How To: Transfer Your Spotify Playlists to Apple Music from an iPhone or Android Phone

Music streaming services make it difficult to transfer your favorite songs and artists from one service to another and for a valid reason: they don't want you to leave. But when it comes to switching, playlists are a big concern, because who wants to do it all over again? Luckily, if you're moving from Spotify to Apple Music, you can use a third-party app to take playlists with you.

There is an app called Stamp that will do the trick on both an iPhone and Android phone, but there's a downside to it: You can only transfer ten songs per session for free. Otherwise, it costs $9.99 for one platform or $14.99 for all platforms. That's a pretty hefty price tag if you're only changing music streaming services once.

For a totally free experience, we recommend you try SongShift on iOS and Soundiiz on Android, which we'll outline below. Both let you transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music, but since they are from different developers, the process for doing so is not the same. No matter what service you use, if there are songs in your Spotify playlist that aren't available on Apple Music, they will not be transferred.

• Jump to a section: iOS Instructions | Android Instructions

Method 1: Transfer Spotify Playlists to Apple Music (iOS)

SongShift for iOS is fast, easy, straightforward, and gratis. While free for our purposes here, there is an in-app purchase of $4.99 for the Pro version. With the paid upgrade, you can set up default destinations in the settings, batch process playlists, fix incorrect song matches, turn of attributions, connect more than two accounts, and more.

• App Store Link: SongShift (free)

Step 1: Connect Your Spotify Account

Open SongShift, and tap the plus (+) sign at the bottom. You'll need to connect at least two music streaming services, in this case, Spotify and Apple Music, to begin the transfer process. First, let's connect Spotify. Tap the "Setup Source" button on the Shift Setup page, then "Connect More" to view the list of music streaming services. (Note that SongShift calls transfers "shifts," if you were wondering.)

Scroll down and tap on "Connect" next to Spotify. Log in with your Facebook account or Spotify credentials, and then tap on "Agree" to give SongShift access to your Spotify account.

Step 2: Connect Your Apple Music Account

After connecting Spotify, you'll be back on the Music Services list. This time, tap on "Connect" next to Apple Music. Before going further, if you don't have an active Apple Music subscription, you'll run into issues, so make sure you do so, even if it's a free trial. Also, iCloud Music Library is required to transfer playlists, so you'll have to enable that beforehand as well.

When all the requirements are met, hit "Authorize," then "OK" in the pop-up that appears to give SongShift access. If you accidentally hit "Don't Allow," you can allow it in the Settings app by tapping "SongShift," then toggling on "Media & Apple Music."

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Step 3: Choose a Spotify Playlist to Transfer

Once again, you'll be back on the Music Services list. Swipe down from the bar at the top of the modal window, then tap on "Setup Source" again. Icons for the newly added streaming services should appear, so tap on Spotify to select it, then "Playlist" under Select media type.

Note that in the free version, you can only transfer one playlist at a time. Moving multiple playlists at once or merging multiples are part of the Pro upgrade. So scroll through your Spotify playlists until you find the one you want to transfer, then highlight it, and tap "Select" in the top right of the modal window.

Step 4: Transfer the Playlist to Apple Music

Back on the Shift Setup page, tap "Setup Destination," select Apple Music as the destination, and choose "New Playlist" under destination type. You can tap on the edit icon next to "Create new playlist" to enter a name for the playlist, but if you want the same name as the one on Spotify, leave it as is. Finally, hit "I'm Finished" to begin the transfer process.

Step 5: Review the Matches Songs

Depending on how long your playlist is, it could take a few seconds or about a minute. When finished, the playlist will be ready for review before it's officially transferred over to Apple Music. Tap on it, then go through the playlist and make sure all the songs are correctly matched.

If there are any failed matches, with the free app, you can "Ignore" the song to erase it from the playlist. The "Re-Match" option is only for the Pro version and is used to search for the song manually.

When a song is incorrectly matched, you can tap on the edit icon to either remove the song from the playlist (free) or search for it (Pro). Once you're finished reviewing the playlist, tap on "Confirm Matches" to complete the transfer process. ("Remove Configuration" will scrub the whole thing.)

Step 6: View the Playlist for More Options (Optional)

After confirming, give SongShift a few more seconds to finalize the transfer process. When finished, you'll be able to view the "shifted" playlist. Tap on it, and you can see all the songs that were successfully transferred. You can also choose "Remove Shift" to delete the playlist from SongShift, which won't remove it from Apple Music or Spotify, and "Scan Latest," which updates the transferred playlist if new songs are added to the original.

Step 7: View Your Spotify Playlist on Apple Music

To view your transferred playlist, open Apple Music and go to your "Playlists" in the "Library" tab. In the screenshots below, you can see the original playlist on Spotify and the newly transferred playlist on Apple Music, both intact.

Method 2: Transfer Spotify Playlists to Apple Music (Android)

On Android, you can also transfer your playlists from Spotify to Apple Music, but you'll need to use a website in your mobile web browser. Some of the features are locked behind a premium subscription, but we won't need any for what we're doing here today.

Step 1: Log in to Your Soundiiz Account

Go to Soundiiz.com, and tap on "Start now" to either log in or create an account. After you verify your email (if you created an account), you'll be redirected to the web app — tap on the "x" in the top right of the blog post that appears to view your account.

Step 2: Connect Your Spotify Account

Now, you'll need to sign in to your music streaming service accounts to give Soundiiz access to your playlists. Start by tapping on Spotify, log in with your credentials, then hit "Agree."

Step 3: Choose a Spotify Playlist to Transfer

Your Spotify playlists will now appear. Check mark the one you want to transfer, then tap on the convert icon, which is a tiny square pointing an arrow toward a bigger square. While you can move more than one playlist at a time, you must be a premium user to do so ($4.50 per month). Also, there is a 100 song-limit in the free version; anything more and you'll need to pay.

On the next page, you can change the title of the playlist, enter a description, delete duplicate tracks, and set the playlist as either public or private. Hit "Save configuration" when you have made all of your changes. Now confirm the playlist and deselect any tracks you want to get rid of — you can also change the order of the songs using the filter icon on the top left. Tap on "Confirm Tracklist" when done.

Step 4: Connect Apple Music & Transfer the Playlist

Finally, you'll need to log in to Apple Music, so make sure you have an active Apple Music subscription or free trial. Tap on the Apple Music icon, and sign in with your credentials. If you have two-factor authentication turned on, you must enter the code that is sent to your phone. Hit "Allow," and the transfer process will begin.

Step 5: View Errors in the Transfer (Optional)

The transfer process can take anywhere from a few seconds to a minute, depending on the length. Once the operation finishes, you'll see if it was a success and if there were any errors. Tap on "Show" to view the issues, which are songs that couldn't be transferred successfully.

Step 6: View Your Spotify Playlist on Apple Music

To view your transferred playlist, open Apple Music and go to your "Playlists" in the "Library" tab. In the screenshots below, you can see the original playlist on Spotify and the newly transferred playlist on Apple Music, both intact.

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This article was produced during Gadget Hacks' special coverage on streaming, listening to, and creating music and podcasts on your smartphone. Check out the whole Music and Audio series.