How do I retrieve music from Google Play?

What is Google Play Music?

Google Play Music was a music and podcast streaming service operated by Google as part of its Google Play line of services. It allowed users to purchase, download, and stream music, as well as upload their own library. Key features included:

Streaming access to a catalog of over 40 million songs.
Ability to purchase and download songs, albums, and curated playlists.

Music locker to upload up to 50,000 of your own songs.

Google Play Music offered curated playlists and radio stations based on a user’s taste and listening history. It competed with other major streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music.

Signing Into Your Google Account

To access and use Google Play Music, you will need an account with Google or Gmail. This gives you access to Play Music and other Google services across the web and mobile apps.

To sign in, open the Google Play Music app on your mobile device or go to the web player. Click on the account icon in the top right and select Sign In. Enter your Google or Gmail email address and password. This will log you into your Google account and provide access to your music library and account settings.

Searching for Music

Google Play Music gives you numerous ways to search for songs, albums, artists, and playlists. You can search by specific song title, artist name, album name, or even just keywords. Some examples of search queries include:

“Hey Jude” – will return results for the Beatles song

“Taylor Swift 1989” – will show Taylor Swift’s 1989 album
“Classical piano” – will display classical piano playlists and albums

In addition to searching, you can also browse new music releases across various genres. Google Play organizes music into popular categories like Pop, Hip Hop, Rock, Jazz, and more. You’ll find curated playlists for any mood or activity like Focus, Commute, Workout, and Party. Explore these sections to discover new tunes and expand your music library.

Overall, Google Play Music gives you a robust ability to find exactly the songs, artists, albums or playlists you want through search and browsing. Whether you know the specific track name or just the lyrics, you can easily locate music on Google Play.

Adding Music to Your Library

There are a few different ways to add music to your Google Play library:

Search for an artist, album or song and select the “Add to library” button next to it. This will add it directly to your library.

You can add entire albums or playlists by finding them and selecting “Add to library.”
When viewing an album, you can add individual songs by clicking the “+” icon next to each track.
Use the thumbs up button on any song to add it to your library. Thumbs upped songs get added to a “Liked from Radio” auto-playlist.

To create custom playlists:

Go to the Library tab and select “Create playlist.”
Give the playlist a name and description.

Search for artists, albums or songs to add them to the playlist.
Re-order tracks by dragging and dropping them.

The library gives you a lot of flexibility to organize your music how you like. You can add anything you want and create as many custom playlists as needed.

Uploading Your Music Library

One of the best features of Google Play Music is the ability to upload up to 50,000 of your own song files for free. This allows you to bring your personal music library into Google Play and listen across all your devices.

To upload your music library, you can use the Google Play Music Manager desktop application. This will allow you to select folders on your computer containing your song files to upload. The Music Manager will then sync and upload these files to your Google Play Music account.

According to Google’s support page, the upload process uses a matching algorithm that finds high quality versions of your songs when available. This helps save on storage space while still providing you with the best audio quality.

Once your music is uploaded, you can access your full library from the web player or mobile apps. It will be available for streaming or downloading just like any other song in Google Play Music.

Downloading Music for Offline Playback

One of the key benefits of Google Play Music is the ability to download albums, playlists, and other content for offline listening when you don’t have an internet connection. This saves mobile data usage and allows you to listen to your music collection anywhere, any time, without using your data plan.

To download music for offline playback, open the Google Play Music app and tap on the download icon next to any album, playlist, or other content you want to save. You can download individual tracks, entire albums, curated playlists – anything in your library. The downloads are saved right on your device so you can listen offline.

A great feature is that your offline downloads sync across devices, so the content you save for offline listening on your phone will also be available on your tablet, computer, and other devices where you use the same Google account. This makes it easy to take your music with you no matter what device you’re using.

With offline playback, you get the benefit of a music streaming service like Google Play without having to continuously use mobile data to listen. It’s perfect for situations like flights, road trips, or other times you’ll be away from WiFi. Just remember to connect occasionally to sync any new additions to your library.

To free up space, you can always remove downloads from your device when you no longer need offline access. But the ability to listen anywhere, even without an internet connection, makes Google Play Music a versatile option for music fans who want streaming and offline listening.

Listening on Web and Mobile

Google Play Music provides multiple ways to listen across the web and mobile devices. The web player is accessible from any modern browser, allowing you to stream music anywhere you have an internet connection. Dedicated apps are also available for Android and iOS to take your music on the go.

A key feature is the ability to cast music to speakers, sound systems, and TVs using Chromecast built-in or Google Cast technology. This allows you to control playback from your phone or the web while the audio plays from another device. You can cast to Google Home smart speakers, Chromecast devices plugged into speakers or TVs, and many other Cast-enabled audio systems.

With support across web, mobile, and Google Cast devices, Google Play Music aims to make your music collection accessible from anywhere and enables whole-home audio streaming.

Personalizing Recommendations

Google Play Music offers several ways to personalize your music recommendations so you can discover new artists and songs tailored to your tastes.

One way is by using thumbs up and thumbs down. As you listen to songs, you can tap the thumbs up or thumbs down icon to tell Google Play Music whether you enjoyed that track. This provides feedback to improve the recommendations served to you.¹

You can also create customized radio stations based on your favorite artists, songs or genres. Just tap on the “Start radio” option next to any track or artist profile. Google Play Music will generate a personalized playlist of similar songs to enjoy. The more you train the algorithm with thumbs up/down, the better the recommendations will become.

With these personalization options, you can shape Google Play Music to better match your musical tastes over time.

Switching Streaming Services

If you decide to stop using Google Play Music and want to transfer your music library and playlists to another streaming service like Spotify or YouTube Music, there are a few options:

To transfer your playlists, you can use a third-party app like Soundiiz to connect your Google Play Music account and new streaming service account. Soundiiz can transfer playlists between various services like Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Tidal, and more.

To export your entire Google Play Music library including uploads and purchases, go to Google Takeout and select Google Play Music under the services you want to export. This will allow you to download your library as files that can then be uploaded to another service or played locally on your device.

YouTube Music has a direct transfer tool within the YouTube Music app and website that imports your Play Music uploads, purchases, playlists, and recommendations. However, some users have reported issues with missing songs or playlists after transferring.

So in summary, use third-party tools like Soundiiz for playlist transfer, Google Takeout for full library export, and the YouTube Music transfer tool for importing everything seamlessly to YouTube Music.

Retrieving Purchased & Uploaded Music

If you want to download music you’ve purchased from Google Play, there are a couple ways to do it:

To download individual songs or albums, open the Google Play Music app and tap on the 3-dot menu next to the song or album. Select “Download” and the content will be saved locally on your device. You can find your downloaded music in the “Downloads” section of the app.

To download your entire Google Play Music library, you can use Google Takeout. This allows you to export your full Google Play Music library, including any music you’ve purchased or uploaded. To do this:

Go to takeout.google.com and sign in to your Google account.
Deselect all services and scroll down to only select “Google Play Music”.
Choose your export options and frequency. Select a delivery method.

Click “Create Export” to begin preparing your archive.

Once ready, Google will notify you via email and you can download your Google Play Music data. This will contain MP3 files of any music you’ve purchased or uploaded to your library.