Not got Spotify yet, or new to the streaming music service? Our beginner’s guide will help you get started and access Spotify’s huge catalogue of music.

What is Spotify?

Spotify is a music streaming service that provides instant access to a huge catalogue of music, allowing users to listen and share millions of tracks. It’s available on desktop computers and on many mobile devices. Developed in Sweden, Spotify launched in September 2008. The service is currently available in the UK and much of Europe, with availability in other territories, including the US, expected soon.

For a neat introduction to Spotify, watch this official video.

How can I get Spotify?

In order to use Spotify you need to sign up for a Free or Premium account and download the Spotify client software. Spotify Free is ad-supported. Spotify Premium is ad-free, allows offline and mobile usage, and provides higher sound quality.

Spotify Free is currently invite-only in the UK, meaning users must officially have an invitation in order to sign up. If you do not have an invitation, you can join the waiting list here, or alternatively keep checking Spotiguide over the next few days for a solution.

Spotify Premium costs £9.99 per month, and you do not need an invitation to sign up. Premium accounts are ad-free, allow streaming at a higher bit rate of 320kbps, and offer various previews and competitions. Crucially, if you wish to use Spotify Mobile and/or the offline mode, you will need a premium account. You can sign up for Spotify Premium here.

Spotify also offers an ad-free Day Pass, which costs 99p per day. Importantly, the day pass does not give access to any of the premium services other than making Spotify ad-free.

In addition, Spotify Premium is being bundled with some mobile phone packages. The first UK provider to offer Spotify inclusive deals is 3. The Spotify on 3 tariff includes 24 months of Spotify Premium, worth almost £240.

Once you have a Spotify account, you will need to download and install the Spotify client software. you can download the software, for Windows and Mac, here.

How do I use Spotify?

The first time you run Spotify you will need to log in with your username and password. You can tick the “Remember me” box to prevent the log in box from appearing next time.

The Spotify user interface is very well designed and easy to use. You’ll find a menu, navigation buttons and a search box at the top of the screen. Playback controls, including shuffle and repeat, are at the bottom. The sidebar on the left has links to the home page, plus your play queue and playlists, and displays now playing details and cover art.

On start up, the main window shows the home page, with what’s new and top lists tabs. What’s new shows latest releases, and top lists shows Spotify charts. You can use the drop down buttons to view the most popular artists, albums and tracks in the UK, in other territories, and specifically for you.

Playing music in Spotify is easy. Search for or select any artist, album or track and your search results or chosen selection will appear in the main window. To play any track, just highlight it and click play, or double click on the title.

Right-clicking on a title allows you to queue, add to playlists, share via Facebook or Twitter, and more. You can also purchase downloads of many tracks via Spotify’s download partner 7Digital by clicking the Buy icon next to the track you want.

To create a playlist, click the + icon under the search box, or New playlist on the sidebar. You can drag and drop tracks to the playlist, share playlists, or make them collaborative, allowing other users to add and remove tracks.

We’ll look more closely at playlists, the Spotify menu, search options, offline mode, and Spotify Mobile in future posts, offering more tips and tools to help you get more from Spotify.