With Microsoft finally shuttering the Groove Music Pass, most Groove users will want to move on to a new service. Before you do so, however, you should download any purchases you made in Groove.
You can, of course, continue using the Groove app on Windows 10 and Xbox One. It will still be available, and will be updated, and provides access to your locally-stored and OneDrive-based music collection.
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But here’s the thing: Even if you intend to keep using Groove, you must download your purchased music: This music will not be available to you to stream starting on January 1, 2018. You must download it first, and then manage it (read: back it up) from there on out.
To download your purchased music, open the Groove app in Windows 10 and navigate to My Music.
Then, select the entry next to Filter (“All” in my case) and select “Purchased” from the menu that appears. This changes the display so that only your purchased music is shown.
Now, select the music you wish to download: A selection checkbox appears as you mouse-over each item.
To select all music, select the first item, scroll to the bottom, hold down the SPACE key, and then select the final item.
Now, select Download from the toolbar at the bottom of the app window.
One final note: While Microsoft is promoting Spotify as an alternative to Groove Music Pass, this otherwise excellent service does have one major downside: It offers no (elegant) way of playing your own music. That is, you cannot use Spotify to play your OneDrive-based music, and if you download your Groove purchases to your PC, you can only play them from Spotify on that one PC. I’ll be looking at workarounds to this in the near future.
Bats
<p>Gosh, I feel so sorry for the people who entrenched themselves into the Microsoft ecosystem. There is only two ecosystems that I trust when it comes to paid purchases, Google and Amazon. Both companies have reason to sell music and their brands are so powerful, it won't go away. Spotify's brand, on the other hand, isn't so powerful. It may be highly popular music service now, but they are a company/brand that can be bought by a third party like Google, Amazon, and Apple.</p><p><br></p><p>A couple more things:</p><p><br></p><p>1. Groove going down is nothing more than inept leadership at the top. Remember when Steve Jobs was alive and he was promoting iPod video (or iPhone…i forgot), he made backroom deals to provide special content for users. Google does the same exact thing for their services as well. For Microsoft,…nada. It's all fruitless advertising to make Microsoft appear to be "hip" and "cool". </p><p><br></p><p>Groove had everything it needed. It had a PC desktop and mobile platform to which it can promote it's services. Funny, I don't recall Microsoft doing any!</p><p><br></p><p>Being primarily a Google Play Music (Family Plan) subscriber, I often get the occasional $.99 Album special or the Free Album promo. I never heard anything like that when it came to Groove. If Groove ever had promos for their service I know Paul would jump and blog that right away, as we all know how he loves to try to make Microsoft shine. Microsoft didn't even try to compete with Groove. LOL…not even offer Groove $1-$2 per month less!</p><p><br></p><p>2. IMO, the blame for this all goes to Satya Nadella. Nadella has been CEO for a few years now, and I just find it funny that he's still talking about transforming Microsoft. The fact that he was against the Nokia deal and his lack of conherent reasoning for his opposition to it, proves to me that he is not a leader and a visionary. His reasoning, "differentiate product" is utterly stupid. The mobile phone is a pocket computer. Google transformed that phone and turned into a digital hub of work, play, entertainment, etc… I find it so hard to believe Microsoft couldn't do that. "BBB" = Bring Back Ballmer. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
Bats
<p>Ya know…I've been comparing Google Play Music vs. Spotify vs. Groove. </p><p><br></p><p>I can't believe that Groove only offered a bitrate of 192kbps? LOL…that's it? That's like…lol…cassette quality. Perhaps 8-Track! Also, I noticed that Microsoft never offered a free version of Groove? No wonder, Groove failed miserably.</p><p><br></p><p>It appears that Google Play Music and Spotify are the two highest quality online music services at 320kbps. Well actually, there is a service called Tidal that offers a bit rate of 1411Kbps. To be honest, I don't know much about Tidal, except that no one I know uses it. </p><p><br></p><p>Between Google Play Music and Spotify, it appears that GPM offers the most extensive music library with 35 million songs vs Spotify's 30 million. Not just that, but the UI looks cleaner and better. </p><p><br></p><p>Hey, I don't want to sound like a commercial for Google Play Music, but it appears that GPM is the better choice. In addition to GPM, a subscription also comes with commercial free Youtube Red. That's good for me, because I like to watch a lot of Youtube. One can even say that I am a student of Youtube University.</p><p><br></p><p>Like I have said, time and time again, the biggest reason Google and Android are so popular is because of the vast and wide ecosystem it offers. One log-in give you access to photos, documents, movies, live television, Youtube, maps, etc…. With Google life is simple and fun. Compare that to Microsoft, whose ecosystem is so bad that's why no one has a need for a Windows Phone and/or Groove. Who wants to center their digital life around….WORK?!</p><p><br></p><p>Oh Well.</p>