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Want to switch to Apple Music because you can’t find your favorite indie band on Spotify? Or maybe you’re on Amazon Music but saw a new subscriber offer on Tidal that’s too good to pass up. There are a variety of reasons to change music providers. But if you’re thinking about it, and you’re worried about losing your library of saved songs and personalized playlists, fear not: there are ways to bring all of it with you. Many music streaming services dont make it obvious often burying instructions deep in FAQs and making the process arduous but they do offer options to help migrate your collection. Apple made it easier last month when it quietly rolled out a new feature allowing users to import libraries from rival sites. Having Apple officially incorporate the feature might give reluctant users the confidence to move. Some pointers to help you along with your musical migration. Importing into Apple Music The iPhone maker recently published a help page to walk users through the process of importing libraries into Apple Music. The feature, buried in your settings, is provided by a third-party service called Songshift. It’s currently available to users in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. To use it, you’ll need an Apple Music account and the latest version of iOS or the Android Apple Music app. On iPhone, go to Settings, then Apps, then Music. Tap Transfer Music from Other Music Services to pop up a list of various streaming services. Android users can follow a similar process. Transfers can also be done through a web browser at music.apple.com. After choosing a service, another screen appears, prompting you to log into the target account. Now you get a menu with options to import All Songs and Albums” as well as All Playlists.” If you don’t want all your playlists, you can untick the ones you don’t want. However, you can’t pick individual songs and albums. Apple Music will then replicate your library based on your choices. Importing my Spotify library, with about 150 playlists, went fairly smoothly, although the process took about half an hour because the service also downloaded around 1,230 songs and albums to my iPhone. I had assumed that ticking All Songs and Albums meant that Apple Music would mirror the handful of music I had downloaded to my Spotify app, but it also downloaded all 63 albums in my Spotify library and the 440 songs on my Liked Songs list, which I normally listen to via streaming. If you dont want to download everything, unselect that option before you start. Also note that Apple says playlists “created by the music service can’t be transferred, so I couldn’t bring Spotify-curated lists like This is Taylor Swift or Alternative 80s with me. It also meant that my Liked Songs list, which Spotify generates for every user and a list I’ve been adding to over the years couldn’t be replicated. Any downloaded songs were just dumped into Apple Music’s library. After this story was first published, reader Linda Feaster wrote in with a workaround: create your own playlist and then add all the tracks from the Spotify playlist. It could be tedious if there are hundreds of songs but should do the trick. If you’re tempted to try out the tool, note that it probably won’t work the same way with every service. Apple warns that what can be transferred is up to the source platform. Playlists made by others, such as BBC Musics The Sounds of 1994, for example, did make it over. After the move is done, you’ll have 30 days to review songs that aren’t available or don’t have an exact match in Apple’s catalog, and choose from any alternate versions. Working with other music platforms Most of the other big music streaming platforms offer ways to transfer your library to their site. They mostly rely on standalone third-party services that have been around for a while, are free to use, and don’t need app integration to work. Tidal and Deezer both direct users on their websites to one such service, Tune My Music, which works with popular platforms like Spotify as well as a host of lesser known sites. Amazon Music’s webpage has dedicated buttons for Tune My Music and two similar services, Songshift and Soundiiz. Google also advises third-party services for YouTube Music users who want to import or export playlists, albums, artists and tracks. However, for Apple Music users who want to move to YouTube Music, the process is different. You’ll have to sign in to Apple Music and request a transfer a copy of your data, then export it directly to YouTube Music. The transfer process may take several hours if you have many playlists,” Google warns on its support page. Spotify says it’s currently testing a way for users to transfer their libraries and expects to provide more details soon. Using a third-party service to migrate between platforms It was super easy to move my Spotify library to Deezer using Tune My Music. I clicked a button on the Deezer website that got the process started by prompting me to log in to my Spotify account. Then a menu came up with pre-ticked options on what I could migrate: my entire library, favorite songs, favorite albums, favorite artists and any or all of my 150 playlists. I decided to move it all over, which amounted to more than 16,359 items. It took about five minutes. Unlike Apple Music, Deezer didn’t download any files, it just copied lists. A few dozen songs went missing, Tune My Music said. It usually happens because the song doesn’t exist on the new platform, or it’s named a bit differently and couldn’t be matched, it said, but added that I could download a list of missing tracks to look for them on the new platform. After you finish transferring your music library, don’t forget that it’s still on the original platform and hasn’t been deleted. Most third-party transfer services are free, but also offer premium levels with more features, such as instant syncing of libraries between multiple streaming sites. ____ Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip. Kelvin Chan, AP business writer AP Business Writer James Pollard contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
