Amazon Music Playing entire library shuffled

[Bismarck]

I am an Amazon Music Unlimited user, which I use almost exclusively as a source for my WiiM devices.
In Amazon Music Unlimited I have a library containing about 3,000 tracks.
I have noticed that when I ask the WiiM devices to play this library in shuffle mode, they tend to play more or less the same tracks each time, in a number that is much smaller than the total number of tracks in the entire library.
Is there a way to have ALL the tracks in my library played in random order?

 

[Burnside]

I think this is a restriction in the Amazon Music API - I think the playlist might be constrained to 500, if not a smaller number of tracks. I experience the same using Amazon Music in my car where playlist playback can be almost infuriating - for example, if I ask it to resume playback of a playlist, or even an artist station, after stopping and restarting the car later, it always restarts at the start of the playlist and replayed the tracks in the same shuffle order as before. I’m sure I’ve seen similar mentioned in Amazon Music forums over the years

 

[Bismarck]

I think this is a restriction in the Amazon Music API - I think the playlist might be constrained to 500, if not a smaller number of tracks. I experience the same using Amazon Music in my car where playlist playback can be almost infuriating - for example, if I ask it to resume playback of a playlist, or even an artist station, after stopping and restarting the car later, it always restarts at the start of the playlist and replayed the tracks in the same shuffle order as before. I’m sure I’ve seen similar mentioned in Amazon Music forums over the years

Thank you very much.
Do you think casting from the Amazon Music IOS app (and afterwards closing it) can solve the problem?

 

[Burnside]

Thank you very much.
Do you think casting from the Amazon Music IOS app (and afterwards closing it) can solve the problem?

I don’t think so unfortunately, it seems to be an issue even with that as per my car playback example, and for that matter Alexa use as well. The AI response to googling “Amazon music has difficulty shuffling large playlists” suggests that 300-500 (or even lower) is about as much as it can handle.

 

[reonarudo29]

Hi everyone,
I am facing the same issue regarding the Amazon Music shuffle limit on the WiiM Home app.

When I shuffle a large playlist (my playlist has 1,200 tracks), the shuffle range is limited to only 500 tracks at a time, likely due to API pagination limits.

Specifically, I have noticed the following behavior:
The "500-Track Block" Limitation: If I scroll down and select the 650th track, the app automatically populates the play queue with only tracks 501–1,000. As a result, the shuffle function only works within that specific range.

Loading Requirement: To shuffle the entire list, I have to manually scroll and load every single track in the playlist view beforehand, which is very inconvenient for a list of 1,200 songs.

Lack of Range Integration: It is currently impossible to perform a "true shuffle" that mixes tracks from the first 500 and the last 500 simultaneously.

This is particularly frustrating because of how Amazon Music playlists are structured. By default, they are ordered by "Date Added." When I first created my playlist, I added songs artist by artist, meaning tracks 1 through 575 are all by the same artist.
Consequently, if I start a shuffle without manually loading everything past the 501st track, I end up listening to the same artist over and over again. I believe that adding a feature to sort the playlist (e.g., by "Random," "Track Title," or "Artist") directly within the WiiM Home app would significantly improve this situation.

I also tried using Alexa Cast, but the results were the same. Even when I selected shuffle, it only shuffled within the 1–500 track range.
Furthermore, even if I specifically tried to select a track beyond the 501st mark, the app would still default back to selecting and shuffling within the 1–500 range.

What do you all think? Are you experiencing the same "500-track wall," and would a sorting feature help you as well?
I hope the WiiM team can look into a way to bypass this API limitation or at least give us more sorting flexibility.

 

[s3igell]

What do you all think? Are you experiencing the same "500-track wall," and would a sorting feature help you as well?
I hope the WiiM team can look into a way to bypass this API limitation or at least give us more sorting flexibility.

You do understand what an API is and where it comes from and who maintains/upgrades it?? Amazon is the answer in each case. If you have any pull with them... (Otherwise, this seems a long decided issue that far exceeds just WiiM users.)

 

[reonarudo29]

You do understand what an API is and where it comes from and who maintains/upgrades it?? Amazon is the answer in each case. If you have any pull with them... (Otherwise, this seems a long decided issue that far exceeds just WiiM users.)

I’m definitely not as tech-savvy as you guys regarding APIs, so I get that some things are out of your control—my last post was halfway joking.
However, because I love using Amazon Music on my WiiM, I’m always wishing for a smoother experience. Even if the 500-song limit is here to stay, is adding a sorting feature also a major hurdle?

 

[s3igell]

Even if the 500-song limit is here to stay, is adding a sorting feature also a major hurdle?

How would you like those same 500 songs sorted?? My understanding is that the "Randomization" is performed on the Amazon end of the stream via API calls. I'm not sure if WiiM performs its own Randomization for any of the Streaming Services.

 

[Burnside]

While I'm generally not a fan of AI generated responses, the following sounds plausible in my experience, leaving aside any considerations of storage availability on your device to accommodate such large playlists/ play queues.

"Based on user experience reports, no major streaming service offers a perfectly random ("true") shuffle for massive playlists (2k+ tracks).

Streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music generally use "smart" or "weighted" shuffle algorithms, which are intended to feel more random to human listeners by ensuring a spread of artists, rather than truly mixing the entire dataset equally.

