Spotify's been a massive success in Europe, with well over a million users in the UK.

With only the occasional advert interrupting the stream of music, it's like having the biggest music collection in the world.

It's so large that you might need a bit more help searching for songs and managing the results.

We've put together 15 hidden features, tips and add-ons that will help you make the most of Spotify.

1. Search modifiers

Search Spotify using modifiers to restrict and refine your results. For example, to search for Madonna's 1983 output you enter "madonna year:1982". You can also search for a range of years, like this: "rolling stones year:1965-1972". Other modifiers include "album", "artist" and "genre". These can be combined, for example: "album:love artist:cult" only finds tracks from The Cult's "Love". Finally, Boolean syntax can be used to exclude keywords, like this: "genre:trip-hop NOT morcheeba".

EXCLUSIVE TRACKS: Filter bands and tracks out of search results with the Boolean NOT operator - or use the minus sign "-".

2. Search by genre

Spotify's most useful search modifiers is "genre". Search for "genre:post-rock" and you'll get more Mogwai than you can get wet after midnight. It's also the trickiest to use. The program itself only lists 18 default genres (in the Radio section), but it supports around 800! If you don't use the right wording, the search will return no results. For a full and current list of Spotify genres, go to Spotify Gateway.

3. Multiple versions

Many albums exist in multiple versions with different edits - and Spotify may have multiple listings for the same collection of tracks. When this happens you'll see a little arrow in the "Track" column of your results. Click it to see all the instances of that track appearing on a different version of the album.

MULTITRACK: Different edits of your favourite albums have different track versions. Spotify finds them, but hides them

4. Link to part of a track

As originally cited on the Spotify blog, you can send friends a track URI with a time index embedded in it. Copy the Spotify URI and paste it into your email or message window, then edit the URI to add '#time' to the end. For example, if the track has a brilliant solo at 1:26, you append #1:26 to the end of the URI. You can also do this with HTTP links, but you'll have to replace the hash tag "#" with "%23".

5. Draggable URLs

You probably already know that you can right click on Spotify playlists, tracks and albums to copy the HTTP link or Spotify URI to the clipboard. You can also drag and drop any Spotify link to the text box of another program; an email client, instant messager, URL shortener or Twitter window. The HTTP link is embedded - not the Spotify URI.

6. Top Lists

The often forgotten "Top Lists" feature shows you the most popular tracks everywhere on the Spotify network, by default. You can change the display to show top artists, albums and tracks. If you look in the top left corner - you can also change where Spotify gets its data. Choose "Everywhere", the United Kingdom or another region where Spotify is live. Finally, choosing "For Me" shows your most frequently played tracks since the list was last updated. This should happen once a week - but the feature is notoriously buggy.

TOP OF YOUR POPS: Spotify say that its lists of top tracks, albums and artists are refreshed once a week, so don't worry if your currents faves aren't at number one

7. Quicker playlist creation

So, you've found Spotify's most popular tracks - now turn them into a playlist. CTRL and click on tracks to make multiple selections, then right-click to open the context sensitive menu and choose "Save to" and "New Playlist".