Your playlists deserve to come with you.
The hardest part of leaving a music app has nothing to do with the music. It's the playlists. The one you built for a road trip in 2019. The one with forty songs you'd never be able to name again from memory.
That collection is the reason people stay somewhere they've stopped enjoying. And it's a bad reason to stay anywhere.
Here's how to bring your playlists to Zene. The process takes about a minute per playlist, and you never type your Spotify password into Zene.
First, the part everyone worries about.
Zene cannot sign in to Spotify for you, and doesn't try. There's no “connect your account” button, no permission screen, and no password field pretending to be helpful.
Instead, the move happens through a file. You export a playlist as a plain list of song names and artists, then hand that file to Zene. Zene reads the track information and looks for the songs in its own catalogue.
You export the playlist through TuneMyMusic, then import the CSV into Zene. Your Spotify account isn't connected to Zene during the process.
It's a slightly longer route than a one-tap transfer, but it keeps the process simple: export a file, choose it in Zene, and review the results.
What you'll need
Your phone with the Zene app installed, and a playlist-export file. The import runs in the Zene mobile app. The web version has the guide, but the actual file-choosing happens on Android, iPhone or iPad.
You'll also pass briefly through TuneMyMusic, the playlist-export site that reads your Spotify library and produces the file. You sign in to Spotify there, in your own browser, rather than inside Zene.
Five steps, and you're there.
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01
Open Import playlists in Zene
In the Zene app, open your account menu from Home and choose Import playlists. You'll see a short explanation and a button that opens TuneMyMusic in your browser.
Home → Account → Import playlists -
02
Pick where your music is now
TuneMyMusic asks which service you're moving from. Choose Spotify and let it read your playlists.
If you're coming from somewhere else, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Deezer and Tidal are also supported by TuneMyMusic.
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03
Choose one playlist, not all of them
Select a single playlist — or your Liked Songs — rather than everything at once.
Importing one playlist at a time helps it arrive in Zene with its own title. Bundle several together and you can end up with one big collection instead of the separate playlists you wanted.
Five separate trips leave you with five properly named playlists on the other side.
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04
Export to a file, not to a service
TuneMyMusic will ask where you want the music sent. Don't pick another music service. On the destination step, choose Export file, then Export to file, then CSV, and start the transfer.
Export file → Export to file → CSVWhen it finishes, the file downloads to your phone. On Android, look in Downloads. On iPhone or iPad, check the Files app under Downloads.
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05
Come back and choose the file
Return to Zene, tap Choose CSV file, and pick the file you just downloaded.
Zene reads it and shows you what's inside before adding anything. You'll see how many playlists the file contains and how many songs are in it. As the match runs, you'll watch the progress counter climb.
Nothing is saved to your library until you've had a chance to review what was found.
What “closest match” actually means
Music catalogues are never identical. A live version, a 2011 remaster, a regional single edit — the song you loved might exist on Zene under a slightly different name.
When that happens, Zene looks for the closest version it can find and tells you which tracks were added as alternatives. You can scan the list and fix the ones that matter to you.
Close alternatives are shown for review, and genuinely unavailable songs are reported as unmatched. That way, you can see what happened instead of assuming every song transferred perfectly.
How many songs can you bring?
A free Zene account imports up to 250 songs every 30 days. That's several real playlists, and for many people it covers the move in one sitting.
It's a rolling window, not a calendar month, so it refills thirty days after your first import rather than on the 1st. If you run out mid-file, Zene tells you how many songs are left and saves what fits.
Premium removes the import limit entirely if you're moving a very large library in one go.
What doesn't come across
A playlist export carries the music information, not every piece of history attached to your old account.
- Play counts and dates added. These aren't included in the playlist export.
- Playlist artwork. Names come across, but artwork doesn't.
- Podcast subscriptions. You'll need to follow those again in Zene.
- Unavailable songs. Anything Zene can't find will show up as unmatched.
If something goes wrong
If Zene says the file doesn't look like an exported playlist, the usual cause is a partial copy. The first line of a CSV holds its column headings, and without it there's nothing to read. Export it again and keep the whole file.
If it reports no track names, redo the export with track names included. A file containing only links may not provide enough information to match the songs.
And if a whole playlist behaves strangely, try importing one at a time instead of retrying the same big file. Smaller files make it easier to identify which row is causing trouble.
Then let it settle.
Once your playlists land, the useful thing to do is nothing in particular. Play a few of them. Let Zene see what you actually reach for.
Your old app took years to learn you. The new one starts from the songs you just handed it — which, as a starting point, is a considerable head start.
Zene is free to use on Android, iPhone, iPad and the web.
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