This article was published on May 12, 2020

How to transfer your Google Play Music library to YouTube Music


How to transfer your Google Play Music library to YouTube Music

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff.

Google today revealed it’s attempting to ease Google Play Music into its final hours, and making it easier for anyone who still uses it to shift over to its effective replacement, YouTube Music. To that end, Google today announced a new feature that allows users to export their entire library from the former app to the latter. According to the YouTube Blog post, the main reason it’s introduced this feature is because users will “no longer having access to Google Play Music later this year.” It makes sense — Google put a death sentence on Play Music back in 2018, so the fact it’s managed to hang on this long is impressive.

Read: Wunderlist is dead — here’s how to move your lists to other apps

So it seems now’s the time to jump ship. Here’s how it works.

First, check to see if you have the ability to make the transfer yet. Google’s rolling out its tool in batches, so not every YouTube Music user has access to it at this time. So if your app isn’t offering you the option to transfer, just be patient. You’ll get it eventually.

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You can do this from either an app or from the web browser. For the latter, go to the YouTube Music Transfer page. For the former, you should see a banner offering to make the transfer when you open the app (it’ll also appear as an option in your settings.

Once you start the transfer, it’ll show you all the things you’re transferring from Google Play Music. According to Google, it should include “your uploads, purchases, added songs and albums, personal and subscribed playlists, likes and dislikes, curated stations and personal taste preferences.” In the app, you’ll see a progress bar indicating how much time is left in the transfer. You can keep using YouTube Music while it’s happening.

Credit: Google

 

After the import is complete, you should see an option on the front page to allow you to continue to listen to what you were listening to in Google Play Music. If you continue to use Google Play Music, you may have to make the transfer again.

And that’s it! Now you can listen to all your Google Play tunes on YouTube, even after Google Play Music has gone the way of so many other apps in the Google Graveyard. Good luck!

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