Mac Spotify: Cannot Start Application

[Andy]

So you want to run Spotify.app on macOS with multiple users environment but it says that you ‘Cannot Start Application’

Multiple users environment is where you have one Mac, and it has more than one user using it.

Spotify updated their app and prevent us running the app from another user (it will only run on the user who installed it)

Since their previous version doesn’t have this issue, I investigated the issue and found out that it was caused by permission issue.

The following are the resolution:

1. Download and install Spotify as normal;
2. Quit the Spotify Application once it’s finished installing;
3. Open the application called Terminal (Command Prompt for Windows computers);
4. Change to the correct directory by typing this and then hit enter:
   

   cd /Applications

5. Then, copy and paste this command, followed by enter:
   

   sudo find Spotify.app -exec chmod 755 {} \;

6. When prompted, enter your Mac user’s password and hit enter;
7. Open the Spotify.app.

It is obviously if you open Terminal before installing Spotify.app you’ll get the ‘No such file or directory’ message.
Note: If all of this still doesn’t work, I found another temporary solution by simply dragging the Spotify.app from the Applications folder onto a USB and running Spotify from there. This is because by default Mac ignores ownership on USB volumes.

Cheers!