Here is the situation with the major services as of early 2026:

Major Streaming Services Shuffle Performance

• Amazon Music: Users consistently report that Amazon’s shuffle is poorly suited for large libraries, often repeating a limited subset of songs (e.g., 200 songs out of 2,000) rather than picking from the entire list.
• Spotify: In late 2025, Spotify introduced "fewer repeats" shuffle to address long-standing complaints, which uses listening history to improve variety, but this is still a weighted algorithm rather than a purely random, mathematical shuffle.
• Apple Music: Users often complain that Apple Music tends to shuffle only a portion of large playlists, frequently looping the same "cluster" of songs rather than the entire library.
• Tidal: Users occasionally report better luck with Tidal having a more unpredictable, and therefore more "true-feeling" shuffle, though it is not purely random.

Why "True" Shuffle Doesn't Exist

Mathematically pure shuffle (like a random permutation algorithm) can lead to three or four songs from the same artist playing in a row. Humans often perceive this as "broken," so services use intelligent algorithms to force gaps between the same artists, which makes the shuffle feel less random, especially on large playlists.

Solutions for "True" Shuffle

If you have 2,000+ tracks and want a truly random, non-repeating experience, you might need to use third-party tools:

1. Skiley (for Spotify): This web app connects to Spotify and allows you to "True Shuffle" a playlist of any size, actually reordering the playlist in the Spotify app so it stays random.
2. Playlist Reordering: Some users create large playlists, download them, and then use the desktop app to "randomize" the order, which can temporarily fix the issue for Amazon or Spotify.
3. Third-Party Apps: Tools such as "Randomize Playlist" (often used with Spotify) can rewrite the order of a playlist to ensure a truly random sequence. "

 

[Wiimer]

Personally, I guess the best approach is to keep the playlist small.

 

[reonarudo29]

Amazon Music: Users consistently report that Amazon’s shuffle is poorly suited for large libraries, often repeating a limited subset of songs (e.g., 200 songs out of 2,000) rather than picking from the entire list.

Spot on. I get that 'true random' is hard to pull off, but the problem is the way the queue gets locked into a specific range depending on where the song sits in the list. I had no idea this was an Amazon-specific issue.
Ideally, the shuffle should pull 250 songs from both sides of my selection, regardless of the 500-song wall. I guess we just have to wait and see if Amazon ever decides to fix their logic.

Hypothetically, let's say I have 1,000 favorite songs. If I were to split them into smaller playlists to avoid this issue, how would you even go about picking them? Manually selecting and adding songs one by one isn't a realistic solution."

 

[abradolf_lincoler]

I am an Amazon Music Unlimited user, which I use almost exclusively as a source for my WiiM devices.
In Amazon Music Unlimited I have a library containing about 3,000 tracks.
I have noticed that when I ask the WiiM devices to play this library in shuffle mode, they tend to play more or less the same tracks each time, in a number that is much smaller than the total number of tracks in the entire library.
Is there a way to have ALL the tracks in my library played in random order

I'm actually in the middle of trying to transfer my playlist from YouTube music premium to Amazon Music Unlimited cuz I wanted the higher audio quality and I have playlists ranging from 800 to 1300 songs I thought I was going crazy but I've been running into the same issue of hearing the same songs in the same order and it's been quite irritating, so I was kind of glad to see it's not just a singular issue with me or that I'm crazy that's quite disappointing so the only way to have a playlist play continuously and to get all tracks to show up is to play in the order that the playlist is made?

 

[Wiimer]

Hypothetically, let's say I have 1,000 favorite songs. If I were to split them into smaller playlists to avoid this issue, how would you even go about picking them? Manually selecting and adding songs one by one isn't a realistic solution."

I’m not sure if this will help you, but one option is to use a transfer service like Tune My Music.

With a free Tune My Music account, you can transfer up to 500 tracks at a time.

1. When you transfer a playlist from Amazon Music to Spotify, only 500 of the 1,200 tracks will be transferred.
2. Rename the transferred playlist in the Spotify app.
3. Edit the playlist in the Amazon Music app and delete the first 500 tracks.
4. Repeat steps 1–3 until all tracks have been transferred to Spotify, resulting in three separate playlists.
5. Transfer the three playlists from Spotify to Amazon Music.

*If you manually select 500 tracks in Tune My Music, you won’t need to delete tracks in step 3.

*Some tracks, such as Amazon Originals, may not be transferable to Spotify.

*I recommend paying $5.50 to Tune My Music in advance to create a complete backup of your playlist.


You don’t have to use Spotify as the destination, but since Spotify has the largest catalog, you can minimize the number of tracks that can’t be transferred.

 

[reonarudo29]

I’ve created a simple web app to split playlist CSV files into smaller parts based on your specific requirements.

Playlist Splitter

How it works:

1. Export your Amazon Music playlist as a CSV file using a service like TuneMyMusic.
2. Upload the CSV to this app and configure options such as max songs per file, global duplication limits, and minimum artist variety.
3. Import the resulting files back into your preferred service.

Key Features:

• It is designed to use up all songs from the original file across the split segments.
• The results will likely vary each time you run it since the distribution is randomized.Maybe..

Disclaimer:

• This is a personal project I made for fun, so please don't expect perfection!
• I cannot guarantee it will work flawlessly for every use case or rule set.
• So far, I have only tested the export/import process using TuneMyMusic.

I hope this helps someone out there!

 

[SC489]

Music support in Amazon Music Unlimited I subscrbe to is astonishigly poor consiedering the profits earned by Amazon

 

[Achim2026]

Music support in Amazon Music Unlimited I subscrbe to is astonishigly poor consiedering the profits earned by Amazon

Who knows, there might be a cheeky little causal link hiding in there. The majority is satisfied or at least silent about that. They invented a money printing business, why should they spend more effort?