Some of Spotify's default features are unnecessarily complex or unavailable for regular users. These cool apps make Spotify easier to use than you ever imagined it could be.

Spotify is the world's most popular music streaming service, with many fans creating add-on apps and features. So whether you're trying to make a playlist that your friends might enjoy, analyze your own listening patterns, or browse the existing music library more intuitively, there are free apps to make Spotify easier.

1. Volt.fm (Web): Analyze Your Spotify Profile and Listening Choices Anytime

Volt.fm is like an anytime-anywhere version of Spotify Wrapped, analyzing your musical tastes across various parameters

Usually, Spotify gives you an annual report on what you listened to in the year with its Spotify Wrapped feature. But you don't need to wait till December to get your listening stats and analysis. Volt.fm is your Spotify profile on steroids.

Give the app access to your Spotify account and it'll churn out a few interesting numbers, such as:

  • Top Artists, Top Genres, and Top Songs: Top 10 lists of the genres, musicians, and tracks you listen to on Spotify over the past 4 weeks, 6 months, or all time.
  • Analysis of music type: Volt tells your preferences in the past 4 weeks, 6 months, or all time across nine styles, such as energetic, relaxed, danceable, positive, dark, live, acoustic, instrumental, and spoken.
  • Popularity, Release Date, and Length: The longest, shortest, oldest, newest, most well-known, and most obscure things you listen to.

You can even share your Volt.fm profile with other people like a page or ask for theirs. It's a nice way to see what your friends are listening to and discover new music in the process. Before you do that, Volt allows you to choose which data you want to keep private in your page, especially with the playlists you've created.

Given the analytical heft behind it, it's no surprise that you can also use Volt.fm for global Spotify charts. In a neat list, you'll find the top 200 songs and the most viral 200 songs daily or weekly.

2. Spotify Uncharted (Web): The Best App to Explore and Discover New Music on Spotify

Spotify Uncharted is a better way to browse Spotify genres, artists, and albums, and create massive playlists in a jiffy

Spotify is difficult to browse as a musical collection, almost seeming like you keep coming back to the same tracks. And Spotify's Discovery Mode is controversial anyway. To browse the vast number of tracks it has, the best web app we've seen is Spotify Uncharted.

The entire focus here is to discover new bands and artists based on something you like.

In the flowchart or Explore mode, find an artist, and expand their tree to discover similar artists recommended by Spotify. You can further expand each similar artist till you get a broad flowchart or tree of interconnected artists. And in one button click, you can add one or two of their best tracks to a custom playlist.

The main dashboard, called the Captain's Bridge, shows recommended artists and albums for you, based on your recent listens. Spotify Uncharted also has a cool feature to see new genres added by Spotify recently, so you can discover trending music.

3. A Musical Planet (Web): Easily Discover Music From Other Countries in a Game

A Musical Planet is a cool game to discover songs from other countries

A Musical Planet is a cool little app to discover new music in a novel way. Connect it with Spotify, and it plays popular songs from different parts of the world over a global map. Guess which country the song is from by clicking on it.

There are three levels of difficulty: easy (two countries per continent), medium (six countries per continent), and hard (all countries). The app keeps track of your answers, and there's a global leaderboard to compete in.

So how does music discovery play into this? Well, whether you guess the song right or not, you get to see the actual answer and a chance to add the song as a favorite in your Spotify. You're basically listening to new songs while playing a game. And given the variety of countries, you'll be exposed to music you'd never listen to otherwise.

4. Playlist Mutator (Web): Generate New Playlists Based on Existing Playlists

Playlist Mutator takes existing playlists and suggests an alternative based on the kind of mood and energy you're interested in

Radio DJ Tomás Carlson found in his experience that two variables matter the most in any grouping of songs: energy and mood. So he combined that with Spotify's algorithms to create an app that takes an existing playlist you like and comes up with a new playlist based on it.

Connect Playlist Mutator to your Spotify and choose the playlist you want as a base. Then set the slider for mood (Sadder to Happier) and energy (Lowkey to Energetic). Select Generate to get a new playlist, which is auto-saved to your Spotify. The new playlist has the same number of tracks as the original and often the same artists playing new songs.

5. Equalist (Web): Simplest Way to Create an Auto Playlist Friends Will Like

Equalist is the easiest way to create an automatic Spotify playlist of songs that friends will like in common

You're meeting friends to hang out or going on a road trip, and you want a playlist that everyone will enjoy equally. If everyone has a Spotify account, the easiest way to do that is with Equalist.

Create an Equalist room from the website, and then share the link with your friends. Once all your friends join the room, create a playlist that's auto-added to your Spotify. Equalist takes everyone's profiles and comes up with a list of 25 songs that you will like in common. Then, simply share the playlist with friends, and you're done.

Remember, Spotify offers an in-app feature called Spotify Blend to create a mixed playlist with a friend. But Blend restricts you to two people per playlist, unlike Equalist.

6. OffBeat (Web): Auto-Updating Playlist of What Your Friends Recently Listened to

OffBeat creates a shared playlist with friends that auto-updates what each of you recently listened to on Spotify

While you can follow friends on Spotify, and it's easy to swap recommendations, it gets tedious after a while. OffBeat provides a simpler solution by creating a playlist that automatically updates what people in a group have been listening to recently.

Here's how it works. Create a group playlist on Off Beat with your Spotify account, and share it with your friends. Once they join, that's all you need to do. Now every day, OffBeat will automatically update the playlist with recently listened songs by everyone in the group.

It's the simplest way to find what your friends are listening to, without asking them all the time. OffBeat is truly one of the best free third-party Spotify apps for a better music experience.

Learn Spotify's Privacy Tips to Protect Your Data

A lot of the services in this article might make it seem like your Spotify data is not private. While Spotify is sharing this data by default so that you get more options to use Spotify better, you can still choose not to do that. Dive into the Settings to understand your privacy options, and keep an eye out for new features like the new Spotify Private Mode to listen to music without letting others know what you heard.