Google Play Music is still superior to YouTube Music for people who just want to listen to their own uploaded songs, even if YouTube Music has been catching up a lot lately. But with the demise of the Google Play Music Manager ahead of the full shutdown, users are left without an automated solution for uploading their local library. That's where an open-source tool comes in: The unofficial YTMusicUploader replicates the Music Manager's capabilities and lets you choose a path on your Windows computer for automatic uploading to YTM.
As German Caschys Blog first highlighted, the tool behaves just like the Google Play Music desktop uploader of old. The .Net application written in C# sits in your system tray and monitors specified paths for changes, automatically uploading new files to your YouTube Music account. It also checks whether songs are already present in your library, but beware that you need 100% identical metadata for this to work — you might end up with duplicate uploads if that's not the case. It's possible to throttle the speed so the tool doesn't eat up all of your bandwidth, and you can specify whether or not you want the program to start with Windows.
YTMusicUploader also gives you an overview of the music uploaded to your library and lets you delete files right through its interface.
Since YouTube Music doesn't have an official API for file uploading, the developers had to create a rather hacky solution. The application mimics the HTTP requests and responses from the YouTube Music website, utilizing its authentication cookies. That's why the app comes with a browser, which allows you to sign in to YouTube Music. Once that's done, you can start syncing your local files with your library. Some people report that the tool is rather buggy with failed uploads, but they could fix the problem with application and PC restarts. For a more detailed breakdown of the technical background, check out YTMusicUploader's Github page.
Because of this hacky solution, the application could cease to work without warning at any moment. In a worst-case scenario, Google might even sanction users who rely on this unofficial upload method, all the way up to Google account suspension, so you'll have to proceed at your own risk.
YTMusicUploader is available for download on Github. If you're technically inclined, you can also check out the source code to help with development or make sure nothing fishy is going on. The developers are looking to add the ability to upload playlists in the future — if their tool remains functional, that is.
Source: Github
Via: Caschys Blog