Spotify dominates the music industry. This becomes really obvious if you don't use Spotify: You end up being sent, and inevitably clicking on, Spotify links all the time. It happens on social media, yes, but also in text exchanges with friends, in emails, and in DMs. The thought is a good one; someone enjoyed a piece of music and wanted to share it with you. The problem, though, is that the Spotify link is mostly useless if you don't use Spotify.
What if you use other streaming apps, such as those offered by Apple, Amazon, and YouTube, to listen to music? Are you doomed to search for the track, album, or artist on those services manually? Is that forever your fate? Absolutely not. Here are a few tools that can help you turn Spotify links into links for your preferred music service. (Just note, these tools will work to locate songs, artists, and albums across platforms, but since playlists are usually unique to each platform, these methods won't work with custom playlists.)
If you use Google Chrome or a compatible browser like Microsoft Edge, the browser extension Music Link can automatically open all Spotify links in whatever music app you like. Just install the extension and click its icon to configure it. Choose which music service you prefer and you're done: Any Spotify link you get from now on will redirect to your app of choice.
You can optionally uncheck whatever services you're fine with getting links to. SoundCloud, for example, tends to let you play music regardless of whether you have an account, and a lot of its offerings aren't on other platforms, so you might as well not redirect those links. For the most part, though, this is the kind of extension you can install and never think about ever again.
Chrome extensions may not always work on iPhones or iPads, but thankfully there's an Apple shortcut for redirecting Spotify links. Just copy any Spotify URL to the clipboard then launch the shortcut Song.Link. This will find the URL in your clipboard and offer you links to the song on other platforms. There's even a YouTube link, which is helpful if you don't subscribe to any streaming service.
It gets even better. You can also use Shazaam, which is built into Apple Shortcuts, to identify whatever song is playing in the room right now, and this tool will generate links to it on the various streaming platforms.
Apple shortcuts obviously don't work on Android devices. The free application Redomoi does. This one takes a little more setting up than the others—it's not available in Google Play, meaning you'll need to install the APK file yourself. You'll also have to configure the app to open Spotify links; there are instructions on the download page that tell you how to do this. Once you set it up, any Spotify link you open anywhere will open as a pop-up with links to other music streaming services.
If none of these options work for you, there's still good news: You can use the website Odesli.co instead. This is actually the service the other options we've talked about use on the backend to find streaming links on all the music platforms.
Odesli.co is essentially a database of songs and albums, and their locations on all the streaming platforms. You can copy and paste links from any music streaming application—including Spotify—and get a list of links to the same song or album on other streaming services.
When you're presented with the neatly ordered list of options, you can tap the icon for whichever streaming service works for you. The results will also generally include an embedded YouTube video with the song, allowing you to listen without leaving the tab. Yes, it's a little annoying to have to copy and paste the URL yourself, but it's the simplest tool I've found for turning Spotify links into something useful.
And if you're the kind of person who sends Spotify links on the regular, you might want to use this to convert the link before sharing it. That way everyone can find the song or album on their streaming service of choice.
