3 Ways to Listen to Spotify Music on Airplane Mode with/without Premium

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coco
July 31, 2026

Many people ask how to listen to Spotify on airplane mode, well, you will find the answer here.

Modern smartphones, cell phones, and most other mobile devices come equipped with a feature known as Airplane Mode, or Flight mode. This function is designed to disable Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and data connections on your device. This prevents potential interference with the sensitive sensors and equipment found on commercial airplanes.

However, using Airplane Mode also disables your data network, which prompts a common question: how can you listen to Spotify tracks while flying?

For those with Spotify Premium memberships, the most straightforward method is to use Spotify’s offline mode. This allows you to download songs, albums, and playlists prior to your flight. Once you’ve done so, you can enjoy your music while in Airplane Mode.

If you’re a Spotify free user, you can download podcasts for offline listening, but not music tracks. Or you can download Spotify songs, albums, and playlists as MP3 files using a specialized Spotify music downloader. This way, you can play the downloaded songs on various devices like phones, tablets, or MP3 players without requiring an internet connection.

Contents

Option 1. Listen to Spotify Downloads (Premium)

You can download as many as 10,000 tracks on each of up to 5 different devices. I guess it is enough for your airplane trip.

  1. Run the Spotify app on your phone, tablet, or laptop and log into your Spotify Premium account. 
  2. Find albums, playlists, and podcasts you want to download and tap the download icon.
  3. To download individual songs, put them in a playlist and download the playlist.

You can see how much space they’re taking up within Spotify settings. If Spotify is taking up too much space, you can safely clear your temporary app cache without deleting your downloaded offline tracks:

  • Desktop: Settings > Storage > Clear cache
  • Mobile: Settings and privacy > Data-saving and offline > Clear cache
Spotify download storage

You can set the quality of the audio you download. Higher quality will take longer to download and will take up more space on your phone, but will sound better. To change this:

  • Desktop: Settings > Audio quality > change the setting under “Download Quality”
  • Mobile: Settings and privacy > Media quality > change the setting under “Download Quality”
Spotify audio quality

After downloading, turn on offline mode on Spotify before enabling Airplane Mode. The downloaded songs are still playable even if you don’t have an internet connection.

On mobile and tablet

  1. Tap your profile icon and select Settings and Privacy.
  2. Choose Data-saving and offline.
  3. Turn on Offline mode.

On laptop

  1. Open Spotify.
  2. For Mac: Click Spotify in the top menu.
    For Windows: Click 3 dots horizontal at the top and select File.
  3. Select Offline Mode.

Anything you haven’t downloaded is now grayed out and unavailable.

How to fix downloaded songs not playing on Airplane Mode?

However, some users complain that downloaded music won’t play on airplane mode. If you encounter the same issue, try enabling offline mode or restarting Spotify while in airplane mode.

Option 2. Listen to Local Files (Premium and Free)

Besides the millions of tracks Spotify offers, you can also use the app to play any of the audio files legally stored on your device, even on Airplane Mode.

On Desktop

  1. Open Spotify, click your profile image, and go to Settings.
  2. Scroll down to Your Library and turn on Show Local Files.
  3. Turn on Show songs from “Downloads” or “My Music”, or click Add a source to select other folders on your device.
Spotify show local files desktop

On Mobile

  1. Open the Spotify app and tap your profile picture.
  2. Select Settings and privacy > Apps and devices.
  3. Turn on Local audio files.

Now you can listen to your local music with Spotify even on Airplane Mode.

Spotify local files mobile

Option 3. Download Spotify Music to MP3 (Premium and Free)

Don’t worry if you don’t have Spotify Premium. Pazu Spotify Converter allows you to download Spotify music to listen offline even with a Spotify free account. So you can also listen to local files in airplane mode even without Spotify Premium.

Pazu Spotify Converter is a top-notch tool designed to download Spotify songs, albums, playlists, and podcasts in various common formats, such as MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC, WAV, and AIFF. With Pazu, the original audio quality is maintained at 100%, and all ID3 Tags and metadata, including title, artwork, artist, album, and track number, are preserved. You can download unlimited songs from Spotify. Follow this step-by-step tutorial to download Spotify music to your computer and enjoy Spotify Premium benefits indefinitely.

Key features of Pazu Spotify Converter:

  • Download songs, albums, playlists, and podcasts with either a Spotify free or premium account.
  • Built-in Spotify web player, no Spotify app needed.
  • Download Spotify to MP3 in 320kbps.
  • Multiple output formats: MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC, WAV and AIFF.
  • Keep all ID3 tags.
  • Rename Spotify songs with title, album, artist, etc.
  • Archive downloaded songs by album or artist.
  • Multilingual interface.

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 web player.

Spotify music converter

2. Select Spotify music from the built-in web player

Select the songs, album, or playlist you want to download. Click the red “Add” button to add the tracks to the download list. Uncheck any songs you don’t want to download. Click “Show All” icon to toggle “Hide Converted” on in case some songs have been downloaded before.

Download Spotify songs

3. Choose output format

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

Spotify song download format

4. Download Spotify Songs to Local

Click Convert button to start downloading the Spotify songs to your local computer. After downloading, transfer the songs to your phone, tablet or MP3 player, then you can listen to Spotify music even on Airplane mode.

remove Spotify DRM