Google has again warned users of the now dead Play Music to save their data before it’s gone and deleted forever on 24th February.
The company has sent out this warning via email to users who have used Play Music in the past. Play Music was killed off in September 2020 but the playlists, stations, liked / disliked songs and other data is still sticking around on Google’s servers until later this month.
“On February 24, 2021, we will delete all of your Google Play Music data. This includes your music library with any uploads, purchases and anything you’ve added from Google Play Music. After this date, there will be no way to recover it,” the email reads.
All of this is in service to YouTube Music which will replace Play Music as the audio streaming service of choice from Google. Thankfully, before your data is deleted, you can save your content by transferring it to YouTube Music.
We have a full guide available for you here. If you have a particularly large library Google does warn that it may take a few hours for everything to be moved over. In our experience it should take between 10 – 20 minutes for a relatively modest collection, but it will obviously vary.
It should be noted that you will get Google’s latest email with this information even if you have already made the migration.
“You’ve already transferred to YouTube Music. But, if you’ve made any changes, you still have the option to transfer again so your music library is up to date. If you would like to download your Google Play Music library and data, you can do so with Google Takeout before February 24, 2021.,” the message continues.
We’ve been using YouTube Music for a while now and we honestly don’t find it any better or any worse compared to Play Music. It’s still an inconvenience to move, however, and we’re not sure why Google simply didn’t make the process automatic.
Regardless of the reasoning here you will need to bow to Google’s way of doing things if you like to listen to music and other audio content on its platform. Make sure you’ve taken the necessary steps before your data is erased.
