This month, Google will finally take the final step in replacing Play Music with YouTube Music: it is deleting all user data on its old music service.
“On February 24, 2021, we will delete all of your data from Google Play Music,” says an email to Google Play Music users. “This includes your music library with all the uploads, purchases and anything you’ve added from Google Play Music. After this date, there will be no way to recover it. “
Before this data, however, you can still download your Google Play Music library and other data through Google Takeout. And you can, of course, transfer your library to YouTube Music. A Google support document contains the details.
As you may remember, Google has plans to abandon Google Play Music since the launch of YouTube Music in 2018. Since then, many customers have received messages about the change, and Google has replaced the Play Music app with YouTube Music on Android 10 in late 2019 and Google stopped selling music in late 2020.
I transitioned to YouTube Music in August 2020 and prefer Google Play Music, but one feature was missing: the ability to control Sonos speakers directly from the app.