Apple Music encourages users to switch to YouTube Music
Image credit: Alexander Sinn
At least, that’s how it seems with their new feature making it easy to transfer your library out of Apple Music.
Famously an insular brand, Apple have made a surprising move in favour of their rival. Apple Music subscribers can now easily transfer their playlists over to YouTube Music with a native tool.
That’s according to a recent document that has been shared online. Users can share the playlists that they have created with the music available on the services, files aren’t included in the transfer.
After users process a transfer from Apple Music to YouTube Music, the playlist and all of the available songs will appear in their Library tab within YouTube Music. Only songs will be transferred over as well, meaning podcasts and audiobooks won’t be included.
Based on another document on their support site, the ability goes both ways. YouTube Music users are easily able to transfer their playlists to Apple Music as well. In both cases, users are required to have an active Apple Music subscription and an active YouTube Music account.
It’s a strange move for any service to make, allowing users to easily transfer their library to another service. Whilst it doesn’t necessarily encourage users to jump ship to a rival, it certainly makes for a smoother ride for those looking to switch from Apple to YouTube’s music streaming service.
Still, of all of the platforms to provide a convenient service that enables easier movement to another service, Apple would have been our last guess. Amongst various other cases of rivalry disputes and technologically-insular practice, Apple have been in a long-standing feud with Spotify over what the Swedish streaming service describes as anti-competitive actions.
How to transfer your Apple Music playlists to YouTube Music
- Go to Apple’s Data and Privacy page, then sign in to your Apple ID account.
- Select “Transfer a copy of your data.”
- Follow the onscreen instructions to complete your transfer request. To start the transfer, you’ll need to sign in to your YouTube Music account.
When you start a transfer, Apple sends email notifications to the email addresses associated with your Apple ID account.
You can check the status of or cancel your transfer on Apple’s Data and Privacy page.
Wherever people are listening to their playlists, as an artist you can get your tracks streaming in them for free. At RouteNote, you can upload unlimited music releases to all of the world’s top services, including Apple Music and YouTube Music.