Google pulls the plug on Play Music; YouTube Music to take things forward

Google Play Music: Google Play Music is set to shut down! Tech giant Google issued a statement on Tuesday announcing that its iconic Google Play Music is set to shut down by the end of 2020. Instead, the gap will be filled by YouTube Music and users would have the time to transfer their libraries from Google Play Music to YouTube Music till the former app becomes a thing of the past. The app is scheduled to be made unavailable by December 2020.

Google has been letting users transfer all aspects of their musical preferences from Google Play Music to YouTube Music over the past few months, and now they have announced their endgame. Google Play Music is set to be retired and the announcement has come with a two-part notice. The first is that YouTube Music would replace the current app, and the second is that while the Google Play Music app would only become unavailable after December, streaming on the app would be stopped months before that.

Google said that while in New Zealand and South Africa, the streaming on the app would be disallowed by September, the rest of the world, including India, would not be able to stream music using Play Music by October. However, the music preferences, playlists, uploads, purchases, likes and all other user data would be preserved in the app till December, so that users can seamlessly switch to YouTube music by transferring their data and music libraries to it if they wish to do so.

Google Play Music: Additional changes and how to transfer

The company said that from late August, purchasing, pre-ordering, uploading or downloading music into Google Play would not be allowed through Music Manager.

Google has said that users can transfer their Play Music to YouTube Music using a simple transfer tool, so that any purchases can be transferred. Alternatively, Google Takeout can also be used to transfer the data and download the purchased or uploaded music from Play Music. It added that once the Music Store becomes unavailable, users would be allowed to upload the music tracks purchased from elsewhere to YouTube Music.

It said that those users who have not started the transfer of Play Music data yet, must start now. They can also choose to delete their data.

YouTube Music: All the features you will get

Users would get the following features in YouTube music:

• Playlists: Apart from traditional ways of creating playlists, users would also be able to quickly create playlists with the help of YouTube’s recommendations based on the music preferences of the users. Apart from that, shared playlists can also be made by collaborating with other users. Programmed playlists like Conditions Underground and Caribbean Pulse are also available.
• A top charts feature on the explore tab which would let users explore trending music from all over the world.
• YouTube Music is also available on smart Android TVs so that music can be listened to with the help of the big device without needing to separately set music preferences.
• Preferred music can also be listened to with the help of Google Assistant and asking Google to play, say, recommended music, from YouTube Music, which would play YouTube’s selection for the user based on their set preferences.