Spotify used to be the only real game in town when it came to music streaming, and while competitors showed up over the years, I remained steadfastly loyal to the little green logo. That is, until YouTube Music captured my heart.
Subscribing to YouTube Premium was the beginning of the end of my relationship with Spotify, and a few years on, I’m now a YouTube Music convert and use little else for my daily tunes.
And yet, Spotify is still there. But not for long. I’ve discovered a hidden tool that can yoink everything from Spotify and transfer it to YouTube Music.
I hate starting all over again
So many good memories and tunes in my Spotify
I’ve been using YouTube Music as my music player of choice for the better part of a year, and in all that Spotify has basically only been used to play music for my kids.
As a side note, my Wrapped this year is going to be a mess.
I accidentally opened Spotify on my computer a few days ago.
This is a common mistake. I never removed the pinned icon from my taskbar, and so I open it every now and again.
I usually close it, and that’s that — but this time I took a look around, and got hit by an enormous wave of nostalgia.
Spotify was my first real music streaming platform, and its algorithm helped shape my music tastes as they are now. And while I’ll never forgive it for giving me a love for wubwub, it means I have a lot of beloved tracks trapped there.
I could keep them both and swap between them as needed, but that feels wrong. And speaking frankly, Spotify’s algorithm isn’t what it once was.
Leaving Spotify behind for good was my best option. But I also didn’t want to leave all my songs behind. I could manually transfer each one over, but that’s a massive waste of time, and not something I’m willing to do.
Thankfully, I don’t have to. There’s an easy way to move songs and playlists from Spotify to YouTube Music, and it’s built into the YouTube Music app.
YouTube Music will grab your Spotify playlists so you don’t have to
Just point it in the right direction
In the past, transferring playlists like this often required third-party tools. Now, you only need to start the process in YouTube Music.
You’ll need a Premium membership in YouTube Music to use this service. If you have YouTube Premium, you’re fine, but anyone on Premium Lite won’t have access.
- Open the YouTube Music app.
- Select your profile picture in the upper-right corner.
- Choose Settings > Privacy and data.
- Scroll to Transfer playlists from other apps.
At this point, I admit I lied a tiny bit. This is powered by TuneMyMusic, which is a third-party tool. However, it’s nestled within YouTube Music, so it doesn’t really count.
- Select the service you want to pull content from. In this case, Spotify.
- It’ll ask you to sign in
- Select Get started.
- On the next screen, choose the playlists you want to transfer, or select Entire library.
Now, sit back and let it do its thing.
If you have a lot of music and playlists, like me, the transfer might take some time to finish. After it’s done, everything should be nestled happily in your YouTube Music library.
It’s not a perfect process. It won’t have every track, and it’ll highlight the ones it couldn’t grab so you can get them yourself.
It will also sometimes grab the wrong track, especially for songs with generic or common names.
Don’t stress about this too much; keep it in mind for when you suddenly don’t recognize a track in your old playlists. It’s easy to notice when it’s wrong, and the title will remind you which song you actually need.
I can finally leave Spotify behind me
YouTube Music is my future, and I can bring my past
As I type this, I’m listening to my imported Favorite Songs playlist and enjoying songs from back when Spotify was good. When it wasn’t all about podcasts or audiobooks, and instead focused on doing what it was good at: recommending songs I love.
YouTube Music does that for me now, and it does it better than Spotify.
It’s finally time to say goodbye to Spotify. YouTube Music is my future — and I’ve brought my past along with me for the ride.
