Google Play Music is now officially dead

We’ve known for over a year that the days of Google Play Music are numbered. His death was officially announced, but now he is (really) real. Google discontinued the GPM app on Android and the web at the end of October, leading to a knockout of what was a fairly short match – and now it looks like the funeral parade is finally over.

Now open the Android app and you will likely be greeted by a white screen with the Play Music logo switched to YouTube Music. The bold text informs you that GPM is no longer available and indicates that you can transfer your entire library to YTM. There are two buttons below, one to start the transfer process and the other to manage your data. The latter takes you to the GPM website where you can download and delete your entire library and delete the recommendation history. Once done, the app widget should disappear on its own from your home screen if you add it there.

It is an irreversible clinical death. Although this didn’t affect everyone right away (kind of like an anti-vandal villain), GPM seems dead to everyone now. Those of you who are wondering if changing your phone’s history manually will undo that final blow, let me set aside some time: I tried, and it just didn’t work.

What Google didn’t think about is an easy way to manage your data stored locally on your phone. If you download music for offline listening, you cannot do that anywhere inside the app now, and this data will still occupy space on your phone. So you will either have to uninstall the app, or if your device doesn’t allow you to do this, you will need to tap and hold the app icon in the tray, go to App info, then select Storage. There, you should be able to clear GPM cache and offline music.

If GPM is your favorite local music player, and you don’t care much about streaming, you can also turn to YouTube Music for that. But we have also compiled a list of 8 great local Android music players. You should find a suitable replacement there.