How-To

Groove Music Pass is Dead. Move Your Music from Groove to Spotify on Windows 10

Microsoft Groove Music to Spotify

Microsoft’s Groove Music streaming service has fallen victim to Spotify and is set to end January 31st, 2018. Here’s how to make the switch.

Microsoft recently announced that it’s retiring the Groove Music Pass in favor of Spotify. This means you’ll no longer have the option to stream or purchase music from the company. While it might seem like a daunting task to switch, Microsoft is making the transition simple and straight-forward. Here’s a look at how to transfer your music and playlists from Groove Music to Spotify and download any music you’ve purchased through Microsoft.

Note: The Groove Music app isn’t done for – just the streaming music service is ending. That means you can still use the app to play your own music collection as well as any music you’ve uploaded to OneDrive or FLAC files (Spotify can’t play them). The app will continue to be updated and offered on Windows 10, iOS, Android, and Xbox.

Move from Groove Music to Spotify

To start the process, open the Groove Music app and you should see the following message explaining the change – select the “Move my music” button.

Microsoft Groove Music Moving to Spotify Message

Next, you’ll see that you need to connect Groove with your Spotify account by logging in with your email or Facebook. If you don’t have a Spotify account already, it gives you the option to sign up.

After you log in, you need to agree to software terms and verify that you want to connect Groove to Spotify. After you have everything set up and connected, you’re ready to move your playlists, songs, and albums to Spotify. You’ll see a series of ad banners for Spotify in the progress window while you wait.

4 Moving Music

Once the transfer has completed you’ll get an All Done message shown below. Click the Launch Spotify button and it will open the app store so you can install it if you don’t have it already.

5 Move Finished Launch Spotify

After I transferred everything from my Groove account, it all seemed to show up in Spotify, playlists and all. I do have a huge collection so I am not sure everything transferred correctly, but I haven’t had any complaints yet. One thing I have noticed, though, is that some of the songs in my playlists are in different orders.

Spotify Music App

Keep in mind that Spotify is free to stream music but is ad-supported. You get ads while streaming music (similar to what Pandora does) and ad banners in the app. Upgrading to Premium gets rid of the ads and provides other options like a higher streaming quality and unlimited song skips. The price is $9.99/month and the company offers family and student plans, too.

It’s also worth noting that if your Groove Music Pass subscription goes beyond the cutoff date, Microsoft will give you a prorated refund from December 31, 2017, onwards. Also, everyone will get a free 60 days of Spotify Premium. According to the company’s FAQ page: “If you’re a current Groove Music Pass subscriber eligible under Spotify’s terms and move your music to Spotify before January 31, 2018, you’ll receive 60 days of Spotify Premium for free. Spotify will check if you’re eligible for the free 60 days of Spotify Premium.”

Download Purchased Music from Groove

Another thing you will want to do is download any songs or albums you’ve purchased. Open the Groove Music app in Windows 10 and select My music > Albums and change the filter to Purchased. That will show you each of the albums you’ve purchased from Groove over the years.

Download Purchased Music

To download an album, right-click it and select Download. Or, hold down Ctrl and select each one you want, right-click and choose Download.

Select and Download all

After you’ve downloaded your music, you might want to upload it to OneDrive and play it through Groove. You will typically find your downloaded music in the below folder unless you’ve changed the download location.

C:\Users\[yourusername]\Music\Purchases

File Explorer Downloaded Music

To learn more about this transition, or have questions related to a specific issue, you can check out Microsoft’s Music and Spotify FAQ or contact customer support.

What do you think of Microsoft getting out of the music streaming business? If you’re a Groove Music user, will you move to Spotify or go with something else? Leave a comment below and let us know.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. beth

    it is all well and good until groove tells me they cannot connect to my Spotify account and to run it to give permissions when i am already signed into my account. what gives with that?

  2. John Caplan

    Try out MusConv (musconv.com/) to convert your music and playlists into different music platforms. It’s easy-to-use and I’d highly recommend it.

  3. Bartek

    Why isn’t there a way to upload the playlists data on a file and export it to other platforms? Shame. Still there’s apps like Stamp that do just that and have 100% music find rate. It’s quick, easy and effective.

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