Importing your catalog from Spotify
How the importer turns a Spotify discography into pre-filled Run drafts, what it never brings across, and what to check before you submit one.
The importer at app.run.audio/releases/import reads a Spotify artist’s discography and creates pre-filled drafts in Run, one per release you tick. It exists so that moving a catalog to Run is not an afternoon of retyping metadata.
It is a typing shortcut and nothing more. An imported draft is an ordinary draft: it goes through the same submit checks, the same review and the same rights confirmation as one you built by hand, and importing a release proves nothing about who owns it.
Running an import
- Open the importer from the Releases page, from an artist’s row on Artists, or from the link on the new release page.
- Choose the source: a saved artist with a connected Spotify profile, or paste any Spotify artist link, URI or ID. Importing from a profile that is not on your roster adds that artist to it, so it needs a free artist slot.
- Tick the releases you want. Each row shows the cover, title, year, type, track count and barcode, so you can see what you are getting before you commit.
- Import. If exactly one draft is created you land in its editor; for several, a summary tells you what was created and what still needs filling in.
Releases already in your Run catalog are taken out of the list and collected below it, matched either on a previous import or on the barcode. Re-importing the same release answers “already imported” rather than creating a duplicate; delete that draft and the release becomes importable again.
Only the artist’s own releases are listed. Releases where they appear as a guest on someone else’s record are not.
What it fills in
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Title | Taken literally, including any version suffix |
| Release type | Single, EP, album or compilation, read from the store’s own filing |
| Barcode | The release’s existing UPC or EAN, when the store holds one |
| Original release date | Only when the store’s date is precise to the day |
| ℗ and © lines | Parsed from the store’s copyright lines when they are readable |
| Credited artists | The release’s artists, all as main, matched to your roster or created there |
| Tracklist | Titles in order, ISRCs and explicit flags |
The release date is deliberately left empty. The original date is the release’s history; when it goes out through Run is your choice.
What it never does
- No audio and no artwork. The covers in the picker are the store’s own thumbnails, shown to help you choose. Nothing is saved to your release.
- No submitting. Everything lands as a draft, in your hands.
- No shortcuts. Imported drafts face the identical checks, review and rights confirmation.
- No extra allowance. Imports count against the same caps as anything else: credited artists count against your artist allowance, and each imported draft still has to be submitted, which is where your plan’s release allowance applies. Drafts themselves are not capped, on any plan. If the artist cap is reached part way through, what fits is imported and the rest is reported back to you, still ticked, so you can retry after freeing space.
What the import could not fill
Every imported draft opens with an “Imported from Spotify” card. It names the source profile, the import date, and each thing the import could not carry over.
| Reported gap | What to do |
|---|---|
| No barcode, or an unusable one | Enter your own, or leave it blank and Run assigns one |
| No ISRC on a track, or an unusable one | Same: enter yours, or leave it blank |
| The date was year or month only | Nothing was set. Enter the date yourself if you know it |
| A multi-disc release was flattened | Tracks are renumbered 1 upwards. Check the running order |
| A ℗ or © line could not be read | Fill the rights lines, or leave them to default |
| A track title carries a version suffix | Decide whether it belongs in the title |
| A credited artist was skipped | Add them yourself. Placeholders such as Various Artists are never created, and neither is an artist that would exceed your allowance or collide with a name already on your roster |
Before you submit an imported draft
The import fills metadata. Everything a release needs beyond metadata is still yours to add:
- The audio master for every track, and the cover art.
- Lyrics language and genres, on the release and on each track.
- All three AI disclosures.
- Credits with their roles, and publishing splits if you use them.
- Clearance documents for any cover, public-domain work or licensed sample.
- A check of the store selection, the release date, and the credit line on each track.
Keeping it as the same release
If you are moving a release that is already on the stores, keep the barcode and the ISRCs that came across. Those codes are how a store recognises the release as the one already on your page rather than a new one. See ISRCs and barcodes.
The other half of the move is at your old distributor: take the release down there. Two live deliveries of the same release, from two distributors, is the thing that causes trouble at the stores.