Spotify's free tier finally lets you search for specific songs

Spotify updates its homescreen
(Image credit: Spotify)

It's not just paying Spotify customers who are getting more value – those on the free tier are too.

Fresh from launching lossless quality to Premium subscribers, Spotify has now announced three new features for its free tier. These include – sharp intake of breath – the ability to search for a specific song and then listen to it.

It's incredible to think that that feature was missing in 2025. But then for a free tier, you can't expect too much.

You can also play any song you stumble upon while browsing (what Spotify calls Pick & Play) and play any song that's shared with you by a friend or artist. And you can now create your own playlists (with your own custom artwork), and listen to podcasts.

Previously, free users could only shuffle tracks based on a chosen one, or listen to predetermined playlists.

We recently docked Spotify a star due to its high price and lack of lossless audio quality. Now that the latter has been addressed, and more features have come to the free tier, could it earn back its fifth star? Stay tuned for a reappraisal of our Spotify review soon...

MORE:

Spotify Lossless: release date, price and all the official details on the long-awaited higher-quality streams

How to cancel Spotify Premium – and should you?

An excruciating timeline of our wait for Spotify Lossless

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Joe Svetlik

Joe has been writing about tech for 20 years, first on staff at T3 magazine, then in a freelance capacity for Stuff, The Sunday Times Travel Magazine (now defunct), Men's Health, GQ, The Mirror, Trusted Reviews, TechRadar and many more. His specialities include all things mobile, headphones and speakers that he can't justifying spending money on.

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