How to Link Spotify to Google Home (Step By Step Instructions)
If you’re looking to play Spotify on your Google Home, you’ve come to the right place. The very first step is to link your Spotify account in the Google Home app.
Link Spotify to Google Home
To link Spotify to Google Home, open the Google Home app and select the “+” icon at the top left corner. Select MUSIC > SPOTIFY > LINK ACCOUNT > AGREE & LINK. Enter your Spotify username and password and that’s it! You can now play Spotify on your Google Home.
Do you need Spotify Premium for Google Home?
No, you don’t need a Spotify Premium account in order to listen to Spotify on your Google Home. Google Home started working with Spotify free accounts back in 2017, all you need to do is sign up for one on the Spotify website.
To speed up the account creation process, you can use an existing Facebook account as your Spotify login during sign-up.
The bad news is with the free Spotify account linked to your Google Home you will occasionally have to listen to advertisements and you won’t have full control over what you can play.
The good news is I have a workaround for the control piece…
Google Home music without subscription
I learned this trick awhile back.
It allows you to choose what music you want to listen to and grants you more control, even with a free Spotify account.
You’ll need to use Spotify’s desktop player in order to make this work, so if you haven’t downloaded it go ahead and do so now.
With the desktop player now opened, you’ll need connect it to your Google Home through the Spotify desktop player’s “Connected Device” tab.
This is the same process you’d follow as if you were streaming your Spotify music from your computer to an external speaker.
Now you can select the exact songs you want to play from Spotify, on your Google Home!
Google Home Spotify commands
Now that you’ve successfully linked your Google Home to Spotify it’s time to try out one of the many Google Home voice commands for Spotify.
- “Play my Discover Weekly on Spotify”.
- “Turn up the volume on Spotify”.
- “Play some rock music on Spotify”.
- “Pause this song on Spotify”.
I suggest you make Spotify your default music player on Google Home, that way you don’t need to say “Spotify” in any of your commands.
For more in-depth commands when playing music on Google Home you can check out this comprehensive guide Google put together.
Troubleshooting
“Your Spotify account needs to be linked first”
If you’ve already linked your Google Home to Spotify, but your Google Home is still saying “Your Spotify account needs to be linked first”, follow these exact steps:
- Open the Google Home app
- Go to Settings (gear icon)
- Scroll down to Services and select “Music”
- If Spotify is selected as your default player, select “No default” for now
- Then “UNLINK” Spotify
- Then click on Spotify again and “Link account”
- Select “Agree and link” to data disclosure alert
- You may need to login to your Spotify account at this point
If you’ve followed the steps above and you’re still getting “Your Spotify account needs to be linked first” the next thing to try is unplugging your Google Home for about 30 seconds and then plug it back in.
If after all that it still doesn’t work, it’s time to factory reset your Google Home.
Don’t worry, the reset process is easy and fast and you won’t lose any of your settings (your commands, data, etc. all stay within the app!).
To reset your Google Home, push the mic button on the side to “mute” and then press and hold the center of the Google Home until you hear a beep. This usually takes about 5 seconds or so.
Once you hear the beep confirmation, the Google Home has begun to factory reset.
In about 5-10 seconds the reset process will complete and your device will instruct you to “download the Google Home app”. This won’t be necessary since you’ve already downloaded it.
At this point you can go ahead and turn your device mic back on (unmute it).
On your smart phone open your WiFi settings and you should see your Google Home listed – connect to it.
Then go back into the Google Home app and it should walk you through the setup steps.
That’s it, your Google Home should be able to play Spotify now!
Spotify not showing in Google Home
Typically you’ll face this issue because you’re using Google Home outside the United States. A lot of times these types of services simply don’t work in other parts of the world.
There are two possible fixes in this scenario.
One involves using a VPN service to change your location to the US. Once you’ve done this you can restart your phone and all the available services (including Spotify) should appear in Google Home now.
I’ve also heard of changing the iPhone’s language to “US English”. This simple change made Spotify appear again under available services for some users.
It shouldn’t really matter what language your phone is set to but hey, it’s worth a shot if you’re having this issue.
Conclusion
Linking Spotify to your Google Home shouldn’t take more than 60 seconds if you already have a Spotify account.
You won’t need a premium Spotify account, a free account will do just fine.
If you’re using a free account, using the Spotify desktop player’s “Connected Devices” tab will allow you to control what songs are played through your Google Home.
Make sure to assign Spotify as your default music player in the Google Home app so you don’t have to specify “Spotify” with every command.
You may run into some issues during the sync process. When in doubt you can always factory reset your Google Home to start over.
Good luck!
