6 Ways to Play Spotify in the car (2024 Ultimate Guide)


What goes best with driving is naturally music, a person, a journey, some of their favorite music, that journey must be great! From the early car CD to today's streaming music services, play directly online or save offline to hear a huge number of songs. When it comes to the most popular music apps, Spotify is definitely on the list. Whether paid or not, you can use it to listen to songs. The difference is that only paid users can play offline, turn off ads, unlimited skip and play any songs on demand. Here we will introduce several ways to listen to Spotify music in your car.

1. Car Thing

In Apr. 2021, Spotify launched a gadget for listening to music in the car called Car Thing , and it's currently free. Right now, it's only available to U.S. Spotify Premium subscribers by invitation only. Users can sign up on a waiting list to get one for free while supplies last, and Spotify says Car Thing will end up costing $79.99. The Car Thing is mounted on the vehicle's dashboard and plugs into a 12-volt power outlet. To use the device, customers need to pair their phone with Car Thing and their car audio system.

Spotify has stopped manufacturing its Car Thing since July, 2022.

spotify car thing

2. Android Auto

Spotify has established compatibility with both systems, so if you buy one of the latest aftermarket car radios that support them, then you'll get the royal treatment with full remote control of the Spotify client on your phone, including displaying album art on your dashboard.

spotify Android Auto

How to use Spotify on Android Auto?

1. Make sure your car or stereo is compatible with Android Auto( https://www.android.com/auto/compatibility/) .

2. If you have Android 9 or below, get the Android Auto app on your phone. ( Download it here .) With Android 10, Android Auto is built in – so you don’t need the app to get started.

3. Connect your phone to your car with a USB cable and see Android Auto on your dashboard display. If your car display supports wireless connection, you must pair your phone with your car’s bluetooth for set-up. After set-up, depending on your car, either the phone will automatically connect or the Android Auto app icon will appear on your car display.

Extra tip: How to fix Spotify not working on Android Auto?

How to use Spotify on CarPlay?

1. Make sure your car and iPhone is compatible with CarPlay.

2. Start your car and make sure Siri is on.

3. Plug your phone into the USB port or connect wirelessly.

4. On your iPhone, go to “Settings,” then “General,” then “CarPlay.” Select your car and get listening!

5. Check out Explore Spotify to see if your car offers the Spotify app built into the dashboard. Just to note, some cars require Spotify Premium for integrated listening.

3. Apple Carplay

Apple CarPlay is a smarter, safer way to use your iPhone on selected cars. Once connected to your iPhone(iPhone 5 and later), Apple CarPlay allows you to get directions, make calls, send and receive messages, and listen to Spotify on your car’s built-in display.

spotify CarPlay

How to Set up CarPlay?

  1. Start your car, then make sure that Siri is on.
  2. Connect your iPhone to your car:
    • If your car supports CarPlay with a USB cable, plug your iPhone into the USB port in your car. The USB port might be labeled with a CarPlay icon or a smartphone icon. Be sure to use an Apple Lightning to USB cable.
    • If your car supports CarPlay both wirelessly and with a USB cable, plug your iPhone into the USB port in your car. An alert on your iPhone will offer to connect you wirelessly on your next drives.
    • If your car supports only wireless CarPlay, press and hold the voice command button on your steering wheel. Make sure that your stereo is in wireless or Bluetooth mode. Then on your iPhone, go to Settings > Wi-Fi, and make sure that Wi-Fi is also turned on. Tap the CarPlay network, and check that Auto-Join is turned on. Then, go to Settings > General > CarPlay, and select your car. Check your car manual for more information.

How to use Spotify on Apple CarPlay?

  1. Go to Settings > General on your iPhone;
  2. Tap CarPlay;
  3. Select your car then tap “Customize”;
  4. Add Spotify to show on CarPlay’s home screen.

4. Bluetooth

Spotify works very well with most Bluetooth car radios. Sometimes unnecessarily complicated in terms of the car, but once played it works fine. Song titles/artist names are usually displayed on the dashboard, and play/pause/next/previous usually work fine.

1. Turn on Bluetooth on both your mobile device and your stereo.

2. Select your car, enter the pairing code if needed, then play Spotify music.

3. If you have audio controls on your steering wheel, you may now be able to control what you’re listening to from there.

5. AUX or USB cable

If your car has an AUX or USB socket, using a cable is probably one of the fastest ways to connect. Find the AUX or USB socket in your car and plug in the cable.Turn on your car and stereo, select the AUX input, then open Spotify and tap play.

spotify car AUX

6. USB drive

There are more models that support USB flash drive for music playback than those that support AUX. Although the U disk listening is old-fashioned, but if you want to listen to some high-fidelity music, such as FLAC or APE music, or do not want to occupy the phone, the U disk is the most convenient way. If you want to USB drive to play Spotify music in the car, you need to save Spotify music to USB drive first, here we will show you how.

spotify car usb

To store and play Spotify muisic from USB drive, you need to download Spotify music to plain formats such as MP3, M4A, etc. This is extremely easy with professional Spotify music downloader - Pazu Spotify Converter.

Spotify Converter

Pazu Spotify Converter

  • Download Spotify music without premium
  • Download Spotify music to MP3, M4A, etc.
  • 100% original quality with ID3 tags.
  • Listen to Spotify offline on any device.

1. Run Pazu Spotify Converter

Download, install and run Pazu Spotify Converter on your Mac or Windows. Log in your Spotify account with the built-in Spotify web player.

spotify converter

2. Select Spotify music.

Use the integrated Spotify web player to search the songs, album, playlist or podcast you want to download. Click the Add to list button to load all songs in the album or playlist, uncheck the songs you don’t want to download if there are any.

drag&drop spotify songs

3. Choose output format

Click the gear icon on the top right corner. Here you can select output format (AUTO(M4A)/MP3/AAC/FLAC/WAV/AIFF), choose output audio quality, customize the output path, organize the output files in various ways, rename output files and more.

spotify song format

4. Download and Convert Spotify Songs to Local

Click Convert button to start downloading the Spotify songs to your local computer.

remove Spotify DRM

Once the conversion is done, you can find your Spotify songs downloaded as local files by clicking below folder button or directly going to the output folder you customized in the previous step.

Spotify DRM free

Now you can transfer the downloaded Spotify songs to your USB drive and play them in the car.

Download Download

Note: The free trial version of Pazu Spotify Converter enables you to convert the first three minutes of each song. You can remove the trial limitation by purchasing the full version.

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