Work out which Amazon you're actually on.

Amazon runs several music offerings under one name, and they behave differently when you leave. Before you export anything, it's worth knowing which one you have.

Amazon Music with Prime is the music benefit included with an eligible Prime membership. Your access to that benefit depends on the membership remaining active.

Amazon Music Unlimited is the separate paid music subscription. Cancelling or downgrading can change which songs and features you can access.

Amazon Digital Music purchases are different. If you bought MP3s from Amazon, those purchases are separate from your streaming subscription. This guide doesn't move or delete those original files.

Zene doesn't connect to your Amazon account.

Worth stating up front, because Amazon accounts often have payment methods and delivery information attached, and people are rightly careful with them.

Zene has no Amazon sign-in for playlist importing. There's no permission screen inside Zene, no linked-account setting, and no Amazon password field.

The move happens through a file: you produce a plain list of song titles and artists, hand that file to Zene, and Zene searches its own catalogue for each one.

The Alexa habit is the thing you'll actually miss.

Let's be straight about this, because it's a real reason people hesitate.

If your listening has been “Alexa, play something” for three years, you haven't just been using a music service — you've been using a habit that requires no decisions.

Moving to another app means finding a new way to listen. Your Alexa speaker can still be useful for its other features, but don't assume Zene will replace every Amazon Music voice command or speaker integration.

Three playlists are a much smaller job than rebuilding an entire listening history. Check before you dread it.

About the songs that don't match exactly

Catalogues differ everywhere. You'll have tracks that exist on both services under slightly different names — a remaster, a single edit, a live version, or a compilation cut.

When Zene can't find an exact match, it adds the closest version it can find and tells you which ones, by name, under Closest matches.

The failure mode you're avoiding is the silent one — a transfer that says “done” while a few songs quietly became something else.

How much moves at once?

A free Zene account imports 250 songs every 30 days. That's several real playlists, and for many people it covers the move in one sitting.

The window rolls from your first import rather than resetting on the 1st, so it refills thirty days after you started. If a file runs past the limit, Zene saves what fits and tells you what's left of your allowance instead of discarding the batch.

Premium removes the import limit for very large moves.

What won't come across

A playlist export is a list of music, not a complete backup of everything attached to your Amazon account.

• Play counts and dates added. Zene's CSV import doesn't recreate that listening history.
• Playlist artwork and descriptions. Names survive; decoration doesn't.
• MP3s you bought from Amazon. The import doesn't move your original audio files. Keep your purchased music backed up separately.
• Audible books. They're a separate service and aren't part of this music export.
• Podcast follows. They aren't included in the music CSV. You'll follow shows again in Zene.

If the file won't read

Two problems account for most of the common failures.

If Zene says the file doesn't look like an exported playlist, it may be missing its first line — the row of headings that tells the importer what each column contains. Export again and keep the whole file intact.

If Zene reports no track names, the export may have been made without titles. Redo it with track names and artists included; a file containing only links may not provide enough information to match against.

And if a large playlist behaves strangely, try one playlist at a time. Smaller files make it easier to identify which row is causing trouble.

Do it in the right order.

The sequence matters, especially if you're planning to cancel Prime or downgrade Amazon Music.

If you're changing Amazon Music Unlimited, use Amazon Music settings to review your subscription. If you're changing Prime itself, use Amazon Prime to manage that membership.

If you subscribed through another billing provider, such as Google Play or Apple, check that provider's subscription settings instead.

Cancel first and you may find your access to the playlists has changed before you've exported them. Moving first avoids that unnecessary risk.