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According to a report from 9to5 Google, the time for the eventual transition from Google Play Music to YouTube Music could finally be near. 9to5 has two sources inside Google who are talking not only about the promised migration tools, but also about a mid 2020 timeline that includes not only a full-blown move over to YouTube Music, but the end of Google Play Music as well.
If you’ve been keeping up with this saga over the past few years, you know all about Google’s waffling with the YouTube Music transition. The app and service weren’t great when they launched, but over the course of many months, we’ve come pretty close to feature parity between YouTube Music and Play Music through very regular updates. Apart from the web player still missing a built-in cast feature, I could make the transition to YouTube Music if necessary at this point.
The problem? Google promised tools for users to migrate over their preferences, playlists, and personal libraries, too. Google Play Music is one of the few standing music services that still allows users to upload personal libraries of tunes to their accounts. Right now, this feature is missing from YouTube Music and there is no way to migrate over your playlists and preferences from Play Music, either. Though new features have been added at a nice pace to YouTube Music, most users haven’t made the jump and are waiting on the promised migration tools first.
It seems those tools are close to reality as one of the sources for 9to5 Google report that there is an internal version of the app that has the ability to accept uploads of personal music libraries. With this being the final issue to sort out, it seems the transition over to YouTube Music as Google’s only streaming music solution is quite close. As long as Google can help users get their personal music, playlists, and collections moved over, I think the transition will be pretty smooth overall. Sure, the interface is a bit different for YouTube Music, but much of what makes for a great streaming music service is already in place. With these final tweaks, it could be nearing time for all of us to say goodbye to Google Play Music.
