Google announced last year that it was replacing Google Play Music with YouTube Music and shutting down the older online music streaming service. But before pulling the plug, the company launched tools that would let you transfer your data to YouTube Music and/or download any music you’d uploaded to Google Play’s cloud storage.
And you’re running out of time to use them: Google Play Music shuts down on February 24, 2021 and Google will delete all data from user accounts.
Like Google Play Music, YouTube Music is actually a collection of different services:
- You can upload your own music collection to the cloud and stream your songs or albums to supported devices.
- You can stream ad-supported tracks and playlists from YouTube for free.
- You can pay $10 per month for YouTube Premium for ad-free music streaming.
If you chose to transfer your data to YouTube Music, Google will move all of your purchased and uploaded songs from Google Play Music as well as playlists, likes, dislikes, billing data and “many,” but not all stations.
Or if you’d rather just download your uploaded and purchased music, you can do that through Google Takeout – just note that you’re running out of time to do it.
Meanwhile if you’re looking for an alternative music streaming service, Best Buy is currently offering a 6-month Apple Music subscription for free, and Amazon is offering 3 months of Amazon Music HD for free.