this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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I'm cleaning out my gmail folders this weekend, and went deep into the archive to 2011, when I got my invite to Google Music.

It's funny, because I just (November) moved all of my music out of cloud and back to local-only. Amazon was the last straw, when I tried to play purchased music, and was forced to listen to it on shuffle with other songs not of my choosing.

Anyway... there was a time when Google (ahem, Youtube) Music was set to be a game-changer. Imagine if enshittification wasn't a thing.

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[–] mihnt@lemmy.world 79 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It was the best music service there was imo.

Now it's buying my music and Jellyfinning it up.

[–] ThePantser@lemmy.world 33 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Yes I too am "buying" music and adding it to my Emby and Music Assistant servers.

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[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I currently use strawberry on my PC for most music, and still am searching for a FOSS android app. I thought it was Mucke, but it doesn't see more than half my tracks for some reason.

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[–] Dhs92@programming.dev 5 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Why not use Navidrome. It supports the SubSonic API so there's a wider array of clients you can use, and it has a pretty good web UI.

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[–] JIMMERZ@lemm.ee 63 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I was a day one GPM music user until it was discontinued. That app was my most used service ever and it took thousands of hours to curate my whole collection there. When Google killed it, I vowed to never become dependent on a Google product much less a cloud based service ever again. PlexAmp is my go to now.

[–] RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Yes Plexamp gang! I find the transition works for me too. I have a raspberry pi that just works with all my music on there. Paid the lifetime Plex fee too because I use it constantly.

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[–] lung@lemmy.world 50 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Let's all of us stop making the mistake of trusting big tech. They always make a good product you actually want then rugpull once you're settled. YouTube music is passably okay but there's a dozen bugs and issues that I'm still struggling with that didn't exist in Google music

[–] muffedtrims@lemmy.world 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The UI/UX is absolute trash for uploaded music compared to play music.

[–] Dhs92@programming.dev 12 points 9 months ago

The algorithms are worse too

[–] LifeOfChance@lemmy.world 46 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I'll die on the hill that GPM was and still is the best music service I ever used. I don't think I ever had a single recommendation that wasn't on point for me. The service worked flawless and the app was easy to use. When we got the notice our hearts sank. Spotify doesn't even compare .

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[–] NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 36 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Does anyone else remember when Gmail was invite only and you only got like 10 invites?

[–] evatronic@lemm.ee 23 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It's how I snagged a "firstname.lastname" address. No numbers or anything! All the other people with my exact name out there can fuck off!

[–] Ross_audio@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And as a bonus you snagged firstnamelastname without realising.

This alone makes Gmail a better service than most providers. All of the similar but different address confusions avoided.

It really should be standard practice.

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[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I snagged one too; but all the people with that name seem to have made variations of it, and when they give it out, either they forget their own email address or the person they give it to just mishears and simplifies to first name.lastname. Needless to say I receive a lot of junk intended for other people.

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[–] MrsDoyle@lemmy.world 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, Google Music was nice.

I'm so happy to still have my trusty iPod Classic 128Gb. I have a little Bluetooth dongle for its headphone jack (remember those?) that pairs with my hearing aids. All my tunes and podcasts in my pocket, no phone signal required.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Recently I downloaded iTunes again because I'm trying to consolidate my music library/listening history from all my old services and get them on Jellyfin.

And...I'd honestly forgotten how legitimately good a piece of software iTunes is. Not perfect, obviously, but I'd forgotten what it was like to have sophisticated music management tools. Just the sheer amount of options and tools to sort and manage the list, to be able to edit the properties, etc.

Then you look at modern streaming apps and it's all just...terrible. The user is completely neutered. You can't do even half as much with them. Things are just straight up hidden or don't exist anymore, you have very few methods of controlling how things are organized or sorted, etc.

"Modern" design principles seem to be "you can just deal with using the app the way we think you should, we won't give you the ability to make it your own".

That's what made Google Play Music so good: it was that beautiful sweet spot between the useful tool of iTunes-esc music management and the convenience of the streaming services. I didn't feel like my hands were tied when using it like I do with Spotify.

[–] MrsDoyle@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

I only tried Spotify once. I read a reference to a song I wanted to listen to but didn't own. Searched for it on Spotify, found it, and clicked to play it. It played something else entirely, not even by the same artist. I tried a few times, but it wouldn't play that song or anything by that artist. I guess I just don't understand Spotify?

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[–] jdf038@mander.xyz 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Remember when the Intenet made you optimistic? That's why I think these posts gut me so much. Because it doesn't do that anymore.

Anyway off to continue doom scrolling.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

"The internet will bring us all together! It will democratize truth and information!" Was the manta of the 2000s.

20 years later and the exact opposite happened.

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[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

terrible. I thought I would never need a copy of my music files again - They're uploaded to Google so it's all good.

When it crashed, it was an extreme hassle to download the several gigs, I ended up storing them on a phone temporarily, which then died and is likely not recoverable. I lost some rare and unique recordings like the music from my old band that I recorded.

Maintaining this would have been a pittance for Google.

EDIT: See replies below for the solution. Thanks Lemmy!

[–] tamiya_tt02@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I thought all Google Music was transferred to YouTube Music. You might still have those files in your library.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Thanks! it turns out that it is all there!

I never bothered to setup a YT Music account, so I never realized that the uploaded music was still available. I know this is a very niche problem, but just in case anyone is searching and comes across this:

  1. Yes, Google Music uploads are saved in your YouTube Music files. You already have a Google account, so you can set it up with the same login to gain access to the files.

