Music and Android
Wherefore art thou Google Play Music?
A couple of years ago we wrote an article about playing music on Android devices. We looked at streaming, streaming with offline playback available, and playing music loaded on your device.
We particularly liked Spotify for music streaming, and of course the popularity of Spotify has continued to grow. We also looked at Google Play Music (which came pre-installed on Android devices), YouTube Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and Apple Music streaming services.
Google Play Music
All had their strong points, but with Google Play Music you had the ability to upload your own library of songs to your account then stream them to any device. Even better, you did not need a paid account for this so it could be entirely free, and with no ads. It also provided a great way to back up your personal music collection in the cloud.
But it seems all great services on the net eventually disappear. In early 2020 Google announced that Play Music would be phased out over the year and that YouTube Music would take its place. Existing users could migrate their information and playlists to YouTube Music, plus they could download any music they had purchased or uploaded.
Going, going, gone
Parts of this process were a little clunky and the deadline was extended twice, with 24th of February 2021 becoming the final date for retrieving purchased or uploaded music, and transferring playlists to YouTube Music. After that, all Play Music accounts and their contents were deleted from Google’s servers.
Unfortunately significant numbers of users were caught out by this process, with many saying they had no notification. A check of our emails found that, starting in August 2020, Google had sent a few announcements and reminders through Gmail, with the last one reading as in the picture to the right...
Essentially, anyone who did not download or transfer by the 24th Feb was out of luck, and will have to rebuild their playlists.
So what are the options now?
YouTube Music
The simplest thing is to migrate to YouTube Music the way Google intended, even though you will lose a few features and capabilities. YouTube Music was the new kid on the streaming block a couple of years ago, but has come a long way. Despite its limitations there is a lot to like, including that all music clips on YouTube are available to stream.
The free version has ads and limitations such as requiring the screen to be on during playback, but the premium version has an “audio only” mode that lets you switch the screen off while playing music. It also lets you upload your own music for streaming, as long as it is happy with your digital rights to the music.
If you go one step further and subscribe to YouTube Premium (previously YouTube Red), it includes YouTube Music Premium and the ability to download media to your device for offline playing. To save music for offline listening, tap on the three dot menu icon next to any song, playlist, or album, and select Save Offline. You will also be given the option to save any associated video if applicable.
Apple Music
YouTube Premium lets you mix local and streaming content, more or less the way you used to on
Google Play Music. But ironically, the closest service to Google Play Music that is currently available is Apple Music. The Apple Music app is available for Android at the Play Store, and it supposedly lets you upload 100,000 of your own songs (we haven’t tested this!), but of course there are no free options, and the app seems a bit buggy with further development needed.
Offline playback on other paid subscriptions
Spotify, and most of these similar paid subscription services, allow you to download playlists of songs to your devices for offline playback. Do this overnight via Wi-Fi to save your mobile data.
How to stream your own music for free
With most of the services we have looked at you need to be a paid subscriber to upload and stream your own music, which could be done entirely for free with Google Play Music. Are there other alternatives?
iBroadcast
This app seems to be the most up to date and reliable alternative for free streaming of your own music, and is probably the best current replacement for this feature of Google Play Music.
You create an account, and can then upload music from your computer, or can install the MediaSync Lite app from the Google Play Store to upload directly from your Android device. Once your music is uploaded you can organise, tag and put it into playlists that you can stream wherever you are.
Like Google Play Music, this means iBroadcast provides a free cloud backup of your music, accessible from all your devices.
Other options to try
There are so many music and video streaming apps that we could never cover them all, but we suggest looking at Plex, SoundCloud and Astiga for starters.
Plex is very interesting in that it provides a large range of streaming content on the app with no account or payment required. And if you want to stream your own music, you can use Plex to essentially create your own streaming server running on your computer.
Don’t stream, play music stored on your device
What if you want to go old school and just use your phone like an MP3 player? Google Play Music was a good app for managing that, but it’s gone, so what are the alternatives?
Muzio Player - Music Player – MP3 Player, by Apps10X
We looked at a lot of dedicated music players, and found the Muzio Player app rather impressive. It supports a huge range of file formats and has an intuitive graphic interface which includes features such as search by Artist, Album and Composer, plus a graphic equaliser, a sleep timer, and even a ringtone creator. Search for Muzio Player in the Google Play Store and give it a try.