If you’re going to move all of your content anyway, then it pays to see what else is on offer. While Google has made it very easy indeed to transfer all of your details from the old service to the new one, other platforms can be a bit more of a challenge. If you’re keen to try out Spotify, here’s how you can take your playlists and music to save creating them again.
How to transfer your music library and playlists to Spotify
Sadly, there’s no import tool available from Spotify, so if you want to bring across all of your uploaded music, playlists and other content from Google Play Music you’ll either have to do it manually or turn to third-party apps and services.
The manual route is tiresome if you have a large collection of music and have painstakingly put together your favourite playlists. So, recreating them in Spotify is probably not that appealing. There are a wide range of third-party services though that can do all the heavy lifting for you.
Some of the ones that have proved popular over the years have been MusConv, FreeYourMusic, TuneMyMusic, Soundiiz and others. Most usually offer a limited free tier that can transfer one playlist or 100 songs, but if you’re happy to pay then for around £10/$10 you can move your entire library.
These are often in the form of subscriptions, so unless you intend to use the service regularly, we’d recommend signing up for a monthly plan, using the service until you have all of your music transferred, then cancelling the subscription.
For this tutorial we’ll be using FreeYourMusic as it allows you to move all of your playlists one at a time, although for albums and songs you’ll need to move to either the monthly Premium tier (which is paid quarterly and therefore costs £8.22/$8.99 if you cancel at the first opportunity) or you can opt for the single payment of £8.31/$9.89 for the Basic tier that offers a smaller selection of features.
When you’re ready to start, download the relevant app for your device. FreeYourMusic is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, but the process works pretty much the same on all of them.
Tap or click on Google Play Music then log into your account and tap Allow.
You’ll need to select the destination for your playlists and albums. So, click on the Spotify button and log into your account.
Next, select the eternity icon (the one that looks like an eight on its side) and click the Create your first Sync now! option.
You’ll see all of the playlists that can be synced, plus the My Library option that contains all of your albums.
Select the ones you want to add to Spotify, then click Begin Transfer. FreeYourMusic will now work its way through the catalogue, and when it has finished you should have all of the tracks available in your Spotify account.
If you’re still deciding which music provider you want to use now that Google Play Music is going away, be sure to take a look at our best music streaming services roundup before making the switch, just so you know all the options that are open to you.
Martyn has been involved with tech ever since the arrival of his ZX Spectrum back in the early 80s. He covers iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, writing tutorials, buying guides and reviews for Macworld and its sister site Tech Advisor.
