How to transfer a Spotify playlist to Apple Music

The one thing that changed in 2025

For years, the honest answer to "how do I move my Spotify playlists to Apple Music" was: you can't do it natively, so pay a third party. That is no longer fully true. In 2025 Apple built a transfer tool directly into the Apple Music app, and it works with Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, and YouTube Music. Apple built it in partnership with SongShift, the same developer that has run a standalone transfer app for years, so the matching engine underneath is proven. MacRumors reported it started in Australia and New Zealand in May 2025 and reached nearly every Apple Music country by that autumn, with only Mainland China, Myanmar, and Russia left out.

If you are on a reasonably current iPhone or iPad, this built-in tool is the first thing you should try, because it is free and it does not hand your listening history to a marketing company. The third-party apps still matter, especially if you are on Android or want to move a huge library in one shot, so this guide covers both paths and where each one breaks.

The fastest free path: Apple Music's built-in transfer

This lives in system settings, not inside the Music app's browse screen, which is why most people never find it.

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open Settings.
2. Tap Apps, then Music.
3. Tap Transfer Music from Other Music Services.
4. Choose Spotify and sign in to your Spotify account when prompted.
5. Pick what you want to bring over: songs, albums, and your own playlists.
6. Let it run. Apple flags anything it cannot match cleanly as Needs Review and offers you alternate versions to approve.

Two honest limits to know going in. First, it only moves playlists you created yourself. Spotify's own algorithmic playlists (Discover Weekly, Release Radar, the Daily Mixes) and any editorial playlist you merely followed will not come across, because those are generated on Spotify's side and do not exist as a fixed track list you own. If you want to keep one of those, make a copy of it into a normal playlist inside Spotify first, then transfer that. Second, it is an iPhone and iPad feature. There is no equivalent buried in Android settings, so Android switchers still need a third-party app.

If you are on Android, or the built-in tool is missing

Apple's tool needs a recent version of iOS or iPadOS, and it does nothing for Android users. In those cases the established transfer apps still do the job. The four worth your time are SongShift, TuneMyMusic, Soundiiz, and FreeYourMusic. All four work the same way at a high level: you connect your Spotify account and your Apple Music account, pick the playlist, and the app tries to find each Spotify track in Apple's catalog and rebuild the list on the other side. Consumer Reports confirms the obvious point that neither Spotify nor Apple hands you an export file, so these middlemen exist to fill that gap.

Here is where the money and the fine print actually land, verified from each tool's own site in 2026.

A practical note on cost. If you have one big playlist to move and nothing else, you do not need a yearly subscription. TuneMyMusic, Soundiiz, and FreeYourMusic all let you subscribe for a single month, run the transfer, and cancel. Soundiiz says this in plain language on its own pricing page. A one-time move for a couple of dollars beats committing to a plan you will forget to cancel.

Which one to actually pick

On iPhone, start with Apple's built-in transfer. It costs nothing and it is the same SongShift engine the paid apps use. If it chokes on a giant library or you want the standalone SongShift app's monitoring features, that is when Pro is worth it.

On Android or a laptop, TuneMyMusic is the least friction because it runs entirely in a browser with a 500-song free allowance, which is enough for most single playlists. Soundiiz is the power tool if you are moving your whole account and want batch transfers and ongoing sync, but its free tier is stingy at 200 tracks and one playlist at a time. FreeYourMusic is the pick if you hate subscriptions, since it is the only one of the four with a genuine lifetime license.

What breaks, every single time

No transfer is 100 percent clean. The catalogs are close but not identical, and matching is done by text, so expect a few casualties on any playlist longer than a couple dozen tracks. Here is what goes wrong and how to catch it.

Unmatched tracks. This is the big one. A song that exists on Spotify might be missing from Apple Music, or it exists under a slightly different title, a different album version, or a "remastered 2019" tag that the matcher does not recognize. The good tools tell you. Apple's tool flags these as Needs Review; SongShift and Soundiiz show you an unmatched list before or after the move. Do not skip that screen. If your playlist had 100 songs and 96 arrived, those 4 are usually live versions, regional releases, or indie tracks, exactly the songs you would miss most.

Wrong matches. Worse than a missing track is a confident wrong one. The matcher can grab a karaoke cover, a sped-up TikTok edit, or a tribute-band recording that shares the title. Consumer Reports flags this directly: these apps "also match up the wrong songs sometimes." Play through the new playlist once. If a familiar song suddenly sounds off, that is a bad match.

Track order. Most tools preserve order, but not all guarantee it, and a re-sorted playlist matters if you built it as a set or a running mix. Check the first and last few tracks.