  2. On desktop, open "Library" on the left -> select "Uploads" tab at the top.

  3. Sort by "Album," "Artist," or "Song" to see the entire library.

  4. When searching, etc., it will default back to the YT Music streaming service. Manually select the "Uploads" tab after each operation.


It is also possible to download your music library (although not individual songs, etc.) from YT Music, although it is not obvious.

  1. Navigate to https://takeout.google.com/ while logged into the same Google account.

  2. Click on "Deselect all" (unless you wish to download ALL of your google related data.

  3. Select "YouTube and YouTube Music" at the bottom of the list

  4. Click "All YouTube data included," then select "music-uploads" as well as "music-library-songs" (if you have any music acquired through Google)

  5. Follow the prompts to receive your files. You can choose to repeat this process as a periodic backup, or a one time download as a .zip (or set of .zip files). You can download them to your PC via email link, or you can have them directly transferred to another cloud service (Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive as of now)

  6. This process can take a while, but in my case I received the download links within a couple minutes (about 30 GB).


Good luck, and enjoy!

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[–] 7u5k3n@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Man GPM was the jam.. found so many new artists with that service. I was an early adopter and gladly paid my monthly fee.

And then YouTube music happened.... the bastards.

I rolled my own Plex server and am on plexamp for music now.

I'll never go back to streaming.

[–] rhacer@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

25K tracks on my Plex server, and Plexamp is the best music player I've ever used. Having started with WinAmp, I've been through quite a few.

[–] LemmySoloHer@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I used Google Play Music for purchases/online music locker and loved it. I eventually became that idiot that never downloaded all their purchases before the switch to Youtube Music happened.

Now I can't even open Youtube Music because it loads up my GPM library and rubs in my face that I essentially paid to have a bunch of music pre-listed for streaming that now has unskippable ads that I can't listen to unless I leave my screen on and unlocked.

I was too broke and slammed to get a new external drive in order to get all my music downloaded and saved from GPM at the time of the switch, but I look back on it and think about how I could've skipped meals and stuff to have gotten something with just enough space to save that music.

[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Your music is likely still there if you grab it with Takeout. Mine was. The only problem: one flat folder. I spent weeks with Picard working out which tracks where what by title and acoustic ID. So, not great, but I got back my own music files for some things I'd forgotten completely.

[–] LemmySoloHer@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I just did it and it worked! It's definitely a jumble of music files but it's all there, every last bit. Thank you, thank you so much. This has been weighing on my mind for so long, there are so many songs I can put back on my offline playlists now that I have them again. You're the best!

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[–] PlainSimpleGarak@lemm.ee 16 points 9 months ago

GPM was my jam. It had simple features that I would later take for granted, like remembering the exact track I left off on, and the number of times I've played a particular track. I only keep YTM because it comes with premium (no ads on YT). The second they separate premium from YTM, I'll drop it.

[–] recapitated@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

When google music was consolidated into YouTube music it was a slightly worse experience, but mostly it somehow just ruined all of my playlists and made them unusable both on music and YouTube.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Slightly? I hated it and switched to Spotify

[–] schnokobaer@lemmy.ml 5 points 9 months ago

Me too. I would've probably used Google Play Music to the end of my days but the transition to Youtube Music was so good awful I cancelled and switched to Spotify within a couple of days.

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[–] lapping6596@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

From what I can tell, the core issue with YouTube music is that it is restricted to the same API end points as default YouTube. Their api for playlist management just sucks and a lot of client side caching and workarounds are required to make it at all feel okay to use.

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[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

It was the best! GPM's demise was an abomination.

Yup, it was one of the worst "someone's getting promo and the users are getting screwed" Google decisions.

Anyone remember this list?

https://www.reddit.com/r/googleplaymusic/comments/icmwdf/one_comprehensive_list_of_youtube_music/

[–] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

And now almost all of Google's "offerings" are enshittified to no end. 🀬

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh yes, the enshittification of music streaming.

To be fair, most people seem to be fine with a "broadcast radio" type playback, where they want to hear both the music they already know/like, with other music that is at least somewhat similar to it.

A nontrivial number of people are more like you, who want this specific music to be played and nothing more. But that perspective, at least from what I've seen, is not held by the majority of users. So we get random trash thrown in with our personally curated lists of songs and albums.

Catering to the majority is fine, IMO, since that's what will pay the bills. I get it. From a business perspective it makes sense. However, ignoring literally everyone else in the process is not what I would consider to be an acceptable policy. Certainly make the defaults conform to what appeals to the largest number of people, but allow the individual user to customize their experience.

Since companies won't do that, those that want to listen to specific music generally get pushed into having a local music collection, so it behaves in a way that makes sense.

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[–] otacon239@feddit.de 9 points 9 months ago

I would give anything to get back the I’m Feeling Lucky button for music. It generated so many fantastic spontaneous playlists.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A good alternative for people who still like streaming music. I highly recommend the testimonials section https://nuclear.js.org/

[–] alansuspect@aussie.zone 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] bloopernova@programming.dev 8 points 9 months ago

Too soon, man, too soon.

[–] AnActOfCreation@programming.dev 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This and Zune were peak music.

[–] bitwolf@lemmy.one 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I argue plexamp is getting close to this as well. Although I use Synfonium with Plex which is also a very smooth experience.

GPM is still untouched though. Even if was a rollercoaster waiting for a new client just to have YTM end everything we liked about it.

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[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Been rocking a real mp3 player with a metal shell for years now. Nothing quite like having a dedicated device you curate yourself. The last time I used spotify was 2016

If youtube-dl/yt-dlp ever stops working im in trouble

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[–] Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Best music platform ever, and probably forever with the way things are going.

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