Spotify is introducing a native way to port lists of songs over from rival streamers straight into its app, adding TuneMyMusic right into the mobile experience. The move rids users of the headache of third‑party workarounds and unlocks bulk transfers of huge libraries from the likes of Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal.
It’s a timely quality‑of‑life upgrade. Prices have sneaked up on streaming across the industry over the last two years, and when prices go up, churn comes next. A more seamless on‑ramp lowers the barrier for would‑be switchers and undermines the idea that your playlists are “stuck” where you began. With over 600 million monthly active users and more than 240 million Premium subscribers in its most recent earnings report, Spotify is unambiguously optimizing for converts.
How the New Spotify Playlist Import Feature Works
A new “Import your music” button starts showing up at the bottom of the Your Library tab on mobile. Tap it, select the service or services where that music originates, and then confirm access for TuneMyMusic. You can then pick playlists or your catalogue en masse and get the transfer underway. Importantly, the traditional TuneMyMusic free tier constraint of 500 songs no longer applies here, so thousand‑track megamixes and years‑old favourites can come across intact.
To do this, the transfer process maps songs by several unique identifiers associated with each track — such as its title, artist, album, and at times, ISRC codes — to increase accuracy. Look for fast pairings of major‑label releases and occasional manually timed adjustments for odd or lesser‑known edge cases like regional variations, live performances, or user‑generated uploads that don’t appear on the receiving service.
Since this is a sanctioned integration, authorization happens through regular OAuth screens. You may withdraw access at any time from your source or destination service in your account settings. As with all cross‑platform sync, it’s always wise to peruse permissions granted and double‑check what you’ve ended up importing before nuking stuff on your old account.
Competitive Context and Why This Shift Matters
Spotify’s hardly the first to jump on the more user‑friendly migration bandwagon. Google’s own support documentation has specifically recommended TuneMyMusic for moving stuff from YouTube Music, and tools like Soundiiz and SongShift have served as the connective tissue between ecosystems for years. But onboarding them officially within Spotify eliminates friction at the exact moment users are considering a switch, which typically boosts conversion rates.
This also reflects broader regulatory and consumer expectations for data portability. Though music libraries aren’t “personal data” in the strictest legal sense everywhere, the tide — even outside of music — seems to be turning toward facilitating easier portability of one’s history. In pragmatic terms it erodes the notion of lock‑in and encourages services to compete on value, features, and findability instead of inertia.
More Reasons to Discover Music on Spotify Premium
Alongside imports, Spotify is expanding discovery‑focused tools available to its Premium users. SongDNA provides an interactive look at a song’s collaborators, samples, and covers, making it useful for tracing the lineage of a hit or exploring who played what. An “About the Song” panel is also in the works, providing context about production, influences, and a song’s creative process. These follow expanded song credits already in place, detailing contributors beyond the headline artist.
For listeners, it makes passive streaming a more multi‑layered rabbit hole. Imagine bouncing from a current chart‑topper to the soul classic it samples, to the session guitarist’s side project — without ever leaving the app. This level of exposure adds up to meaningful discovery and incremental streams across back catalogs for rights‑holders and creators.
What to Expect When You Switch Streaming Services
For the most part, those popular playlists should transfer just fine. Expect a few mismatches here and there: Some region‑locked tracks, uncommon remixes, or metadata oddities may not make your move; cover art and descriptions tend to show up fine, editorial or algorithmic lists from your old service usually don’t. 1:1s of smart rules‑based playlists rarely go through, since each platform literally defines them differently.
The payoff is speed. Now it takes minutes to move hundreds or thousands of songs, rather than being a weekend project. This convenience, combined with Premium‑only features that focus on the presentation of musical context, is a direct pitch to listeners who have been reserving judgement until they could avoid re‑entering their music collection.
The Bottom Line on Spotify’s New Playlist Import
By baking playlist imports into the app and jettisoning the practical limits on transfer size, Spotify has stripped away one of the last excuses to stay put in another service. Combined with better credits, with SongDNA and About the Song views on the way, it’s hard to deny that the service is courting switchers with both. If you’ve been waiting for squaresville to become the hippest place on earth, that time has arrived.
