After announcing that Google Play Music would be shutting down this year and allowing those users to transfer their music libraries to YouTube Music, Google today announced two deadlines that Google Play Music subscribers should be aware of.
Starting in September 2020 in New Zealand and South Africa and in October for all other markets, Google Play Music users will no longer be able to stream from or use the Google Play Music app.
Google Play Music will continue to keep your music library, personal taste preferences, and playlists so that you can transfer them to YouTube Music. Those will all be available through December 2020 when the entire thing will be shut down.
Also of note is that starting in late August, aka this month, you'll no longer be able to purchase or pre-order music or upload and download music from Google Play Music using the Music Manager.
If you're a Google Play Music user and you haven't yet transferred your music library to YouTube Music, you can go to this webpage to begin using the transfer tool. You can also use Google Takeout to export data and download your purchased and uploaded music.
While the Google Play Music shutdown may frustrate some existing users, Google does say that it's been working to improve YouTube Music since announcing the transition earlier this year. It's added new features like collaborative playlists, a player page redesign, a new explore tab, easy YouTube Music access on Android TV, and integration with Google Maps.