Spotify is adding private messaging to its app: from now on, you'll be able to send each other recommendations and talk 1:1 with other users without leaving the platform. The company is pushing for interaction about music, podcasts, and audiobooks to be centralized within Spotify instead of being dispersed across WhatsApp, Instagram, or traditional messaging. The feature—called Messages—is available now on mobile devices and is coming to “select markets.”

What you can send via Spotify DMs

The basics: You can share songs, podcast episodes, and audiobooks directly from the Now Playing view. In addition to those audio links, the messaging feature supports text and emoji reactions, so it’s not just a button to send a link—the idea is to have short conversations about what you’re listening to.

All audio content sent to you is saved to a Messages inbox within your profile, so you can return to recommendations without having to search for them in your history on external apps.

Who can use the feature and how to start a conversation

The good news: The feature isn’t exclusive to Premium; it’s available to Free and Premium accounts (16+) on mobile, though Spotify has said the rollout will be gradual and limited by country in this first phase. To start a DM, you can use the share icon from the playback screen and select who you want to send it to.

You can also start conversations with people you’ve already interacted with on Spotify—for example, users on your Family or Duo plan, or with whom you’ve made Jams, Blends, or collaborative playlists.

If someone messages you and you don’t want to talk to them, you can accept or decline the request, block the user, or turn off Messages altogether.

Privacy, moderation, and limits

Spotify describes messages as 1:1 and says these conversations use “industry-standard encryption.” It also enables options to report messages or accounts and says it will proactively scan for “certain illicit or harmful content” and review chats that users report.

In practice, this means automated monitoring and a workflow for moderating abuse, but it also raises questions about the scope of the scanning and the handling of false positives—something that, as always, deserves monitoring as the feature expands.

How This Changes How We Share Music

Until now, it was common to find a song on Spotify and send it through another app. With Messages, Spotify wants to retain that interaction within its ecosystem, making it easier to ensure those recommendations don’t get lost and to have a tidy history of what’s been recommended to you.

If you’re a musician or creator, it remains to be seen whether artist accounts will be able to use the feature to contact fans (Spotify hasn’t fully clarified that). For now, the focus seems to be on keeping users within the app longer and creating a more direct social layer.

First impressions and potential risks

The implementation makes sense from a product perspective: more retention and more reasons to open the app. But turning Spotify into a social space with private messages brings challenges: spam, harassment, managing sensitive content, and the complex task of moderating messages without the experience becoming invasive. Spotify already includes buttons for blocking and reporting; the effectiveness of these tools will be key to ensuring the feature doesn't become a problem for users.

If you use Spotify, check to see if the option appears on your phone in the coming weeks and try it out with friends: sending a song with a quick comment or reacting with an emoji could be the kind of interaction that—if done right—changes the way we discover music as a group.