What happened to Google Play music playlists?
In May 2020, Google announced that it would be shutting down Google Play Music at the end of the year in favor of its new YouTube Music streaming service. After several delays, Google Play Music was officially discontinued in December 2020.
The shutdown marked the end of an era for Google’s original music streaming service, which launched in 2011 as Google Music. Over the next decade, Google Play Music offered features like an online music locker for uploading your own music library, curated playlists and radio stations, and integration with the Google Assistant. However, in the face of stiff competition from services like Spotify and Apple Music, Google decided to consolidate its music services under YouTube Music moving forward. This meant migrating Google Play Music users and their libraries over to the new platform.
User Reaction
When Google announced in August 2020 that Google Play Music would be shut down later that year, many users expressed disappointment and frustration. After over a decade of using Google Play Music to purchase music, upload personal collections, and create playlists, loyal fans were upset to lose access to many of its features.
On Reddit and other forums, users complained about the forced migration to YouTube Music, which lacked many capabilities of Google Play Music at the time, such as the ability to upload over 50,000 songs. There were also concerns about losing playback history and stats, playlist sorting options, and the ability to easily download music for offline listening (Reddit).
Overall, while Google hoped to transition users seamlessly to its new streaming service, many Google Play Music devotees were unhappy about saying goodbye to their longtime digital music library and platform. The shutdown announcement was met with nostalgia for the earlier days of Google Play Music and its unique features that set it apart from other music services at the time.
Playlist Migration
When Google Play Music shut down in 2020, Google enabled users to transfer their playlists over to YouTube Music. According to The Verge, users could tap “Let’s Go” in the YouTube Music app to migrate Play Music playlists. The app displayed everything that would transfer, including songs, albums, and playlists. Android Police also outlined the migration process, noting users tapped a “Let’s go” button to initiate transferring Play Music content.
The migration process allowed users to move their existing Google Play Music playlists over to YouTube Music with relative ease. This helped retain users and their musical preferences when transitioning between the services.
Feature Differences
YouTube Music and Google Play Music have some key differences when it comes to playlists:
Google Play Music allowed users to sort playlists by title, artist, album, or recently added. YouTube Music only allows sorting by title or recently added. This makes it harder to organize large playlists in YouTube Music (Source).
Playlists on Google Play Music had no video component and focused solely on audio. YouTube Music playlists include music videos and other video content mixed in with songs (Source).
Google Play Music enabled collaborative playlists that multiple people could edit. YouTube Music currently does not have this capability.
Google Play Music allowed for unlimited skips on radio stations, while YouTube Music limits skips like traditional radio.
Overall, Google Play Music offered more robust playlist management and customization options suited for serious music listeners. YouTube Music takes a more mainstream, video-centric approach.
Listening History
When Google Play Music shut down at the end of 2020, many users were concerned about what would happen to their listening history and stats. Play Music had allowed users to view detailed statistics like their top artists, songs, albums and genres. It also tracked listening activity over time.
Unfortunately, this listening history and play data did not carry over to YouTube Music. While YouTube Music has some basic stats on top artists and songs, the detailed listening metrics from Play Music were not migrated. This meant users lost access to their full listening profiles when the service shut down.
Some users were upset that years of listening stats had disappeared. There were requests for Google to make Play Music listening history downloadable, but this never materialized. Currently, the only way to access any old listening data is to download your Google Takeout data, which contains basic play counts.
While YouTube Music added the ability to see top artists and tracks in 2020, this calculated info from recent streaming activity. The rich listening history data from Google Play Music remained unavailable after the shutdown, disappointing users who relied on those stats.
Premium Status
When Google Play Music shutdown, there were questions around whether premium subscriptions would transfer over to YouTube Music. According to Google’s support page, “Google Play Music subscribers will automatically receive access to YouTube Music Premium as part of their subscription.” This allowed users to retain ad-free listening, offline downloads, and background playback after migrating.
However, some users on Reddit reported issues transferring their Google Play Music family plans to YouTube Music. As noted in this Reddit thread, there were complications for certain family plan configurations that required contacting Google support to resolve.
Overall, Google did transfer paid Google Play Music subscriptions to YouTube Music Premium status. But the transition was not seamless for all family plan configurations.
Uploaded Music
One of the unique features of Google Play Music was the ability for users to upload their own music library to the cloud. This allowed access to songs not available on the streaming service. When Google Play Music shutdown, users faced the question of how to download their uploaded collections. According to Android Authority, Google provided the Google Play Music Manager desktop app to facilitate downloading uploaded songs. The app let users select all or part of their collection to download to a local drive. For mobile users, songs could also be downloaded through the Google Takeout service, according to 9to5Google. This allowed users to get their uploaded libraries off Google servers before the shutdown.
Alternatives
With the shutdown of Google Play Music, users have had to migrate to other streaming services. The top alternatives include Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music (Source 1).
Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming services, with over 170 million subscribers globally (Source 2). It offers an extensive music catalog, playlists, podcasts, and social features. The free, ad-supported tier provides limited on-demand listening.
Apple Music has over 90 million subscribers and is tightly integrated with iOS devices. It offers similar features to Spotify like streaming music, internet radio, and access across multiple devices. The interface may appeal more to iOS users.
Amazon Music has grown significantly in recent years, benefiting from Amazon’s ecosystem. It offers comparable features and pricing to other services. Amazon Prime members get access to a limited music catalog at no extra cost.
YouTube Music aims to combine the vast catalog of music content on YouTube with the features of a streaming service. It could appeal to users who want a deep well of official songs, covers, live performances and more (Source 3).
Overall, Google Play Music users have several robust alternatives to choose from, each with unique strengths and appeal.
Lessons Learned
The shutdown of Google Play Music provides some key takeaways for both users and technology platforms:
For users, this transition reinforced the importance of exporting playlists and libraries ahead of a service shutdown. Although Google provided tools to transfer Play Music libraries to YouTube Music, many users lost metadata, uploads, and playlists in the process. It’s critical to not rely solely on one streaming provider to store your music collection.
For Google, ceasing support for Play Music alienated loyal users who preferred its interface and features over YouTube Music. Eliminating popular legacy services risks frustrating longtime customers. However, maintaining competing products can diffuse focus and investment. There are difficult tradeoffs in sunsetting established services during transitions.
For the streaming music industry overall, this consolidation underscores the risk of locking personal libraries within closed platforms. While convenient, proprietary systems leave little user control. The shutdown highlighted the value of open, interoperable music platforms that put listener agency first.
Conclusion
In summary, Google Play Music was a streaming music service that launched in 2011 and was officially shut down in 2020. Google decided to replace Play Music with YouTube Music, a new service that combines streaming audio and video. The shutdown was met with mixed reactions from users, many of whom had years of playlists and music libraries built up in Play Music.
When Google Play Music was discontinued, playlists were automatically migrated to YouTube Music for most users. However, there were some key differences in features between the two services that caused headaches for longtime Play Music fans. Play Music offered advanced capabilities like listening history and uploaded music lockers that never fully made it over to YouTube Music.
The shutdown serves as a cautionary reminder of the risks of building up years of content in a tech company’s ecosystem. Services can change rapidly, leaving users scrambling to export their data. Moving forward, consumers may think twice about investing heavily in a single music platform. Ultimately, Google Play Music had a good run but couldn’t compete with streaming giants like Spotify. Its legacy lives on primarily through the migrated playlists on YouTube Music.