Everyone thinks about switching from Spotify, Apple, Prime Music. Here’s how to switch without losing your music.

  It is one of the hardest things to do on the internet. Switching from one music streaming platform to other. Sure you can cancel Spotify and subscribe to Apple Music or Amazon Music Unlimited quite easily, but what about all of those songs and playlists that live on the Spotify platform? None of the major streaming services make it possible to easily export playlists to another platform. 

   While we may never know how many users switch from one service to another, it is quite likely that many of those users choose to stay on a platform simply because they’ve created playlists that cannot be moved.

 Playlists are sort of like the old “mixtapes” where we used to put music for a certain mood or activity. Maybe you created an awesome “Roadtrip” playlist or one for working out. It’s easy to tap a button on Spotify to listen only to those songs. If you were to switch from Spotify to an Apple Music subscription, those playlists cannot be imported to Apple’s platform.

   The way most people would do this is as a DIY project like this:

  • Create a new playlist on your new service
  • Go to the playlist on the old service
  • Find the song you want to include then go back to the new service
  • Search for that song and add it to the new playlist

For a playlist of 20 songs, it’s going to take a while but for a playlist you’ve created over the past several years that has hundreds of songs, it can take hours or even days. I’ve tried it. It’s tedious work of searching and creating and clicking and dragging. 

Travis Mwangi, a computer programmer in Kenya offers to do that tedious work for anyone wanting to switch services. I found him on the freelancer listing website Fiverr. 

“I feel what holds people back is thinking, I want to move to this new service, but what am I going to do with all of this music?” he said from his home in Kenya over a Zoom call. “How am I going to move all of this music from my old service to the new service?”

He developed software that makes it easy though he wouldn’t tell me how it happens or what program he’s built. He charges a fee to do the work.

“Up to 7 playlists is $20. 30 playlists for $35 and for 50 playlists is $50,” he said.

It’s a growing business as people decide to switch from one service to another without losing their music. Some want to switch because another service offers a better price. Some switch because their favorite artist is no longer available on the platform they use now. Some switch because they hear another platform works better with the device they use. 

There are a few apps for both iPhones and Android devices that will migrate playlists from one service to another. SongShift is one such app that I found to be easy to use. Just log in with your account information for the two platforms, select the playlists you want to copy, and tap another button. SongShift is free for up to 100 songs. For more playlists or songs you’ll need to pay for a subscription.

Mwangi says he can offer a 48-hour turnaround for the music migration but will do it in 24-hours for an additional fee.

see the interview with Travis and the how-to