🎧 Customizing Spotify on Linux with Spicetify

I recently dove into customizing Spotify on my Linux desktop using the open‑source tool Spicetify. While there are many guides out there, most gloss over the nitty‑gritty errors I hit. Here’s my process—warts and all—to help you avoid the pain I went through.

1. Install Spotify properly

First, you need Spotify installed outside Snap or Flatpak (those often break Spicetify compatibility). On Debian/Ubuntu, I ran:

curl -sS https://download.spotify.com/debian/pubkey_… | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/spotify.gpg
echo "deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install spotify-client

This ensures official updates and proper file permissions (spicetify.app, linuxfordevices.com).

2. Install Spicetify

Once Spotify was working, I installed Spicetify:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spicetify/cli/main/install.sh | sh

I got errors like:

• “Could not detect Spotify location”
• “Cannot detect prefs file”
• spicetify: not found

Turns out Spotify wasn’t in the expected path, so I had to fix the config and set executable permissions (reddit.com, spicetify.app).

3. Fixing the path and permissions

Key fixes:

• Set the correct path in ~/.config/spicetify/config-xpui.ini under spotify_path and prefs_path.

• Add Spicetify to your $PATH, e.g.:

  export PATH="$HOME/.spicetify:$PATH"
  

  This fixed the “command not found” issue (linuxfordevices.com).

• Grant write permissions to Spotify’s app folders:

  sudo chmod a+wr /usr/share/spotify -R
  

4. Running Spicetify commands

With everything in place, I ran:

./.spicetify/spicetify backup apply

…using the correct path to avoid errors. Then did:

spicetify backup apply enable-devtools
spicetify apply

Spotify relaunched with a fresh, clean interface.

5. Themes, apps & adblockify plugin

To customize further:

1. Clone themes repo:

   git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/spicetify/spicetify-themes.git
   cp -r spicetify-themes/* ~/.config/spicetify/Themes
   

2. Choose a theme:

   spicetify config current_theme Dribbblish
   

3. Enable marketplace features:

   spicetify config inject_css 1
   spicetify config replace_colors 1
   spicetify config current_theme marketplace
   spicetify config custom_apps marketplace
   spicetify apply
   

4. Ad‑blocking & extensions: It didn’t work until I granted permission to Spotify’s folders:

   sudo chmod a+wr /usr/share/spotify/Apps -R
   

6. Screenshots!

I documented every step with screenshots—particularly the errors, how I fixed them, and UI results. If you’ve ever faced a blank Spotify window, missing commands, or silent theme failures, this guide is for you.

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TL;DR

Step	Action
1️⃣	Install Spotify via official APT repo
2️⃣	Install Spicetify CLI via script
3️⃣	Fix spotify_path, prefs_path, add to $PATH, fix permissions
4️⃣	Run spicetify backup apply enable-devtools
5️⃣	Clone + apply theme, enable marketplace & adblock
6️⃣	Relaunch Spotify and enjoy your customized UI!

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This was my first blog post, and I wanted it to be honest—sharing all the stuff that existing tutorials skip.