How to transfer Google Music Playlists from S8 to S9?

[Android Central Question]

I just upgraded my Samsung S8 to S9 and have managed to transfer everything except my Google Music playlists. I read a previous posting that said to go into Settings/Accounts/Google and turned on Music Sync for both devices . Powered down and restarted both devices to be sure it gets reset. Even after 2 days still not getting my Playlists to transfer over.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Are these Playlists for music that's been uploaded to your Google Play Music library in the cloud, or only for music that was locally saved to the S8's Internal Storage?

 

[bhfrager]

I created them on my mobile device and with sync on, I expect that they are uploaded to my Google Play Library.

 

[methodman89]

Are you signed into the same Gmail account on both devices?

 

[bhfrager]

yes

I guess the answer is 'give up & recreate my playlists on my new phone '...

 

[B. Diddy]

Sorry, I haven't thought about this issue for a few days. Let me see what happens if I create a playlist on my Pixel 2 XL to see if it syncs correctly to my other devices.

Also, just to be clear -- you did confirm that the music on those playlists is in your cloud library, and that you didn't specifically select mp3 files that were saved locally on the phone, right?

EDIT: Ok, it works for me. I created a test playlist on my Pixel 2 XL, and it immediately showed up on my Pixel C. (I don't currently have access to my PC or Chromebooks, so I can't confirm yet that it's there on the web version.) Can you tell us if your playlists from the S8 show up on the Google Play Music website on your computer browser?

 

[bhfrager]

No, I cannot see them in the downloaded windows PC version of google music play.
My MP3 files are all stored on my phone, not in the cloud. Sounds like that may be the reason. I don't understand how/why that would be a problem.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm finally back home where I can check my Chromebook, and the playlists do show up on my Google Play Music website.

The GPM support page says "Non-subscribers can add purchased or uploaded music to playlists," so you're correct -- your own music has to be uploaded to your personal GPM library in the cloud in order to work correctly. https://support.google.com/googleplaymusic/answer/1250213?hl=en