For many music fans, signing up for Spotify was likely less of a choice and more of the default app. Not only does its free tier help convert members into future subscribers, but the discovery and social tools on the app are second to none. Of course, Spotify's faced its own fair share of criticism and controversy lately, both in response to its original programming and its payouts to musicians — numbers that, even by the standards set in the age of streaming music, are considered low.
Maybe you've had enough of Spotify, or you've been dying to try out a new streaming service and see this as a golden opportunity. Maybe getting into Joni Mitchell was one of your resolutions for 2022, and now you have no choice but to jump ship. If you're looking to move to a new platform, you don't need to leave your entire library behind. Several applications make it easy to transfer playlists, albums, and liked songs to the competition. Unfortunately, you might have to drop a few bucks to get it done efficiently.
How to move your Spotify library on Android
We're an Android-focused site, so let's start with an app you can grab from the Play Store right now — no desktop browser required. FreeYourMusic supports nearly every platform under the sun, including Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music. The app requires you to link your accounts for each respective service — which might be a dealbreaker for some readers, though, in my experience, it's a required step with all of these options.
Once you've logged in with your Spotify account and the receiving service, you're set to start transferring. FreeYourMusic allows you to select playlists and albums from your library, along with your entire list of liked songs. There's also a "Select all" option, though tapping this reveals an early look into a consistent problem with all of these transfer methods: it's not free. In this case, FreeYourMusic will prompt you to switch to a premium account to transfer albums — otherwise, you're locked into playlists only.
No problem, you might say to yourself. Adding albums manually is an easy enough task; playlists are the real challenge. Starting your transfer kicks you to a progress screen, but once you've hit 100 transferred songs, it locks down completely. FreeYourMusic requires, at minimum, a "Basic" account for handling your entire library. It's priced at a one-time payment of $11.99 in-app — roughly the cost of one month of any leading music service available right now. "Premium" plans are also available for anyone trying to swap between multiple subscriptions, though for most users, sticking with the one-time charge is probably all they'll need.
FreeYourMusic managed to transfer my first 100 songs pretty quickly and without any issue. Obviously, having to fork over a pretty penny to finish the bulk of your collection isn't something most of us want to do. If you're looking to make the jump from Spotify to a competitor, it's a (relatively) small price to pay to save the time of rebuilding your library.
How to move your Spotify library on Chrome
If you'd rather opt for a desktop experience, you can turn to services like Tune My Music and Soundiiz. Both offer basic plans with hard caps for how many songs you can move without paying.
I used Soundiiz years ago, paying for a single month's subscription to transfer my Google Play Music library to Spotify during the earliest days of YouTube Music. It's still available, with plans starting at $4.50 for a month's worth of use. Every account gets 200 songs available for free, an improvement over FreeYourMusic's relatively limited cap. Just remember to cancel your plan before it renews.
I hadn't tested Tune My Music before, but with 500 songs available for transfer without having to pay, I figured it was well worth a shot. Signing up followed the same process as FreeYourMusic — hand over your account data, select the music worth transferring, and hit the start button. Unfortunately, while Apple Music did add a matching playlist into my account, it didn't actually populate it with any of my songs — presumably because the list was longer than 500 total tracks. A shorter playlist did make its way over without any issue, so be careful when you're selecting which mixes to move if you aren't planning on dropping a dime.
At $4.50 per month, Tune My Music aligns with Soundiiz's pricing 1:1, so which you choose really comes down to personal preference. Ultimately, I think both prices are pretty easy to stomach, albeit with the risk that you forget to cancel before being recharged.
Can I transfer my library for free?
As far as I can tell, the only completely free option is to move over your library manually, forgoing these services altogether. For some people, that might sound like a tedious task, a Saturday afternoon they'd rather spend with loved ones rather than hunched over a laptop. Others might find a fresh start as a great way to teach their new streaming service about their current taste in music. After all, do you really need YouTube Music thinking you're all about LMFAO in 2022?
If you want to avoid costs and save some time, you could combine the caps of all the various transfer platforms online to get the bulk of your collection over. It won't cover everything, but if you're willing to sign up for multiple services, getting 2,000 songs or so from Spotify to Apple Music or YouTube Music shouldn't be impossible — especially if you can take advantage of iOS-exclusive apps like SongShift on a friend's device. If you can get a handful of your favorite playlists to start, making up for the rest with some manual labor shouldn't be too hard.
Starting with a clean slate might work well for some people, but if you want to recreate your Spotify experience on a competitor's product, consider taking the plunge on these services. If you've got some patience and a few extra bucks laying around, switching to a new music platform is a whole lot easier than you might expect.