Streaming services

Zippy's redirect engine carries a table of 22 apps. Two of them are music services: Spotify and Apple Music. This page is the honest per-service, per-OS behaviour — including the URL shapes that fall through and the one service that currently routes to the wrong app.

If a service isn't on this page, Zippy still shortens and tracks the link. It just doesn't open an app, because there's no entry in the table for it.

Which services open the native app?

Spotify — the exact behaviour

Which Spotify URLs open the actual song

Zippy reads the item type and id straight out of the path, so only four types are understood:

The last three are worth stating bluntly: for those shapes Zippy opens Spotify but has no item to hand it, so the listener lands on their own home feed with no idea what you sent them to. That is arguably worse than a plain redirect, because the web fallback is never reached — the app already took the navigation.

If you're promoting a podcast episode or show, or you have a spotify.link short link, resolve it to an open.spotify.com/track|album|artist|playlist URL first, or use a plain link and accept the browser. Troubleshooting has the symptom version of this.

What Zippy fires, per OS

The ?si= share token is dropped

Spotify's share sheet appends a ?si=… token to the URL. Zippy reads the item id out of the path, so on the iOS and Android app-open routes that token does not travel with the tap. It survives on the plain web fallback, because that's your original URL untouched. This is neutral for playback and it is not a feature — it's a consequence of how the id is parsed, and you should know it before you compare Zippy's numbers against Spotify's.

Apple Music — the exact behaviour

Apple Music's scheme is host-preserving: music://music.apple.com/<path><query>. That means Zippy performs a straight https → music swap on the whole URL, so any catalog URL works, not just a fixed list of types — songs, albums, artists, playlists, stations, the lot.

What doesn't work: playlists that live only in someone's own library rather than in Apple's catalog. Those have no shareable catalog URL for Zippy to swap.

YouTube Music routes to YouTube — a known bug

music.youtube.com is listed as a host on the YouTube entry, not on an entry of its own. So a YouTube Music link is turned into youtube://watch?v=<id> (or the equivalent Android intent for com.google.android.youtube) and opens the YouTube app.

For a music marketer that's a real difference: the listener lands on a video player instead of the music app, and the stream may not count where you wanted it to count. Until there's a proper YouTube Music entry, treat YouTube Music links as unsupported and don't put one behind a Zippy link expecting the music app.

What "not in the table" actually means

For SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Deezer, Tidal and Amazon Music, a Zippy link is a normal short link:

• It redirects, forever, and it's editable after you've shared it.
• It counts taps.
• It shows no interstitial, fires no scheme, and reports no app-open outcome — so those links have no app-open rate, and never will until the service gets an entry.

That last point matters if you're comparing links in your dashboard: a SoundCloud link with no app-open rate isn't performing badly, it's not being measured at all.

Check any URL before you spend money on it

Paste your exact destination into the free Deep Link Debugger. It runs against the same table this page describes, so it will tell you — before the ad goes live — whether your specific URL gets the app or the browser.

FAQ

Does Zippy open Spotify from an Instagram or Facebook ad?

On mobile, yes, for track, album, artist and playlist URLs. Zippy serves a small page that fires Spotify's own URL scheme from inside Meta's in-app browser, which is what springs the native app. It is the same technique the paid link tools use, and it is not guaranteed — Limits is the honest ceiling.

Why does my Spotify podcast link open the Spotify home screen?

Because Zippy only understands track, album, artist and playlist URL types. An episode or show URL matches Spotify as a host but produces no item, so the app opens with nothing to show. Use a track/album/artist/playlist URL, or use a plain link for podcasts.

Does Zippy support SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Deezer or Tidal?

Not for opening the native app. Those links still shorten, redirect and count taps, but there is no entry for them in the deeplink table, so no interstitial runs and no app-open outcome is recorded.

Will a Zippy link open YouTube Music?

No. music.youtube.com is currently matched by the YouTube entry, so it opens the YouTube app instead. Treat YouTube Music as unsupported today.

Read more

• Meta ads to a Spotify release — the step-by-step for the actual campaign.
• Troubleshooting — keyed to the symptom, in the words people actually use.
• Limits — what Zippy cannot do, where Android differs, and the attribution tradeoff. Read it before you buy.
• Deep Link Debugger — check a URL against this table yourself.
• Blog: The 22 apps Zippy opens