If you think Jimmy Kimmels return to late-night television this week spells the end of that whole saga, well, think again: A group of investors is demanding that the Walt Disney Co. share information about why he was suspended in the first place. Lawyers representing the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Reporters Without Borders, and other groups of Disney shareholders sent a letter to the entertainment giant on Wednesday requesting internal documents and communications related to the decision to remove Kimmel from the air. Kimmel was suspended by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) indefinitely last week for comments he made about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The group of shareholders is seeking to learn whether the decision to yank Kimmel was driven by politically fueled threats from federal regulators and broadcast affiliates, and if Disneys board and executives didnt live up to their fiduciary dutiesto act in the best interest of shareholders. The group said that, given the Trump administrations threats to free speech, it was writing to seek transparency about the initial decision to suspend Kimmel and his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! There is a credible basis to suspect that the board and executives may have breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and good faith by placing improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the company and its stockholders, the letter said. DISNEYS SELL-OFF The group of shareholders is requesting a broad range of information from Disneyfrom financial information to estimate the effect of Kimmels suspension on Disneys revenue to any communications that board members, including CEO Bob Iger, had with political organizations and federal regulators. Though Kimmel returned to the air Tuesday night and his opening monologue has racked up 20 million views on YouTube, Disney shares have yet to recover from last weeks suspension. Whats more, his show still isnt being aired to about one-quarter of U.S. households served by Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group stations. Disney shares fell 3.3% during the time when Kimmel was suspended, and the move triggered a consumer boycott of Disney-owned streaming services, including Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN. QUESTIONS REGARDING ROLE OF FCC The group of investors linked Kimmels suspension with threats from Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The sell-off in the stock illustrates fears of brand damage and concerns that Disney was complicit in succumbing to the government overreach and media censorship, the group said, while negative repercussions on Disney and its shareholders remain, given President Donald Trumps continued threats to ABC. Nexstar currently requires the approval of the FCC for its planned $6.2 billion merger with Tegna. Disney shareholders deserve the truth about exactly what went down inside the company after Brendan Carr’s threat to punish ABC unless action was taken against Jimmy Kimmel, AFT president Randi Weingarten said in a statement from Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit watchdog group that helped organize the shareholder letter. The Disney board has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of its shareholdersand we are seeking answers to discover if that bond was broken to kowtow to the Trump administration, Weingarten said.
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E-Commerce
A newly released report from Senate Democrats alleges the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has “copied Americans sensitive Social Security and employment data into a cloud database without any verified security controls,” and is “operating outside federal law, with unchecked access to Americans personal data” at the Social Security Administration (SSA), the General Services Administration (GSA), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). DOGE was initially led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The report, released on Thursday by U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI)a ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committeefound DOGE is “working without any accountability” to agency leadership, Congressional oversight, or the public. DOGE isnt making government more efficientthey are bypassing cybersecurity protections, evading oversight, and putting Americans personal data at risk, Senator Peters said in a statement. We cannot allow this shadow operation to continue operating unchecked while millions of people face the threat of identity theft, economic disruption, and permanent harm.” The 44-page “Peters report” is based on staff investigations and information from multiple whistleblowers, including Chuck Borges, former chief data officer at the Social Security Administration, who said DOGE employees at SSA had access to personal data on all Americansincluding Social Security numbersin an insecure cloud environment. Additionally, the report alleges it’s very likely that foreign adversaries, such as Russia, China, and Iran, are already aware of this new DOGE cloud environment. The report cited an internal SSA risk assessment that determined the likelihood of a data breach with catastrophic adverse effect is between 35% and 65%. The database reportedly includes not just Social Security numbers (SSNs) but also people’s date of birth, city, work permit status, and parents names, according to The Verge. DOGE report conclusions The report concludes that the loss of Social Security numbers (SSNs) could allegedly trigger widespread identity theft, delay access to benefits, and destabilize core systems Americans rely on. Peters is calling for Trump administration agencies to immediately halt DOGE operations and access to information systems, given the report’s findings about the catastrophic risk of a serious data breach. According to the risk assessment, in a worst-case scenario, one whistleblower disclosed the possibility that such a breach could require re-issuing Social Security numbers for every Americana process that would disrupt access to banking, employment, health care, and housing.
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