How to Add a Spotify Playlist to Apple Music
Switching between streaming platforms — or using both at once — is increasingly common. But Spotify and Apple Music are walled gardens: they don't share libraries, and there's no built-in "export" button that moves a playlist from one service to the other. So if you've spent years curating playlists on Spotify and want them available in Apple Music, you'll need a workaround.
Here's exactly how that works, what the process involves, and what affects whether it goes smoothly for you.
Why You Can't Transfer Playlists Directly
Spotify and Apple Music both store your playlists on their own servers, tied to your account. The track metadata — song title, artist, album — is what identifies music across platforms, but neither service exposes a direct migration API to the other. Apple Music has no "import from Spotify" feature, and Spotify has no "send to Apple Music" button.
What third-party tools do instead is act as a bridge: they read your Spotify playlist data, search for matching tracks in Apple Music's catalog, and rebuild the playlist on the other side. The playlist you end up with in Apple Music is a new playlist — not a synced copy. Changes made on Spotify afterward won't automatically reflect in Apple Music.
The Tools That Make This Possible 🎵
Several third-party services are specifically built for playlist migration between streaming platforms. The most widely used include:
- SongShift — an iOS app with a free tier and a paid upgrade for bulk transfers
- Soundiiz — a web-based tool with both free and paid plans
- TuneMyMusic — another web-based option supporting a wide range of platforms
- Stamp — available on iOS and Android, focused on playlist transfer
These tools all follow roughly the same process:
- You authorize access to your Spotify account
- You authorize access to your Apple Music account
- You select the Spotify playlist(s) you want to transfer
- The tool searches Apple Music's catalog for each track
- Matched tracks are added to a new Apple Music playlist
The process is generally quick for smaller playlists — often a few minutes. Larger playlists with hundreds of tracks may take longer depending on the tool and your connection.
What Affects Match Accuracy
This is where results vary significantly. Not every song on Spotify exists in Apple Music, and even when it does, catalog differences can cause mismatches or missed tracks.
Key variables that affect how cleanly your playlist transfers:
| Variable | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Catalog availability | Some tracks are exclusive to one platform or region |
| Regional licensing | A song available in your country on Spotify may not be on Apple Music |
| Podcast-style or non-music content | Spotify hosts some spoken-word content that Apple Music doesn't |
| Local files | Tracks you added from your own library on Spotify won't transfer |
| Metadata accuracy | Unusual spellings, remixes, or regional album editions can cause failed matches |
Most tools will show you a list of unmatched tracks after the transfer so you can manually search and add them. For a playlist of popular mainstream music, match rates tend to be high. For niche genres, rare pressings, or regional releases, expect more gaps.
Free vs. Paid Tiers
Most playlist transfer tools offer a free tier with limitations — usually a cap on the number of tracks per transfer or the number of playlists you can move. If you're migrating a handful of playlists with a few dozen songs each, the free tier of most tools is often sufficient.
Paid tiers typically unlock:
- Unlimited tracks per transfer
- Bulk playlist migration (multiple playlists at once)
- Sync features (so a playlist stays updated over time)
- Faster processing
If you're doing a one-time full migration — moving your entire Spotify library to Apple Music — a short-term paid subscription to one of these tools is a practical option for many users.
What Happens to Your Apple Music Library After Transfer 🎧
Once the transfer completes, the playlist lives in your Apple Music library like any other playlist you created manually. You can rename it, edit the track order, add songs, or delete it. It's fully yours.
If you keep both Spotify and Apple Music active, keep in mind the playlist is a static copy at the time of transfer — it won't update automatically unless you use a paid sync feature from the migration tool.
Also worth knowing: Apple Music's iCloud Music Library will sync that transferred playlist across your Apple devices automatically, the same way it handles any other Apple Music content.
The Variables That Determine Your Experience
Before starting, a few things worth considering about your own situation:
- How large is the playlist? A 30-track playlist transfers in minutes; a 2,000-track library requires more time and possibly a paid tool.
- How niche is your music taste? Mainstream catalogs transfer cleanly; specialist music involves more manual cleanup.
- Are you fully switching or running both services? A permanent switch and a temporary test are different use cases.
- What device are you on? Some tools are iOS-only apps; others are web-based and device-agnostic.
- Do you have local files in Spotify? Those won't migrate through these tools — you'd need to add them to Apple Music separately via the desktop app.
The transfer process itself is straightforward once you choose a tool. What shapes how well it works — and how much effort the cleanup requires afterward — depends almost entirely on your specific library and the overlap between Spotify's and Apple Music's catalogs for the music you actually listen to.