Playlisty for Spotify: Migrate Apple Music playlists to Spotify
Switching from one service to another is often less of an ideological issue than a technical one: when you switch from one music provider to another, for example, your playlists can fall by the wayside.
As we all know, many mothers have many beautiful daughters: Although I left Spotify for Apple Music years ago, I wanted to see what the other side of the coin looks like nowadays - a constant comparison never hurts.
Admittedly: I haven't regretted the switch from Spotify to Apple Music and the user interface and general handling in particular have simply appealed to me more over the years - even though the start was bumpy back then. Of course, I'm mainly in the Apple microcosm (or “walled garden”, as the case may be) and I don't need to install everything that's included as a second application: That was also a reason for my decision, but above all the “one-stop-shop” approach (which has been superbly implemented both in terms of marketing and technology) cannot be dismissed by a pure Apple user.
So it so happened that I once again risked thinking outside the box and simply wanted to see whether Spotify (especially with a family subscription) might be an option in the long term - after all, I also use Linux desktops from time to time and there is also a suitable client for this: Apple Music, on the other hand, does not offer this (at least natively), solutions such as Cider try to get as close as possible to the original experience. No sooner said than done - so there I was, with a corresponding “listening” history, lots of playlists and starting “naked” again with Spotify (years after deleting my account at the time).
Regardless of the look and feel (Spotify is still insanely fast), it quickly became clear that at least the playlists had to somehow and ideally completely migrate over to Spotify. A little searching and - as luck would have it - I stumbled across Playlisty for Spotify in the AppStore, which, according to the description, should be able to transfer not only the playlists but also the entire library to Spotify. What does it need for this? A free or premium Spotify account and currently EUR 2.99 for the Pro version of the software, which can really take everything with it - and without restrictions (currently unlimited playlists with a limit of 20 songs per playlist).
The migration process
Once the software has been installed, it will first ask you to link to Spotify after the first start. Use the dialog to link the app to your Spotify account (yes, you do need comprehensive rights, but these can be revoked after the migration) and then to Apple Music. Once this is done (services such as YouTube or Deezer can also be linked), you can select the relevant playlists and start the actual import process by clicking on “Next” at the bottom right.
Playlisty then checks which songs from Apple Music match those from Spotify (“matching”) and prepares itself for the migration of playlists and covers to the Swedish streaming service. An overview is then displayed where you can see which songs match, which might match, which don't match and which need to be reviewed manually. If you then click on “Save”, the actual migration process begins.
Results
At the end of the migration there is an overview and on the Spotify side you can see what has just been migrated over. So for EUR 2.99, the app has fulfilled its (mostly one-off) purpose and saves a lot of manual work, at least in terms of the library and especially in terms of playlists, the time required for which cannot be put into words here.
In the event that you ever want to go back from Spotify to Apple Music, there is also Playlisty for Apple Music from the same developer, which can initiate the migration from the other direction - coming from Spotify. The price here: Also 2.99 EUR.
No matter what may come and whether Spotify could be an option again (the price of the Family subscription is still one euro more expensive than Apple Music): It's good to know that you can migrate the content of your own music library from streaming provider 1 to streaming provider 2 (and back again using different software from the same developer) with relatively little effort and a good investment of EUR 2.99. In the end, the user has the choice and also the freedom to be able to take the content, some of which has been cherished and maintained for years, with them 1:1!