicking it will show you the changelog and tell you the commands to run to get it updated.

There is plenty of documentation on their GitHub, a super helpful Discord server, and even a subreddit r/spicetify to help. And honestly, you can do even more cool things with it that I didn't cover.

But now that I've typed you an essay, if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. I've been using this for years and have made many mistakes I had to learn to fix. It's bound to happen, and getting this setup is simplified compared to the early days. You aren't forced to know and learn how it works and where the config files and shit are.