Is there a way to export Spotify playlist?

When the Apple One subscription bundle launched, it caused even the most ardent Spotify fan to consider the merits of switching music-streaming services. But since then, there haven't been too many reasons to entice Spotify users over to Apple Music. The cut-price Voice Plan, where you only use Siri to summon your favorite tracks, seems far from a masterstroke (just try asking it to play “Metamatic” by John Foxx). 

But now we have Rogangate. A chorus of disapproval from outside the streaming apps has seen artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell request that their music be removed from Spotify in protest against content in Joe Rogan’s podcast. Young said Spotify had become “the home of life-threatening Covid misinformation” and that the platform could have “Rogan or Young. Not both.” 

Apple Music acted swiftly in a bout of schadenfreude, promoting Neil Young's music via push notifications, as well as creating “We Love Neil” and “We Love Joni Too” public playlists.

Spotify's response was not to drop Rogan, but to say it “regrets” Neil Young’s decision. The Apple Music rival then made public its “platform rules and approach to Covid-19.” The rules include further steps Spotify is now taking, such as adding “a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about Covid-19. This advisory will direct listeners to our dedicated Covid-19 hub.” This includes Joe Rogan.

Rogan weighed in through a video on Instagram. The host apologized to Spotify and said, “I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people's perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.”

Whether this whole saga has suddenly made Apple Music more appealing or you were intent on ditching Spotify anyway, making the switcheroo while keeping all your carefully curated playlists is extremely easy.

My personal favorite solution is SongShift—a tool I’ve used for many years with little trouble. It allows you to move your playlists back and forth between a range of popular streaming platforms—for free. 

One of the big tasks the switching app has to complete is matching your songs correctly with tracks on a different streaming service. With SongShift, over several years of using it and many shifts, it has only mismatched a song once. Read on to find out how to do it yourself.

Download SongShift

First off, you’ll want to download SongShift from the App Store. Once you’ve got it, it’s as simple as selecting the supported music services you want to transfer to and from, and then logging in to each via SongShift.

Transfer Your Spotify Playlists

In this case, you’ll want to sign in to Spotify and Apple Music via the SongShift app itself.

Once you’ve signed in to each, click Setup Source and choose the playlist you’d like to transfer from Spotify. Next, select Setup Destination and choose Apple Music. Then simply click I’m Finished, and the transfer of your precious playlists will begin.

Review Your Transfer

You can now review SongShift’s work to check that everything is in order. Select Ready for Review and browse all the matches the app has made. If there’s a mistake, select the problem match, which you can then rematch by manually searching for the correct song. Click Confirm Matches when you’re all done, and SongShift will create the new playlist in your destination.

That’s it. You’re switched. In an age of locked-down ecosystems, it is admittedly surprising that there is still such a quick solution—so use it while it’s around.

Switching From Apple Music to Spotify

You can also send your latest playlists back the other way—from Apple Music to Spotify—should you ever change your mind. You might decide to do that if you were a reluctant Apple Music user who jumped across to iOS to take advantage of things like offline listening on your Apple Watch. Spotify recently announced it was adding this very feature, including on Wear OS for Android smartwatches, so you could be contemplating another move.

To switch your playlists back from Apple Music to Spotify, simply follow the above steps with the music streaming services swapped around to get the desired results. It's just as fast and just as simple in reverse.

The Best Bluetooth Speakers for Your Spotify and Apple Music Listening Sessions

Combing through streaming services to find new tracks and forming perfectly curated playlists of your favourites is all well and good, but what about something to them on. It's an essential part of the equation. WIRED has tested a wide range of Bluetooth speakers.

Our top pick is the Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3 (£169). It's a party speaker with booming bass that doesn't neglect detail. It also comes with waterproofing, up to 20 hours battery life as well as the option to team it up with other UE speakers. It's also got a long range of 45m so you can go about your business relatively carefree without worrying it'll disconnect–think playing football on the beach or dashing to grab another drink.

Spotify lets you sort playlists by traditional song metadata like artist and track name, but what if you want to sort by genre or even danceability?

Fortunately, there's a third party tool called Exportify that can help us. The first time you use it, it will prompt you to log in using your Spotify account. Then, you'll be presented with a list of your playlists:

Simply click on the export button next to the playlist you want to download and open the spreadsheet.

Now you can sort by whichever metric you want, based on the columns available. You'll find song info that isn't available in Spotify's interface, like energy, tempo, genre, and more:

Once your spreadsheet playlist is in the order you want, it's time to reimport it into your library. Spotify doesn't let us do this directly, but fortunately it does support copying and pasting song urls into playlists. As such, we'll we need to add a column to generate the song urls.

We'll be relying on the song IDs in column A, so we'll start by inserting a blank column to the right of it. Then, copy and paste the following formula into cell B2:

=CONCATENATE("https://open.spotify.com/track/",A2)

This adds the song ID to Spotify's url structure. Fill in the rest of the column, and select all of the urls. You should see something like this:

Copy and paste the urls into a new Spotify playlist and voilà – a perfectly sorted playlist.

Spotify is trending for all the wrong reasons right now, with a host of artists following Neil Young in leaving the service and some subscribers doing the same. It's all related to Young's allegation that The Joe Rogan Experience podcast is "spreading fake information about vaccines," and the controversy doesn't look like dying down any time soon. In fact, it's moving quickly now, so we're bringing you all the latest developments on the story in our Spotify Joe Rogan Controversy live blog.

