This is how you cancel a Spotify account when someone dies
Spotify is a music streaming service where musicians can upload their music to and make a small royalty and music fans can listen to it. The streaming service has two types of accounts, premium and free, that have different ways of deletion. Something to consider however, is how to get that music! If there are downloaded assets in a Spotify account we'll also provide instructions on how you can access that.
Required Information
- Username or email
- Password
How to cancel a Spotify Premium account
- After logging in, you’ll navigate to “Cancel Your Subscription.” Select “View Your Options.”
- Scroll down until you see “Click Here To Continue To The Cancellation Page.”
- Give a reason for cancellation and select “Cancel Subscription.”
- Type in the account’s password and select “Cancel Spotify Premium subscription.”
- The subscription will become a free account. See below for further instructions.
How to cancel a Spotify Free account
Spotify has a form to cancel accounts, but you have to be able to login to access it
If you don't have a Spotify account, then contact customer service to permanently delete a free Spotify account
How to transfer Spotify music
The benefits of cancelling a subscription, but keeping the account open are such that you don't have to pay anymore, but you'll still have access to any music that was downloaded previously in Your Library. Or, you can move the music prior to closing the account using the below steps:
- Make sure all your playlists in your old account are set to "Public." You can also make a playlist called Your Music and copy all your saved songs there (for Windows, press ctrl + a while in the 'Songs' section and drag them to the new playlist).
- Once you've confirmed all your playlists are public, log out of your old account
- For the next steps, we'd recommend using a desktop device: Log in to your new account and search for your old account's profile. You can do so by typing spotify:user:username in the search bar (you need to replace username with your old account's username), or searching for the Facebook name if the account is connected to Facebook.
- Once you've located your old account's profile page, head to the tab Public Playlists. All your playlists should be displayed there.
- Click on a playlist
- Once you've opened that playlist, select all the songs contained in it
- Right-click the selected songs and click Add to Playlist > New Playlist. This step will create a new playlist to your new account containing the same songs. You can name the playlist the same name it had on the old account if you wish, or give it a different one.
- Repeat for all your playlists
What if I don't have the required information?
If you don't have login information for the account, Spotify recommends you contact them using this Contact Spotify page. It's likely that Spotify will require the name on the account, a copy of the death certificate and proof of relationship to the member, but we can't say for sure because Spotify doesn't have a policy for it.
Official website: www.spotify.com
Official page on cancelling a Spotify subscription
Atticus' Legacy Review of Spotify's closing account process after someone dies = 8/10 stars
Spotify gets good marks for Atticus' Legacy Review of their closing account process after someone dies, mainly because they have an easy process around transferring music. It's not really set up for legacy purposes, but since music is such an intimate part of a person's life, and it can be shared and downloaded, it's a fantastic feature for families. They miss out on perfect marks however, because it's very hard to close an account entirely, and equally difficult if you don't have login credentials. They also don't have a real clear policy, nor web resources devoted to their policy. Hopefully, after receiving this less than perfect mark they'll write one for their clients.
