Microsoft's Groove Music is dead

Microsoft is killing its music streaming service, Groove Music. The company today announced that it will be killing Groove Music and transfer subscribers of Groove Music Pass to its partner Spotify instead. Microsoft killing Groove Music at this point is definitely a huge surprise, as the software maker has been making significant improvements to the service over the past few years. Microsoft will also be removing the ability to purchase music through the Windows/Microsoft Store.

By the end of this year, you will only be able to use Groove Music to play music and it’ll no longer allow you to stream, purchase, or download music. Microsoft will soon start displaying a message to Groove Music users by the next week, which will allow users to move their music to Spotify. This process will require you to either log into your existing Spotify account or make a new one, and then all of your music from Groove will be available on Spotify.

Groove Music getting killed will leave lots of Windows Phone users in a tough place, mainly due to the fact that Spotify’s Windows Phone app is very bad. The company launched an app for the Xbox One recently, and its desktop app for Windows PCs is also brilliant — but it doesn’t have any Universal Windows Platform app at the moment. For those wondering — yes, you’ll continue to be able to play and stream music stored on OneDrive. You can find more info here.

RIP, Groove.