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Apple Now Lets Users Transfer Apple Music Playlists to YouTube Music And Vice Versa

Apple Music subscribers who want to transfer their playlists over to YouTube Music can now use Apple's Data and Privacy page to do so, Apple says in a new support document. Those who subscribe to YouTube Music are also able to transfer their playlists to ‌Apple Music‌.

apple music
After logging in on the Data and Privacy page, ‌Apple Music‌ users can select the "Transfer a copy of your data" option to move playlists from ‌Apple Music‌ to YouTube Music. YouTube Music is the only supported music service for playlist transfers, and Apple does not offer options to transfer to services like Spotify at this time.

To make a transfer, an active ‌Apple Music‌ subscription or iTunes Match subscription and an active YouTube Music account are required. Playlists that are transferred are not deleted from ‌Apple Music‌, and the transfer process can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on how many playlists are being transferred.

Apple has details on what can be transferred and what can't:

  • Only the playlists that you've created (including collaborative playlists that you own) are transferred
  • Music files aren't transferred
  • Non-collaborative shared playlists and curated playlists aren't transferred
  • Folders in which you've organized your ‌Apple Music‌ playlists aren't transferred
  • Playlists can include only songs available on YouTube Music. If your playlists contains other audio files -- such as podcasts, audio books, or user-uploaded audio files -- they won't be transferred.

After the transfer process has been completed, playlists from ‌Apple Music‌ will appear in the Library tab in YouTube Music. If a song is missing, it might not be available on YouTube Music.

Transferring a playlist from YouTube Music to ‌Apple Music‌ can be initiated through the Google Account interface.

Top Rated Comments

vertsix Avatar
21 months ago

are they just helping people leave Apple Music now ?
They are not. They are simply giving the consumer options, as any company should.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cjsuk Avatar
21 months ago

Gah I really wish Spotify would let me get my decade of playlists over to Apple Music, but I can see that happening even less than this…
Spotify would never do this after bitching about Apple for so long.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
vertsix Avatar
21 months ago
This is actually fantastic and really unexpected of Apple. Playing ball with the competition and allowing options to switch over is very consumer-friendly. Not even Spotify or Google offer this.

Totally unexpected and very welcome.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TehFalcon Avatar
21 months ago
I'm weird and don't make playlists on  Music. I "add to library" and still use  Music like iTunes lol. The default/built in "radio" playlists usually are fine for me when I play music that way.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dj64Mk7 Avatar
21 months ago

Yeah I gotta admit that surprised me. Even a month is more than double, at $10. It gets harder and harder to recommend some apps... The developer was already responsive back then, hopefully there's better service somewhere to justify cost.
Your comment just made the entire subscription model of the App Store (or, rather, the reason it's bad) click for me. $10/month for the very niche functionality of SongShift, which is something most people probably don't need to use more than once or twice a quarter, seems outrageous and designed for profits more than anything.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rob__Mac Avatar
21 months ago
Gah I really wish Spotify would let me get my decade of playlists over to Apple Music, but I can see that happening even less than this…
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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