With a new data export tool, Apple has made it easier than ever for music lovers to switch between streaming services. Transferring your playlists and library of music from one service-apple Music-to another, say, YouTube Music-used to be an excruciatingly manual process. Understandably, the various giants of streamland didn’t have incentives to make switching to a rival all that easy.
But Apple’s latest breakthrough turns that on its head. The technology giant has announced an official way to port your Apple Music collection to YouTube Music in just a few clicks. Using the Data Transfer Initiative to build it, the new tool copies playlists and libraries across the two services in a few minutes for most users.
In fact, it is quite easy: go to the Apple online privacy center and select ‘transfer a copy of your data’. You will be brought through to log in with your YouTube Music account to approve the transfer of playlists. Conveniently enough, the tool doesn’t alter your content in Apple Music, more filling in your playlists on YouTube. There are some limitations, like uploaded/collaborated tracks that may not make their way through.
That’s similar to Apple’s photo/video portability feature with Google Photos, in that it makes the movement of music between the two major services frictionless. Surprisingly, Spotify is noticeably absent as a destination for where you’ll want to take your music. It seemingly implies Apple sees YouTube Music as less of a direct threat than Spotify, the market leader. Altogether, this new tool furthers how frictionless it has become in switching between music services.
