Jan 09, 2026 12:25:00

Spotify will be rolled out to smartphones with a new 'Listening activity' feature that lets you share what you're listening to with friends in real time.

The music streaming service Spotify has a feature called '

Friend Activity ' that lets you see what your friends are playing in real time. Similar to the Friend Activity feature, which was only available on the desktop version of Spotify when the service first launched, Spotify has now announced a new feature for its smartphone app called ' Listening activity ,' which lets you share what you're listening to with friends and family in real time.

Introducing Listening Activity and Request to Jam in Messages on Spotify; Spotify
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-01-07/listening-activity-request-to-jam-messages-updates/

Spotify is finally bringing your friends' Listening Activity to mobile | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/857404/spotify-listening-activity-mobile

In August 2025, Spotify added a 'Messages' feature to certain regions, including the United States and Europe, that allows users to share their favorite songs with friends and family. By tapping the share icon while listening to music or a podcast, users can select friends they follow and send the content to them. The recipient of the message can then accept the request and react with an emoji or send a text message.

According to Spotify, from the introduction of the messaging feature through the end of 2025, approximately 40 million users exchanged a total of approximately 340 million messages.

Spotify announced two new features, 'Listening activity' and 'Request to Jam,' on January 7, 2026, as part of its efforts to further develop the user interaction experience within the app.

Listening activity is a feature that lets you see what you're currently listening to in real time within the Messages app. When you turn on Listening activity, friends and family you're already communicating with in the Messages app can see what you're currently listening to in real time.

Listening activity is an opt-in feature and will only be shared if you turn it on in your settings. Even if you haven't turned it on yourself, you can still see the activity of friends and family who have turned on Listening activity.

Additionally, the Request to Jam feature lets you invite friends and family connected via Messages to join a live listening session. While listening to music, open Messages and tap 'Jam' in the upper right corner to host the session and invite the people you connected to. The host can add tracks to the shared queue, allowing you to listen to music or podcasts together.

Listening activity and Request to Jam are scheduled to be rolled out to users in regions where Spotify's messaging feature is available on iOS and Android devices by early February 2026. Because both features are part of the messaging feature, it is unclear when they will be introduced to the Japanese version of Spotify, which does not currently have a messaging feature.