Auto Mute Spotify Ads with this GNOME Extension

If you listen to Spotify using a free plan and find yourself regularly annoyed, irritated, or otherwise incensed by repetitive and banal audio ads, listen up.

Or rather stop listening as there’s a neat GNOME extension that will change your life.

Okay, it won’t change your life, but it will mute audio ads in the Spotify for Linux desktop app automagically.

Which given the ear-worm nature of some ads the music streaming giant serves up is something of a public service.

Incidentally, there’s no official stat (that I’m aware of) as to how often ads are played to free users. Anecdotally, it seems to be 2/3 ads for every 8-10 minutes of music playback (rather than an arbitrary per-song value – I tend to skip a lot).

There are other ways to “block” Spotify audio ads in free accounts. Some are involved, some require technical know-how or additional hardware, and some require trusting your Spotify login details with web services.

And then there’s the ultimate, most foolproof way to block audio ads on Spotify whatever OS you use: pay for a premium subscription ;).

But for the porpoises of this post (intentional typo, porpoises are cute) I’m gonna assume you’re like me: lazy, happy with a free Spotify account, and using GNOME Shell.

Spotify Ad Block GNOME Extension

When activated, the extension mutes Spotify ads

Install the Mute Spotify Ads GNOME extension from the GNOME extensions website or using the Extension Manager app (my recommended method).

You’ll see a new music icon in GNOME Shell’s Top Bar. When you open Spotify for Linux click on this icon to ‘activate’ it (and turn it white). Then start listening to music in the Spotify Linux app normally.

When Spotify plays an audio ad the extension will mute Spotify (and the panel icon will turn to a square to let you know this has happened). It will unmute Spotify when regular music resumes.

Settings include an option to hide the panel indicator; adjust volume percentage when ads play (i.e. turn volume down low rather than mute); and set the delay (in milliseconds) for un-muting (to avoid SUDDEN SOUND JUMPS).

Simple, auditory salve for the mind ears.