You can now move your Apple Music playlists to YouTube Music with just a few taps
If you’re an Apple Music subscriber but are considering switching to YouTube Music, Apple has good news: you can now transfer your playlists to YouTube’s music service with just a few taps.
According to a new support document on Apple’s website, you can now copy your Apple Music playlists to YouTube Music via Apple’s Data & Privacy webpage. All you have to do is sign in, select “Request to transfer a copy of your data” under the “Transfer a copy of your data” heading, and follow the on-screen prompts. According to Apple, this process can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how many playlists you want to include.
Once the process is complete, you’ll see all of your playlists in the Library tab of YouTube Music. If any songs are missing from your playlists, they may not be available in YouTube Music. Your playlists will not be deleted from Apple Music after the transfer, and if you cancel the process before it’s complete, any playlists that were already copied to YouTube Music will remain there as well.
Please note that you will need an active Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription and a YouTube Music account for this transfer procedure.
Easing the transition
While Apple’s support document is titled “Transfer a copy of your Apple Music playlists to another service,” YouTube Music is the only supported service for now. But while the vague wording of the header could imply that other high-profile streaming services could be supported in the future, there’s no word yet on whether Apple plans to allow a similar process for apps like Spotify and Tidal.
It’s been a fairly positive year for YouTube Music so far. YouTube owner Google is working on integrating its Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) suite into YouTube Music, giving users a new way to discover music and queue up songs. And there’s a new “hum to search” feature that could offer a much easier way to identify a song if all you know is what it sounds like.
Whether these new features will be enough to cause a mass exodus from Apple Music to YouTube’s alternative remains to be seen. But if you’re tempted to make the switch, Apple Music’s new switching feature should make the transition considerably easier.
