It has been on the books for quite a while and now it officially has a date — Google will begin shuttering Google Play Music from September this year and will be done by December.
Beginning in New Zealand and South Africa in September with all other countries beginning in October users will no longer be able to stream music from or use the Google Play Music (GPM) app. Users will have until December to transfer all of their playlists, uploads, purchases and likes from Google Play Music over to YouTube Music. After December though the GPM app will no longer be available.
Even sooner though, end of August, you will no longer be able to purchase and pre-order music or upload and download music from Google Play Music through Music Manager — apparently people still buy music?
For those not switching over to YouTube Music you will be able to extract your music library out using Google Takeout to transfer over to the competitor you are heading off to. If you are continuing on to Google’s YouTube Music then using the dedicated transfer tool is the easiest way to move your music history over. You can transfer from either within the YouTube Music or GPM apps or from the dedicated website.
Google have made some major improvements with YouTube Music over the past few months and they finally have it at a place where they are happy with its feature-parity with GPM and the time has come to either make the switch or move onto something else.
If you decide not to transfer over to YouTube Music Google will cancel your subscription at the end of your billing cycle come December.
Now that we have a final date for GPM who is transferring to YouTube Music and who is opting for other services? Let us know your decision and why in the comments below.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.youtube.music
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.music