Playlist artwork and descriptions. Custom cover images and playlist notes almost never survive. The tracks come over; the mosaic art Apple auto-generates will not be the collage you had on Spotify. This is cosmetic, but people do ask about it, so know it upfront.

Free-tier caps. If your playlist is 700 songs and you are on TuneMyMusic's free 500 or FreeYourMusic's free 600, the transfer stops partway. It does not tell you clearly that it truncated. Count your tracks before you start.

Among people who have done this switch and written about it, the recurring theme is consistent: the transfer itself is easy, and the annoyance is entirely in cleanup. The usual advice is to expect a small unmatched pile, to re-add those by hand, and to double-check anything obscure.

How to verify the result in five minutes

Do not assume it worked. Do this right after any transfer.

1. Open the new playlist in Apple Music and compare the track count to the Spotify original. A gap is your unmatched list.
2. Skim the unmatched or Needs Review list and re-add those songs manually by searching Apple Music.
3. Scroll the whole list once and watch for obvious wrong matches (covers, "made popular by" recordings, wildly different runtimes).
4. Spot-check track order against the source if order matters to you.
5. Keep the Spotify playlist live until you are satisfied. Nothing here deletes your original, so there is no rush to burn the bridge.

If you want a permanent record of the original before you touch anything, you can export the Spotify track list to a spreadsheet first. Our guide on how to export a Spotify playlist to CSV walks through that, and a CSV makes the after-transfer audit trivial because you can diff the two lists.

The bigger question: why are you switching at all?

Plenty of people move to Apple Music for the lossless catalog or a better price on a family plan, and a straight transfer is exactly what they want. But a lot of switchers are really just tired of the treadmill. You pay Spotify for years, you leave, and every playlist you built has to be rebuilt or ransomed to a transfer app. You do not own any of it. The moment you stop paying, the music is gone, because a streaming "download" is only an encrypted, offline copy that lives inside the app and dies with your subscription.

If that is your actual reason for leaving, transferring to another streaming service just restarts the same treadmill on a different lawn. The alternative is to keep real files. Our Spotify playlist downloader pulls the tracks from a public playlist link and saves them as standard MP3 files (or FLAC, WAV, or AAC) that play in Apple Music, VLC, your car's USB stick, or anything else, with no subscription attached. Two honest caveats so we do not oversell it. First, a file made from a Spotify stream cannot beat the source, and Spotify tops out around 320 kbps Ogg Vorbis, so the MP3 is a good listening copy, not a lossless master. Second, this is for your personal library; respect the artists and copyright law where you live. If owning your music outright is the point, download the tracks once and you never have to do a transfer again. The walkthrough in how to convert Spotify to MP3 covers the format and bitrate choices.

Moving to a different service instead of Apple? The same steps and the same cleanup apply for the Spotify to YouTube Music transfer. And the full set of Spotify how-tos lives on the Spotify hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I transfer a Spotify playlist to Apple Music for free?

Yes. On iPhone or iPad, Apple's built-in tool (Settings, Apps, Music, Transfer Music from Other Music Services) is completely free. On Android or a computer, TuneMyMusic moves up to 500 songs free and FreeYourMusic up to 600.

Does Apple Music have a native import from Spotify?

Yes, as of 2025. Apple added a transfer feature inside the Music settings on iPhone and iPad, built with SongShift, that imports your songs, albums, and self-made playlists from Spotify and a few other services.

Why are some songs missing after the transfer?

The catalogs are not identical, and matching is done by title and artist text. Tracks that are missing from Apple Music, or that exist only under a different album version, get flagged as unmatched. Re-add them by searching Apple Music manually.

Will the transfer delete my Spotify playlists?

No. Every one of these tools copies to Apple Music and leaves the Spotify original untouched. Keep it until you have checked the result.

Do the transfer apps move Discover Weekly and other Spotify-made playlists?

Not directly. Algorithmic and editorial playlists are generated on Spotify's side and are not fixed lists you own. Copy one into a normal playlist inside Spotify first, then transfer that copy.

Is it worth paying for Soundiiz or SongShift Pro for one playlist?

Usually not. For a single move, use the free Apple or TuneMyMusic path, or subscribe to one tool for a single month and cancel. Pay for a plan only if you are syncing libraries on an ongoing basis.

How do I keep my music permanently instead of transferring it again later?

Download the tracks as actual files. A Spotify playlist downloader saves them as MP3 or FLAC that play in any app with no subscription, so a future service switch never costs you the library again.