YouTube Music Adds a Transfer Option Ahead of Google Play Music's Shutdown this Year

Google is making it easier for Google Play Music users to make the switch to the company's now preferred music app, YouTube Music, ahead of its plans to shut down Google Play Music later this year. From a report: Starting today, Google Play Music users will be able to move their libraries, personal taste preferences and playlists to the newer YouTube Music service by way of a new "transfer" option available in the app. The company has been steadily working to make YouTube Music its default music service, in order to eventually replace Google Play Music. Last year, for example, Google shut down the Google Play Artist Hub and began preinstalling YouTube Music on Android smartphones. It said at the time those moves were part of its broader strategy to merge the two services. Now we have a deadline of sorts for Google Play Music's end-of-life -- sometime later this year, according to Google's announcement.

What next?

[alvinrod]

At least Google doesn't make life support systems.

there is big money in that. In music the label get

[Joe_Dragon]

there is big money in that. In music the label get most of the cash.

Re:

[daveron]

Right?! Transfer your Google [life support] account soon We'll notify you when it's your turn to transfer your Google [life support] account. Thanks for your patience!

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

To be fair they are at least transitioning this one. Usually they just leave you hanging with no alternative. I read that YouTube Music is lacking some features though.

If fairness was a goal, they'd make download easy

[ron_ivi]

Just let people burn CDs (or cassette tapes or whatever non-DRM'd format is preferred these day). Then they don't have to worry about future services leaving people hanging either.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Download is easy. Anything you buy you can download in a couple of clicks. DRM-free MP3 format, I think some artists offer FLAC too.

The real killer feature of Google Music/YouTube Music is that you can upload your own files, legitimately obtained or otherwise. You upload your own music and stream it when you like for free. Saves carrying about gigabytes of music.

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[WillieT351]

>Saves carrying about gigabytes of music.

Really? You lugging around 8-tracks with your fav playlists or something?

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It's a hassle. You have to select what music you want to fit in your limited available storage and copy it over.

With Google Play Music you just upload once and your whole library is always available, as long as you have internet. You can also save effort with Podcasts that just adds them automatically when they come out instead of having to go download and copy them yourself.

The need for an internet connection is the Achilles's heel but it's getting to be less of an issue now as data caps go up.

Re: What next?

[D-Breaker]

And another one gone, and another one gone, another one bites the dust!

I'll predict the future slashdot news in 2021:

[MikeDataLink]

Google announces today that it is discontinuing YT Music for its new and better streaming music platform it launched from its SomeRandomCo. acquisition. A user migration tool is in the works.

Re:

[Pascoea]

At least they are doing it the right way. Plenty of warning, means to migrate, etc. They could just pull the rug out from under it (looking at you, Wink [slashdot.org])

Re:I'll predict the future slashdot news in 2021:

[msauve]

>They could just pull the rug out from under it (looking at you, Wink

Wink? Sure. But that's so far from home. What about Works with Nest, or Hangouts, or Daydream, or goo.gl, or Allo, or Goggles, or Picasa, or (I'm getting tired)...

Google has the attention span of a two year old. But two year olds typically have the advantage of adult supervision.

What about local files?

[fahrbot-bot]

I only use Google Play Music (pre-loaded on my phone) for local mp3 files. Anyone have info/links about that usage case going forward or better alternatives on Android (my phone runs Kit Kat)?

Re:What about local files?

[karolgajewski]

This is something that I've struggled with.

FWIW, I use a combination of Foobar 2000 and X-plore File Manager (paid version, because it's that good). The reason for that is that I have some local mp3s, but I also have some on a NAS. Foobar is great for playing off the NAS (although I wish it would cache the songs off the NAS), and X-plore is great for one-offs (local or otherwise). Any suggestions on better alternatives would be awesome as I have tried about two dozen other apps that have horrible UIs, limited features, or just plain sucked.

Re:

[fahrbot-bot]

Thanks will look into that. Your NAS angle looks interesting. I just did a quick check on Google Play and found Musicolet Music Player [google.com] (Free, No ads) that *only* plays local files; the app doesn't request any network permissions.

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[crow]

Local files is what I really want to be able to play on my Google Home. Having to upload my entire MP3 collection to Google so that I can stream it back seems so wasteful.

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[lexman098]

You can use the Google Home app to cast whatever your phone is playing to a google speaker. Then you just play/control the music on your phone.

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[JesseMcDonald]

You can also pair your phone to any Google speaker over Bluetooth and use whatever app you want, as long as you're in range. ("Hey Google, pair a Bluetooth device...") I don't use this feature with my phone, as a rule—I find casting Google Play to be more convenient and less draining on my phone's battery—but I do sometimes use it with my laptop.

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[jon3k]

Google Music allowed me to stream my entire library to my phone and then to my car via bluetooth. Luckily I've recently switched to airsonic and play:Sub mobile app on iOS. Much better experience and not relying on Google, who clearly cannot be trusted to maintain these services.

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[butchersong]

Yep this sucks. I guess I'll be canceling google music.

Re:

[RDW]

Hi-Fi Cast (has the unusual feature of gapless casting to Chromecast, and uses the Android media database like Google Play Music, so no long waits to refresh an app-specific database when you add tracks).

Rocket Player (nice all round player).

Foobar 2000 (has some unusual but useful features like the Meier Crossfeed filter for taming early stereo albums with extreme separation).

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[belg4mit]

You'd have to sideload it, but the old Winamp for Android works as you'd expect. Maybe the mythical new version announced in 2018 will as well...

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[AmiMoJo]

I use Music Folder Player on Android. It's very simple and easy to use, organize by folder rather than metadata.

Voice is good for audiobooks.

