Could Sonos please allow sorting or saved albums in Spotify or search within saved albums

  • 19 September 2018
  • 10 replies
  • 1294 views

In Spotify web player, albums are sorted by artist in alphabetical order. In Sonos the ordering of saved Spotify albums seems random, so you just have to scroll through everything until you find the one you want, which sucks. Seems like pretty basic functionality to me and really lame that it doesn't already exist.

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10 replies

Hi there, campesinox. Thanks for posting. I am happy to add your name to the list of other users who've asked for more sorting options on Sonos. In the case of music services, the way content is shown on the Sonos Controller is handled by the music service provider.

In the meantime, it might be a good idea to let Spotify know how you'd like to have your content displayed on Sonos. Thanks!


I find this very difficult to believe. Surely the data objects Spotify returns have distinct properties for artist name, album name, song name and the like. Otherwise how are you able to display these properties in the player when I'm listening to a song? Once Sonos gets the list of content, it, like all applications, has the ability to display it however it wants. Given the possibility of multiple sort orders, it would be ridiculous to have to make a new call to the Spotify API to re-sort a list that has already been sent to the client.
Userlevel 7
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Hi there, campesinox. Thanks for posting. I am happy to add your name to the list of other users who've asked for more sorting options on Sonos. In the case of music services, the way content is shown on the Sonos Controller is handled by the music service provider.

In the meantime, it might be a good idea to let Spotify know how you'd like to have your content displayed on Sonos. Thanks!
Prior to the last release or the one before that, my spotify albums on the sonos player were alphabetic, now they look like the day added. Is there a way to toggle between alphabetic and date added? If I could only have one, alphabetic is preferable.
Huge fan of Sonos, but the responses to this album sorting issue with Spotify to "report it to Spotify" is lame. The music source integration feature makes the Sonos app super valuable for the business of Sonos, and for Spotify. Your leadership should care more and advocate for us by working this out. Do the people of Sonos actually use their own product....are they frustrated also?? Pick up the phone, call Spotify and get this worked out.
Thanks for the response but I am not asking you to physically fix Spotify’s issue. I am asking that somebody at Sonos reach out to somebody at Spotify and encourage THEM to correct. The issue is not good for either of you. A fix is a win-win. Somebody has to care enough...the issue is a real nuisance.

So you lobby here for Sonos to lobby Spotify? Why not cut out the middle man? Certainly Spotify would more readily react to input from paying users rather than a company that has no financial relationship with them at all.
I agree that Sonos should work with Spotify to get this tidied up. It's very confusing and difficult to find an album amongst hundreds when Spotify sorts them in this manner.
Userlevel 7
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Sonos cannot sort third party data, for at least three reasons: 1. It doesn't know *when* to sort (eg Playlist names) vs when not to sort (eg tracks on an album). 2. It can only grab lists in "pages" at a time (usually 100 items but it varies) so it cannot sort a portion of a full list. 3. Which field(s) should it sort on for a given list? All of these things are known by the service, and *only* by the service. Sorting can only sanely be done by the service provider.
Thanks for the response but I am not asking you to physically fix Spotify’s issue. I am asking that somebody at Sonos reach out to somebody at Spotify and encourage THEM to correct. The issue is not good for either of you. A fix is a win-win. Somebody has to care enough...the issue is a real nuisance.
More sorting options? How about just "sorting options". There is no way to sort by anything. Blaming it on Spotify is ridiculous. I work for an IT consulting firm that could help you resolve this issue. Please reach out if you like to discuss this.
Userlevel 7
Badge +23
An "IT consulting firm" huh. How much experience do you have with the SMAPI APIs? Or the Sonos LAN API? Or "C" code? WPF? Or the actual Sonos codebase? I have done all of this, shipped many Sonos compatible apps (over 200,000 downloads), and have posted, multiple times, why sorting isn't feasible.

It is Spotify's problem to fix, and it would appear they don't care enough to do so. Use the Spotify app, or a different music service, if this is so important to you.