How to Program an NFC Tag to Play an Album (on Any Streaming Service)
You want a record you can tap to play. Good news: it takes about two minutes and a sticker that costs less than a coffee. Put an album on an NFC tag and you've made an AlbumLink: hold a phone to it and the album opens, ready to play.
Most guides stop at "paste your Spotify link." That works right up until someone else taps it. Here's the whole thing, including the part they skip.
What you need
- A blank NFC tag. The common NTAG213 sticker is plenty. NTAG215 and NTAG216 work too; they just hold more than an album link needs.
- A phone with NFC. Any iPhone or Android phone from the last several years.
- A free app to write the tag. NFC Tools is the usual pick, on both the App Store and Google Play.
- The album's link. This is the part that matters, so it gets its own section.
The catch: a Spotify link only plays on Spotify
Copy an album's share link from Spotify and write it to a tag, and the tag works for you. Hand the record to a friend who uses Apple Music and their tap lands on a Spotify page they can't play. It goes the other way too. And if you ever switch services, every tag in the house still points at the old one.
The fix is to write a link that isn't tied to one service. Paste the album's link from any service into albumlinks.com/album and you get one page for that album, at an address like:
albumlinks.com/album/fleetwood-mac/rumours
That page opens the album on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or Deezer. Whoever taps picks their own. It's free, there's no account, and the address is short enough for the smallest tags.
How to make an AlbumLink, step by step
- Make the album page. Go to albumlinks.com/album, paste the album's link from whatever service you use, and press Create page. Copy the address of the page it opens.
- Open NFC Tools and go to the Write tab.
- Add a record. Choose URL / URI, paste the album page's address, and confirm.
- Write it. Tap Write, then hold the back of your phone to the tag until the app confirms.
- Test it. Lock your phone, wake the screen, and hold it to the tag. The album page should open. Try a friend's phone on a different service too.
One optional step: NFC Tools can lock a tag so nobody can rewrite it. Locking is permanent, so skip it if you might ever want a different album on that tag.
Where to put it
- The back of a record sleeve, near a corner, so a tap doesn't mean pulling the record off the shelf.
- A CD case, a frame, a notebook, a tape. Anything a phone can touch.
- Not on metal. Metal right behind a tag stops it working. For metal frames or shelves, buy tags made for metal surfaces.
- Through thin stuff is fine. Phones read a tag through paper, plastic or thin glass, up to about a centimetre away.
A homemade AlbumLink vs. an official AlbumLinks Tag
A sticker with an album page on it is a real AlbumLink: anyone can tap it and play the album on their own service. It's free, and it's yours to make.
An official AlbumLinks Tag does more, because it belongs to you:
| Sticker with an album page | AlbumLinks Tag | |
|---|---|---|
| Plays on any streaming service | Yes | Yes |
| Skips straight to your service | No, the page shows every time | Yes, once you choose your service |
| Change the album | Rewrite it in a writer app | Point it somewhere else from your phone |
| Saved to your collection | No | Yes, marked as a record you hold |
| Shows up in your listening history | No | Yes, every tap |
| Setup | A writer app | Tap it and sign in |
The skip is the one people notice. Tap a Tag and the album can open right in Spotify, Apple Music or whatever you use, without stopping at the page. Want the page instead? Tap it again within a minute. More perks are on the way.
Either way, the link is what counts: one album page that plays on every service. Make one free → or see AlbumLinks Tags →