On July 14, 2020 I received a note from Google they would be phasing out Google Play Music later this year (to be determined) in favor of YouTube Music. They offer a one-click method of transferring your music from Google Play Music (GPM) to YouTube Music (YTM.) Be very careful if you choose to do so.
Google Play Music
I noticed today, in my playlists uploaded from iTunes to GPM many songs were repeated as many as four or five times. Not sure why that happened. There are some Python scripts available online to deal with this, but the easier method, IMO, is to just delete everything uploaded and upload it again. Hopefully, with the new upload it won’t create the duplicates. When you delete your uploaded Library, Google tells you it can take several hours to sync out, so don’t start uploading your music again until you’re sure the old is gone. Easy to verify in a browser.
YouTube Music
This is the problem I’ve encountered with YouTube Music. It’s twofold. One, there is no way to delete an entire Library in YTM at the moment. So all those playlists that transferred from GPM have all the duplicates and Google says the only way to deal with that is one-by-one. Now, that could be a royal pain!
Problem #2. With GPM, there appears to be a time limit on how long even your own uploaded music will play without a subscription. With GPM, I’ve literally had music play all day long. But, as I started deleting my Library today, naturally GPM stopped. So, I switched to YTM. After about an hour, it stopped. I played the next song in the queue figuring it was a hiccup. Nope. After one more song, it quit again.
The moral: Google like all the other services, won’t let you play unlimited music on YTM without paying them. And, if there are errors in the Library, such as multiple dupes in the playlists, there’s no way, including deleting the entire Library like in GPM to deal with it.
Consider yourself cautioned.
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