Apple Music has been quick to capitalize on the situation, putting out tweets that "Apple Music is the home of Neil Young," and giving Young's playlists prominent spots in the service. But whether you're one of those subscribers now looking for a new music streaming service as a result or were already thinking of changing, you might be put off by the fear that you'll lose all of your perfectly curated playlists. 

Fortunately, it's fairly easy to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music or another service — or indeed to move them from Apple Music to Spotify if you're going the other way.  

So if you are moving, or just want consistency across all your different music app subscriptions, here's how to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music or another streaming service.

How to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music: Before you start

Before we get into the individual steps for transferring Spotify playlists to Apple Music, there are a few things you’ll need. Obviously, chief among these are active Spotify and Apple Music accounts; you should also have both apps installed on your phone.

The best way to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music is by using a third-party app. However, since there are different apps specific to each mobile OS, we’ve split this guide into two. First, we’ll look at how to transfer Spotify playlists on iOS, so scroll down below that if you want to know how to transfer playlists on Android.

Also bear in mind that the steps below will work for other services, with only minor differences, making it easy to transfer playlists from Apple Music to Tidal or from Deezer to Spotify and so on.

How to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music on iOS

1. Download and install SongShift from the App Store. The free version will let you transfer one playlist at a time, while upgrading to SongShift Pro ($4.99/£4.99 per month) lets you transfer multiple playlists at once.

2. In SongShift, you’ll need to sync your Apple Music and Spotify accounts. Tap Apple Music at the top of the list, then tap 'Continue' followed by 'Connect.'

3. Tap 'OK' to let SongShift access your Apple Music library. Under 'Connect Cloud Library,' tap 'Connect.' This will open the iTunes site in a browser.

4. Sign in using your Apple ID, entering any 2-Factor Authentication details if you have it enabled.

5. Tap 'Allow.' Apple Music is now synced, and you’ll be returned to the list of available services in SongShift.

6. Scroll down to Spotify and tap it. Enter your Spotify account credentials and tap 'Log In.'

7. Read the terms and conditions and tap 'Agree.'

8. Spotify is now also synced, and again you’ll be returned to the list of available apps This time, tap 'Continue' at the top.

9. Tap 'Get Started,' then the '+' symbol that appears in the top-right of the app.

10. If you haven’t used SongShift before, you’ll be offered the chance to view a short tutorial, but it isn’t necessary, so tap 'Dismiss.'

11. Tap 'Setup Source' then tap on the Spotify icon and hit 'Continue.' Note that 'Playlist' will be highlighted by default, but you can also use this method to transfer albums and individual songs.

12. Select the Spotify playlist you want to transfer and tap 'Done' in the top-right corner. If you’re using SongShift Pro you can choose to add multiple playlists here; on the free version, that option is greyed out.

13. SongShift should automatically select Apple Music as the destination. Tap 'I’m Finished' and wait for processing to complete.

14. Once 'Processing' changes to 'Ready for Review,' tap on the playlist. Here you can review any failed matches — in other words, Spotify songs that weren’t found to have an identical Apple Music version. If you want you can tap 'Re-match' and manually search for the song in Apple’s Music’s library, or you can just tap 'Ignore,' which will leave it off the playlist.

15. Once you’ve reviewed the matches, tap 'Confirm Matches' and wait for the process to complete. On the next screen, once 'Processed results' is checked, tap 'Continue.'

16. While SongShift doesn’t make it abundantly clear, that’s it — you’ve transferred your Spotify playlist to Apple Music, and can now find it in the latter’s Library section.

How to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music on Android

1. Download and install Soundiiz from the Play Store. It’s free, though unlike SongShift you’ll need to create an account.

2. Tap 'Sign up' or opt to sign in using your Google, Facebook, Apple or Twitter account.

3. Tap 'Let’s go' and you’ll see a list of installed music apps. Start syncing Spotify by tapping 'Connect.'

4. Sign in to your Spotify account and tap 'Log in.'

5. Read the terms and conditions and tap 'Agree.'

6. Spotify is now synced, so look for Apple Music in the music app list and tap 'Connect' for it.

7. Tap 'Sign in to Apple Music.' This will open the Soundiiz site in a browser, rather than iTunes, but enter your Soundiiz credentials all the same.

8. Tap 'Sign in to Apple Music.' This will open another browser tab.

9. Enter your Apple Music credentials and tap 'Allow.'

10. This part is slightly unintuitive, but you’ll need to manually return to the Soundiiz app and tap the 'X' in the top-right corner. This should return you to the apps list, with Apple Music now being connected.

11. Tap the 'X' again and you’ll see a list of all your playlists across both Spotify and Apple Music. Select the Spotify playlist you want to transfer, then tap 'Convert.'

12. Optionally, enter a new name and description for the playlist as it will appear on Apple Music. Tap 'Save configuration.'

13. Review the list of songs that will be transferred; to remove a song from the playlist before it’s transferred over, tap the song to uncheck it. Otherwise. Tap 'Confirm.'

14. Tap the Apple Music icon to select it as a destination. Wait for the conversion process to finish, then tap 'Show.'

15. You’ll be shown the playlist you’ve transferred, which can now be found in Apple Music. Happy listening.

Once you've mastered how to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music, you might also be interested in How to change Spotify username, How to download songs in Spotify or our favorite Spotify hidden features. Or, if you are leaving, here's how to delete your Spotify account and how we see the Apple Music vs. Spotify battle.

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