Three years after Apple developed its iCloud Photo Library transfer tool for Google Photos, the company has introduced a version that exports Apple Music playlists to YouTube Music.
Apple is offering the new Apple Music playlist transfer feature as part of the data export tools on its Data and Privacy page, details of which were revealed in a new support document published by Apple on Tuesday.
The process is very simple: users log into the Data & Privacy page on Apple’s support website, select Transfer a Copy of Your Data, and the Apple Music playlist transfer option will appear.
To use this tool, you’ll need an active Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription, and of course, a YouTube Music account.
The transfer will take a while to complete, but users will be notified via email once it’s done. Synced playlists will appear in the Library tab of YouTube Music.
This tool has some limitations, such as it won’t sync songs that aren’t available on YouTube Music. This is not a file sync service, so it doesn’t transfer files. Instead, it’s similar to other song sync services that match song titles.
Apple Music curated playlists like ALT CTRL won’t be synced, nor will collaborative playlists owned by other users.Non-music podcasts and other audio files left over from your traditional iTunes library won’t be transferred either.
The ability to transfer music between services is made possible by the open-source Data Transfer Project, which Google also uses, meaning that anyone wanting to leave YouTube Music and join Apple Music can do so through a similar process: select YouTube from the Google dashboard and transfer your data.
Users looking to switch to other services like Spotify should stick to paid apps and services like Song Shift.