Re:

[dunkelfalke]

Poweramp? Been using that one since Gingerbread.

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[kalpol]

First, you ought to see if you can upgrade, Kit Kat is super old. LineageOS might be an option. But VLC is great as just a local media player. If you want to stream, it depends - there is Plex, who sends data off about you, and Kodi, which is not too user friendly as a standalone app (works great if you have a dedicated media device, for which it is intended). I don't know of any others that have solid Android apps.

Re:

[robkeeney]

I use an mp3 player app called Musicolet (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.krosbits.musicolet&hl=en_US). I've been satisfied with it. Much better experience than using Google Play Music.

Re:

[azcoyote]

I use Samsung devices and I really like Samsung's built-in Music app. Google Play Music has frustrated me since Android 4 or so when it became blindingly white and less and less intuitive. Samsung Music actually works pretty well and updates have typically improved it, whereas I tend to see Google app updates as downgrades. Now if only MusicBee made had an Android version...

Google Play App will live forever

[mspohr]

They may shut down the service but the app will live on my Android phone forever with no way to remove it.

Re:

[fennec]

They could just push ad update that turn it into YT Music...

Re:

[sad_]

what good is the app if the server side/web api is no longer available?

Glad I can cancel now instead of waiting.

[OneOfMany07]

I'd been hoping for Play Music to improve...like EVER?!?! But nope...same issues I've had since the start. Glad I know I can leave without losing much (grandfathered in on the $8/mo).

Re: Glad I can cancel now instead of waiting.

[batukhan]

Yup. Just quit last month after about 5 years? It never got better. It never even changed. Such a shame. And YT music seemed even worse when it appeared on my phone. No way I'm giving it a second thought. I'm using Spotify now and happy

Re:

[AvitarX]

YT Music is terrible.

When I want to play music to my Chromecast it almost always uses YT Music (I'd much rather have YouTube on the TV since it prefers videos).

When using it for music it's recommendations are far inferior (no acts playing near you you may be interested in last I used it, I'm guessing I'll lose my side loaded music too, less radio stations to browse).

I'll likely keep my sub just for the ad free YouTube, but it's pretty frustrating that it's so much worse.

I still miss Google Listen too though

It can't get worse

[Bohnanza]

When I reset my Google Wiretap Companion to use YouTube music, the first song it played for me was Never Gonna Give You Up. I couldn't believe it, but then I realized that I've been Rickrolled so many times that Google must think it's my favorite song.

Re:

[slazzy]

Just use Napster. Happy 1999 by the way

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[account_deleted]

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[Do You Smell That]

I'm sorry, but Play Music's problem wasn't that people preferred YouTube, it was because they created a shitty music app that couldn't even search the user's own music library.

Not sure I follow this, searching through my private library to get songs from artists which aren't officially streamable is one of my bigger use-cases. It definitely works...

And no, pushing me to YouTube isn't going to work. I don't want the fourth "song" I listen to on random to be some fascist telling me women are ruining videogames.

There's a difference between Youtube and Youtube Music, in that one doesn't autoplay any ranting random stuff unless someone's released it as an album...

Re:

[Spacelem]

Looks like it aged pretty well to me.

Also, you seem to believe that Bernie Sanders is a communist (he's not, he's a social democrat, there is a significant difference), so I'll take your comment about "living in an actual Communist nation" with a pinch of salt, as it could mean pretty much anywhere on the planet.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

The main problem I have with Play Music is that my metadata is shit. It uses the tags in the MP3 files so they need to be right. I ripped a lot of my own music decades ago and the tag quality isn't great.

I solved it in part by grabbing rips from The Pirate Bay and Usenet to replace my old ones. The Scene ensures that everything is properly tagged, standard format, album art included.

It's still useless for some stuff like rips off iPlayer but at least it's getting there.

Stations & Podcasts

[brunes69]

YouTube Music is missing two key things I use on Google Play Music all the time - podcasts & radio stations. When will they fill this gap?

Re:

[butchersong]

Apparently it supports podcasts http://podcasts.google.com/tra... [google.com]. But just launching latest youtube music on an up to date pixel phone I don't see a transfer option mentioned in the article.

Re:

[landofcleve]

It seems that we will be notified of our turn to transfer once we have visited the appropriate page in the app.

Re:

[cute-boy]

YouTube Music is missing two key things I use on Google Play Music all the time - podcasts & radio stations. When will they fill this gap?

Google have a separate Android podcast application [google.com]. That might fill half your gap. I prefer it to the other podcast apps I have tried.

Let people download them locally then

[xMate420x]

At least let people just download the music they paid for, it wouldn't be that hard. All of this music is already available outside of the platform in some DRM-free format, so if someone wants it, they can just download it from some other website under 3 minutes. I don't think that many people will transfer to this new and pretty much inferior platform, even worse than Play Music was.

Lame

[sixsixtysix]

Google music let you upload up to 50k of your own files to access anywhere. This successor had better allow the same.

Re:

[sixsixtysix]

looks YTM is doubled to 100k. cool.

hnnngh...

[weedjams]

Transfer your Google Play Music account soon We'll notify you when it's your turn to transfer your Google Play Music account. Thanks for your patience!

Music on the Nest mini

[rrittenhouse]

Youtube on my Nest mini plays advertising. Google Play Music didn't even before I uploaded my music collection.
  Don't look forward to switching.

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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[AvitarX]

I found on Spotify (back when I had it) it would work pretty well if I picked a song rather than artist.

I switched to Google Play Music because the radio was better though, somehow it makes a coherent station with "I feel lucky" even.

Things get shutdown, but some people have never

[TanglingOps]

even used them so far, but there is a shaky feeling when you hear something is going to end.