Check if You’ve Received Extra Credit for Your Google Play Music Subscription

Google Play Music is on its way out, to be replaced by YouTube Music in the coming weeks. Google has made the transition easy for anyone who has ever used Google Play Music by offering multiple tools for migrating over your library, playlists and other data. But what about your subscription?

The answer depends on how you paid for Google Play Music. Google Play Music subscribers could have purchased or been gifted three or six-month subscription chunks. As a result, plenty of users now have prepaid Google Play Music subscriptions that extend beyond Google’s September/October sundowning.

Luckily, Google is honouring pre-purchased and gift subscriptions by giving users Play Store credit equal to the remaining subscription value on their account — though some users say they have received far more generous amounts.

Google is notifying users about the store credit, but you probably have the funds in your Google account already. To check, log in to Google Play on desktop or open the Google Play Store app, then select “Payment Methods” from the side menu. The credits will show in your gift card balance.

The Play Store credit is usable on any apps, in-game purchases, movies or music available on the Google Play Store. It won’t expire. However, if you plan on using the gift credit to buy music on Google Play, do so now, as the Google Play Music store is shutting down in just a few days.

That said, your Google Play Music library will be accessible until December 2020, so you’ll be able to download those last-minute purchases — and all your other tracks and playlists — for a little while longer.

As for users with an active Google Play Music subscription, you are probably paying for YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium already (depending on which Google Play Music subscription level you had). There are also reports of users having their subscriptions cancelled without warning rather than transferred to YouTube Music Premium. Whatever the case for your account, you can check or cancel these subscriptions from Google Play’s “My Subscriptions” menu. (It’s probably best to do this after you backup your Play Music library.)