Mountain View company retires the music app and incentivizes a switch to YouTube Music. Here's how to transfer songs from Play Music and other details of the operation
Google's acquisition of YouTube everyone remembers: it was 2006 and the Mountain View giant bought the service for $1.65 billion. At that time, the video sharing platform was emerging and many critics had questioned its potential, but Google was seeing it through.
Now it has been transformed into a successful channel, which profits very well thanks to adversiting. Moreover, it has integrated other services and among them YouTube Music stands out. The channel is designed for those who want to search and listen to music online and works in a similar way to other audio streaming platforms. In order to avoid segmenting users on different platforms, the company has decided to retire Google Play Music. The music service will be replaced by YouTube Music by the end of December 2020. The announcement had been made in August, but it took several months to bring the project to fruition. What will happen now?
Play Music goodbye: we move to YouTube Music
The transition from Play Music to the similar YouTube service will be gradual. There are several reasons for this. For example, the new music app doesn't have all the features of Play Music, and the company wants to standardize them before integrating them together.
To encourage the transition, Google has worked to make the YouTube Music app's interface for smart TVs smarter and more usable.
Other improvements are in the works, especially for those with Android TV. Finally, one of the most anticipated new features is background music playback, as it already happens with other platforms: if YouTube Music is closed on a smartphone, the music continues to be played as normal and the user can continue to use his device for other activities, even launching other apps.
It should be considered that users will need some time to transfer songs from one app to another. Fortunately, the procedure is really very simple.
How to transfer music from Google Play Music to Youtube Music
To perform the transfer, just go to music.youtube.com/transfer after logging into the Google account where you use Play Music and all other branded services. At this point, the interface shows a special command to initiate the transfer.
The Play Music collection includes downloaded and purchased songs, playlists and stations that you follow, albums, but also songs that you have liked or disliked.
In addition, any billing data of the Google Play Music subscription is also transferred, which is converted into the equivalent one of YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium. The price and features remain unchanged.
The information captured by Play Music over time will allow Google to suggest tracks to the user who makes the switch to YouTube. So, the user won't have to work to teach the machine what his tastes are, the tracks he prefers, the genre and so on.
After completing the transfer, you will be able to access music from both apps, at least until Google decides to permanently remove Play Music.
One thing is for sure: the switch will not be made automatically, so it is crucial that users follow the procedure if they don't want to lose all the music they have accumulated over the years.