YouTube Music can now automatically download 500 of your favorite songs

YouTube Music, along with YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium, was launched in May 2018 in selected regions. The services were then gradually rolled out to more parts of the world, including India. Despite the push from Google, YouTube Music does not stand as undisputed music streaming champion, as the app and service still has a long way to go, especially with the co-existence of Google Play Music. Now, Google is tuning how YouTube Music handles offline caching with the new “smart downloads” feature. Premium users could already download specific playlists, songs, or albums for offline playback. Additionally, users could also turn on the “offline mixtape” feature which automatically downloaded audio content based on your previous listening and rating history on YouTube. Now, Google is expanding on this feature with “smart downloads,” which replaces the offline mixtape toggle in the Settings menu of the app. This option also increases the maximum number of songs automatically downloaded from 100 to 500, giving users the option to have a bigger collection saved on-device. The first hundred songs according to your likes will still be present from the previous offline mixtape section, while the next four hundred will be populated by “songs from your Liked Songs playlist and your other favorite playlists and albums.” You still get a slider to control how many songs you want to be downloaded, and the process happens at night when your phone is connected to Wi-Fi. Smart downloads in YouTube Music is rolling out now and will be available for all users over the coming days. As a side note, The Verge reached out to YouTube for comment on when exactly the service will migrate user libraries from Google Play Music over to YouTube Music, but did not hear back at the time of publishing their article. Source: XDA Developers