Transitioning Between Streams: How to Transfer Playlists Between Apple Music and YouTube Music Effortlessly

How to Move Playlist Library From Apple Music to YouTube Music for a Unified Listening Experience

Westend61/Getty Images

Thanks to a recent update, Apple Music subscribers can now transfer playlists to a YouTube Music profile. This new feature was introduced very quietly, as Apple didn’t make an announcement through its usual avenues. We only learned about the tool after people discovered changes made to one of the company’s support documents .

Subscribers will need to meet certain requirements before migrating anything over. First, you’ll need an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription. Users also need an active YouTube Music account. Fortunately, you don’t need a YouTube Music subscription, so at least moving playlists won’t be a pricey endeavor.

Also: How to get an Apple Music student discount subscription

Assuming you have everything in order, Apple says to head over to its Data and Privacy page , log into your Apple ID account, and select “Transfer a copy of your data.” On the following screen, you can move playlists from Apple Music to YouTube Music. Reportedly , this process can take some time to complete. You’ll receive an email at the end notifying you once it’s over.

There are several limitations you need to be aware of. According to Apple, the only playlists that can be moved are ones you made yourself. Non-collaborative shared or curated playlists cannot make the jump. Organization folders and music files will not be shared either. If a song isn’t on YouTube Music, you won’t be able to listen to it. What’s more, non-music audio files like podcasts aren’t transferred.

Newsletters

ZDNET Tech Today

ZDNET’s Tech Today newsletter is a daily briefing of the newest, most talked about stories, five days a week.

See all

At the time of writing, it appears you can only move playlists to YouTube Music from Apple Music. A second support document claims the opposite is currently possible. You’re supposed to first go to Google Takeout and then follow the instructions there to prepare a YouTube Music playlist for transfer. However, if you go to Google Takeout right now , there is a small message stating support for Apple Music is “coming soon.” The process is not yet available.

Also: How to create a playlist on the YouTube app

It is unknown when the reverse process will roll out. For now, you’ll have to use third-party apps like SongShift on iOS to transfer playlists.

I applaud Apple for being friendlier with third-party services. Something like this is a big win for users. They have the freedom of moving their favorite tracks to another platform without being forced to remake everything from scratch. Speaking from experience, redoing a playlist is a massive pain. It’ll be even better if Apple Music worked with other platforms like Spotify. Although we highly doubt that’ll happen any time soon. The two brands haven’t been on the best terms for several years now.