Building a truly excellent Spotify playlist sometimes takes years of painstaking work. However, if you’re considering switching to YouTube Music, chances are you want to take those invaluable playlists with you. While neither Spotify nor YouTube Music provide a native way to import or export playlists, there’s still a way to do it. Below, we share the best apps to help you transfer your Spotify playlists to YouTube Music without breaking a sweat.
Content
- 1. Soundiiz (Web)
- 2. FreeYourMusic (Desktop, Mobile)
- 3. Playlist Buddy (Web)
- 4. SongShift (iOS)
- Frequently Asked Questions
Tip: trying to play music in Spotify for Web and it’s not working? We have some tips on how to fix that.
1. Soundiiz (Web)
Price: Free / starting at $4.50 per month
Soundiiz is a web application that lets you easily transfer your playlists between more than 40 different streaming services. Besides the convenience of not having to download an application, Soundiiz allows you to choose between moving playlists, tracks, albums, and artists. Although free users can opt for only one of the above categories at a time, the transfer process is fast and smooth. Soundiiz will work great for you if you have a select few playlists with less than 200 tracks each. But if you’re looking to transfer your “Liked Songs” playlist, you may have to look somewhere else, as that’s a premium-exclusive feature.
Pros
- No need to download a separate program
- Ample freedom to move tracks and playlists between many streaming services, including iHeartRadio, Tidal, Bandcamp, and more
- Sleek UI provides a satisfying transfer experience
- Ability to auto-sync between services and move your entire music collection in one go (Premium)
Cons
- The wealth of features might make the transfer experience a bit confusing at first
- Free users can move only one playlist at a time
- Occasional issues while detecting songs from services like Deezer
2. FreeYourMusic (Desktop, Mobile)
Price: Price / starting at $14.99 (pay once)
FreeYourMusic takes a different approach to transferring music between your favorite streaming services. Instead of bombarding the user with countless features, it focuses only on moving your playlists and albums between services. Supporting around 20 platforms, FreeYourMusic allows you to access its services on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and even Linux. We tried the Windows and Android applications, and both were quick to display the source and destination screen on launch. Bogged down by some platform login issues on the Windows app, the application still managed to transfer all the playlists, including “Liked Songs.”
Pros
- Uncluttered UI allows users to initiate the actual transfer process quickly
- No limit to the number of playlists you can transfer in one go
- Transferring “Liked Songs” is part of the free plan
- Allows auto-sync between services (Premium)
Cons
- Connecting Spotify and YouTube Music took a few tries, with the Windows app forcing us to reconnect to YouTube Music after every launch
- There’s a limit of 300 songs in the free plan
Good to know: Spotify lets you create collaborative playlists with friends.
3. Playlist Buddy (Web)
Price: Free
Playlist Buddy is a barebones web application that was created only to transfer playlists from Spotify to YouTube Music and vice versa. While you may not be impressed by its limited platform support and lackluster UI, it packs a punch where it matters the most: reliability and speed. Compared to some other free services, Playlist Buddy showed a high success rate when moving Spotify playlists to YouTube Music. There are some limits here, too, but the application will be a good choice for users looking to transfer a few chosen playlists.
Pros
- Considerably faster than other services
- Per-playlist track limit is higher than other services
- Reliable transfer
Cons
- The UI could be improved
- Only Spotify and YouTube Music are supported as of now
- Only one playlist can be transferred at a time
- No option to transfer “Liked Songs”
4. SongShift (iOS)
Price: Free / $4.99 per month
SongShift is ideal for iPhone users and not just subscribers to Apple Music. You can get a decent playlist transfer experience, no matter which one of its 12 supported streaming services you use. It’s available only as an iOS app but deserves a spot on our list due to its ease of use and breadth of features – even in the free version. It goes to great lengths to confirm whether every playlist transfer or “shift” went through successfully, even allowing you to review the process and rematch some of the tracks that couldn’t be matched the first time.
Pros
- Great user experience, courtesy of App Store standards
- Offers features not usually available in free plans, such as unlimited tracks per playlist
- Ability to add multiple source platforms and initiate batch transfers (Premium)
Cons
- Slower than other transfer services, with speedier transfers being offered in the paid plans
- Only 12 platforms currently supported, including Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Tidal
- No option to transfer “Liked Songs”
Tip: want a new Spotify username? Here’s how you can change it together with email and a password.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I remove duplicates from my Spotify playlist before transferring?
Duplicate tracks can always sneak into Spotify playlists, no matter how careful you are. But you can easily remove them from your playlist using either your computer or mobile device (via your browser). If you don’t know where to start, follow our guide to remove duplicates from your Spotify playlist, and you can get rid of those annoying repeat tracks on your shuffle playlist.
Can I add local tracks to YouTube Music and create playlists with them?
YouTube Music allows you to play tracks from your local storage in the app, even if you haven’t purchased a YouTube Premium subscription. You can visit music.youtube.com to add your local tracks to your music library. Note that you cannot currently add tracks using the app, but you can create playlists from your added tracks and play them in the background, ad-free, without a YouTube Premium membership.
Which music streaming service is the best for playing local tracks?
YouTube Music remains one of the best streaming apps that lets you add and play your local music in the app without any extra charge. But Spotify still reserves this feature for its premium subscribers.
Image credit: Unsplash. All screenshots by Tanveer Singh.
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Tanveer Singh
After a 7-year corporate stint, Tanveer found his love for writing and tech too much to resist. An MBA in Marketing and the owner of a PC building business, he writes on PC hardware, technology, video games, and Windows. When not scouring the web for ideas, he can be found building PCs, watching anime, or playing Smash Karts on his RTX 3080 (sigh).
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