In September 2019, YouTube Music replaced Google Play Music in the core Google Mobile Services bundle distributed on new Android devices. In May 2020, an update was released to allow imports from Google Play Music, including purchased music, playlists, cloud libraries, and recommendations. The service still contains regressions over Google Play Music, including no online music store functionality (cannot purchase songs), and a YouTube Music Premium subscription being required in order to cast cloud library speakers to Google Nest smart speakers. Google stated that they planned to address this and other 'gaps' in features between the services before Play Music is shut down, however, at the time of the shutdown most feature gaps had not been addressed. Ī 'pre-save' feature for upcoming releases was added in May 2020. The free tier plays songs in its music video version where applicable. The premium tier plays official tracks of the album unless the user searches for the music video version.
YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium subscribers are able to switch to an audio-only mode that can play in the background while the application is not in use.
