Google Play Music
Google Play Music is a popular music and podcast streaming service from the search-engine giant. Launched in 2011, it offers access to a collection of over 40 million songs besides unlimited live radio.
Google Play Music offers gapless playback, label-based official catalogues in large size, queue control, and robust library of varied music. It also allows you to merge the uploaded as well as subscribed music together. Your subscription also allows you to access podcasts using a separate app called Google Podcasts.
YouTube Music
Until 2018, YouTube Music was largely available on an experimental basis. In 2018, Google relaunched the service and fixed major bugs that were earlier causing big issues. Google continued to polish it with additional new features and bug fixes to improve the UI experience and make it a strong rival to Apple Music and Spotify that were dominating the streaming industry.
Here are some prominent features that YouTube Music offers to its users:
- Get access to an enormous collection of official songs and videos whether you’re looking for a remix, karaoke, mashup or night songs
- Unparalleled content to stay with the latest trends
- Enjoy live concerts and YouTube music hosts
- Available in both free and premium favours
- The premium plan costs only $9.99 every month
- Easy to navigate interface
- YouTube Music is available in a majority of territories around the world
- YouTube Music’s recommendations (based on the listener’s past choices) are a super hit among music addicts
- The Custom Upload feature means the user can upload a song straight away if they can’t find it on YouTube Music
- YouTube Music offers additional features such as quick search, expanded playlists, and much more
YouTube Music has got a great selection of content that lures especially college youngsters. Unlike Spotify, the free version of YouTube Music does not allow users to play music in the background. When the user tries to switch to another app or window, the music playback pauses. The monopolizing of the user’s screen is quite annoying.
YouTube Music costs approximately the same as Spotify. The family pack provides you with additional benefits such as access to YouTube Originals content, background playback for your music. In addition to this, you get offline downloads on all of the YouTube-umbrella products- YouTube, YouTube Music, YouTube Gaming, YouTube Kids, YouTube VR, among others. The service is currently available in 17 countries in the world including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France and Germany.
The premium plan for YouTube Music costs just $9.99 every month and offers the following benefits:
- Experience ad-free music. Say no to annoying ads after every 3-6 tracks. Enjoy ad-free music without interruption.
- Enjoy music in the background while using your smartphone or chatting with your friends. The free version requires the YouTube Music app to be always open.
- Save bandwidth by downloading your favourite music to play offline.
Google Play Music v/s YouTube Music
Prior to 2020, one of the key differences between Google Play Music and YouTube Music was the ability to upload one’s own music. Google Play Music allowed its users to upload their own music, whereas YouTube Music did not have such a feature. Therefore, many people preferred Google Play Music on YouTube Music. Google was quick to identify the problem and introduced a custom music uploading feature on YouTube Music in 2020.
Google Decides to Gradually Shut Down Google Play Music
Though Google Play Music and YouTube Music services continued to exist side-by-side for many years, the search engine giant intends to avoid confusion about the two separate services offered. As YouTube is the largest video sharing platform in the world with tens of millions of views every single day, Google intends to dominate the online streaming industry with a single product called YouTube Music.
It was in the year 2017, Google decided to gradually shut down Google Play Music by the end of 2020. Since Google Play Music enjoys a huge loyal user base, Google is giving it’s users ample time to smoothly transfer their content without hurdles.
What About My Existing Subscription? Will I Lose It?
If you’re a paid subscriber, here’s something that you should know.
The subscribers of Google Play Unlimited will be automatically switched to the unlimited plan of YouTube Music Premium. If you’ve subscribed for any other plan, you’ll get the equivalent benefits of what you have already subscribed to. Therefore, in short, your subscription will also be transferred to your YouTube Music account.
Transfer Your Google Play Music Library to YouTube Music
Transferring library from Google Play Music to YouTube Music doesn’t require much effort. After successful completion, your original music suggestions would start appearing on the home screen. The transfer process could take some time depending on the size of your music collection and other factors.
The recommended way to transfer your library by Google will move the following type of content:
- Your playlists
- Your official purchases
- All albums and music in your library
- Music recommendations to you from Google Play Music
- Your likes and dislikes
- Any user-uploaded music
Now let us move to the actual transfer process. There are different ways to transfer your library.
Method 1: Using YouTube Music Transfer Page
A user can simply visit the official YouTube Music transfer page and follow the on-screen instructions. However, this did not work for many users. They are asked to wait for some time until it’s their turn to transfer the Google Play Music account.
Method 2: Using the YouTube Music App
Another way to accomplish this task is to download the YouTube Music app on your smartphone and use the Transfer button to start the transfer process straight away.
- If you’re using an Android-based smartphone, download the YouTube Music app from the Android PlayStore. If you’re an iPhone user, visit the Apple App Store.
- Click the Transfer button in the notification bar and the upload shall begin automatically.
- After successful completion, an email notification will appear on your registered email account.
That’s it, folks. After successful completion, you should be able to see all of your transferred data on YouTube Music.