If you’re an Apple Music subscriber but have been eyeing up switching to YouTube Music, Apple has some 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're now able to copy your Apple Music playlists to YouTube Music using Apple’s Data and Privacy web page. All you need to do is log in, then select 'Request to transfer a copy of your data' underneath the 'Transfer a copy of your data' header and follow the on-screen prompts. Apple says this process could 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 YouTube Music’s Library tab. If any songs are missing from your playlists, it could be that they’re not available in YouTube Music. Your playlists won’t be removed from Apple Music after the transfer, and if you cancel the process before it finishes, any playlists that have already been copied to YouTube Music will also remain there.
Note that for this transfer process to be available, you’ll need to have an active subscription to either Apple Music or iTunes Match, as well as a YouTube Music account.
Easing the transition
Although 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. Yet while the vague wording of the header might imply that other top-rated streaming services could be supported in the future, there’s no word yet on whether Apple is planning 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) into YouTube Music, giving users a fresh method for discovering music and queueing up tunes. And there’s a new 'hum to search' feature that could provide a much simpler way to identify a song when all you can remember is how it sounds.
Whether these new features will be enough to spark a mass exodus from Apple Music to YouTube’s alternative remains to be seen. But if you are tempted to make the change, Apple Music’s new switching feature should make the transition significantly easier.
