To clear your queue on Spotify, open the queue and tap Clear on your phone or tablet, or select Clear queue and confirm with Yes on desktop and the web player. It wipes the tracks you've added to the queue, nothing more.
I checked Spotify's own help page on the play queue as of Nov 2026, and the steps below follow it closely. There are two versions, because the phone app and the desktop app put the controls in different places. Pick the one you're holding and you'll be done in under a minute.
Clearing the queue on a phone or tablet
Here's the mobile route, straight from Spotify's instructions:
- Tap the Now Playing bar at the bottom of the screen to open the Now Playing view.
- Tap the queue icon at the bottom of Now Playing. That opens your Play Queue.
- Tap the queue icon again and select Clear.
On a tablet the first step is slightly different. Spotify says you tap the album artwork in the side menu to open Now Playing, and from there you reach the queue the same way. One thing to flag: on Spotify's page the mobile queue steps carry a "For: Premium" label. The page doesn't spell out what a free listener sees on mobile, so if your screen doesn't match, that label is the first thing I'd look at rather than assuming your app is broken.
Clearing the queue on desktop or the web player
The computer version is even quicker, and it asks you to confirm, which I like because it stops an accidental click wiping a queue you spent ages building.
- Click the queue icon next to the play bar at the bottom of the window.
- In the queue that opens, select Clear queue.
- Click Yes to confirm.
That's it. The steps are the same in the desktop app and the web player, according to Spotify's play queue help page, so you don't need to hunt for a different menu depending on how you listen.
What clearing doesn't do
This is where people get confused, so let's be plain about it. Spotify's wording is that Clear removes "all tracks you've added to the queue". That's the scope. It's aimed at the songs you lined up yourself, not at the album or playlist you happened to be playing.
- Nothing in Spotify's wording says it touches your saved playlists. Its target is the queue, the list of what plays next.
- The page doesn't mention your library at all in connection with clearing.
- The help page doesn't say it stops the album or playlist you were already listening to, so don't expect it to.
If what's bugging you is the order songs keep coming up in, that's usually a shuffle question rather than a queue one, and I've written up how to switch shuffle off separately. And if the music won't start at all after you've cleared things out, that's a different problem with its own fixes, covered in my guide to Spotify refusing to play.
Tidying the queue without wiping it
Clearing is the nuclear option. Most of the time you only want one or two songs gone, and Spotify gives you finer tools for that.
Remove a single track
On mobile, open the Play Queue and swipe left on the track you want gone. On desktop and the web player, right-click (or click) the track in the queue and choose Remove from queue.
Change the order
On your phone or tablet, tap and hold a track, then drag and drop it into the slot you want. That's far less faff than clearing everything and adding it all back.
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Add something back in
On mobile, tap the three-dot icon next to any track and choose Add to Queue, or swipe right on a track. On desktop, right-click or click the track and pick Add to queue.
My honest take: if you find yourself clearing and rebuilding the same queue over and over, you probably want a playlist instead. The queue is a scratchpad for right now. A playlist keeps. Here's how to build a playlist from scratch if you've never done it.
Where Spotify's help page stops
I'd rather tell you what the official page leaves out than fill the gap with guesses. As of Nov 2026, Spotify's queue article doesn't cover:
- Any limit on how many tracks a queue can hold.
- How the queue and shuffle interact.
- Why a queue might seem to refill itself after you've cleared it.
- Exactly what free listeners can and can't do with the queue on mobile, beyond that "For: Premium" label.
If you hit one of those, the help page won't settle it, and I'm not going to pretend it does. What it does give you is clear, reliable steps for the job most people came here for: wiping the songs you added and starting again.
Quick answers
Does clearing the Spotify queue delete my playlists?
Spotify describes Clear as removing all tracks you've added to the queue. Nothing on its help page says your saved playlists are affected.
Can I remove just one song from the queue?
Yes. On mobile, swipe left on it in the Play Queue. On desktop, right-click or click it and choose Remove from queue.
Why does desktop ask me to confirm?
Spotify's desktop and web player steps have you select Clear queue and then click Yes, so one stray click won't empty it.
Is the mobile queue a Premium feature?
Spotify's help page labels the mobile queue steps "For: Premium". It doesn't spell out what free listeners see.
