How to Cancel YouTube Music + 4 Reasons Why People Are Leaving

YouTube Music (aka YT Music) is one of the most convenient music streaming services. The 100m+ strong catalog is on par with all competitors, and it’s even included in the YouTube Premium price free of charge.

Then again, the audio quality is inferior to all leading alternatives, especially when compared to Tidal or Qobuz.

So, if you’re looking to make a change and cancel your YouTube Music subscription, we’re here with a step-by-step rundown for all platforms. Let’s take it from the top.

• Fastest Solution
• How to Cancel YouTube Music on PC or Macbook
• How to Cancel on iPhone
• How to Cancel on Android
• Why People Are Canceling YouTube Music
• 4 Things to Do Before and After Canceling
• Conclusion

How to Cancel YouTube Music on Any Platform: Fastest Solution

As verified by YouTube and Google, the fastest way to cancel YouTube Music is to click your profile image in the upper right corner, go to “Purchases and memberships”, click “Manage membership” next to the YouTube Music logo, and then click “Deactivate”, and confirm your decision. That’s all it takes.

Depending on the specific device you’re using, you’ll want to check out our in-depth guides for desktop, laptop, and mobile devices. Keep reading to learn more.

How to Cancel YouTube Music on Computer

If you prefer clicking on a big screen to tapping on a smaller one, you’ll probably prefer hopping to your YouTube Music Web Player on a PC to unsubscribing from this service on a mobile device. 

Also, if you’re looking to get rid of your YouTube Music free version, doing it on a computer is the quickest method. Let’s cover both with step-by-step instructions, shall we?

How to Cancel YouTube Music on PC or MacBook

In a nutshell, the answer to the question of how to cancel YouTube Music (Premium YouTube subscription, too) is to open the YT Music web player in your browser, access the “Purchases and memberships” section from your profile, find YouTube Music Premium, and deactivate it.

Let’s break the process down into simple steps:

1. 1. Visit YouTube.
2. 2. Click on your profile image in the top right corner of the screen.
3. 3. Choose “Purchases and memberships”.

1. 4. In the “Memberships” section, locate YouTube Music Premium.
2. 5. Click on “Manage Membership” to open a dropdown menu.
3. 6. Choose the paid membership plan you wish to unsubscribe from.
4. 7. Select “Deactivate”.

1. 8. When prompted, click “Continue to cancel” to remove your YouTube Music membership.
2. 9. You can also select “Pause Instead” to temporarily pause your YT Music subscription.

1. 10. In the final prompt, choose “Yes, Cancel” to unsubscribe. 

Now that you know how to unsubscribe from YouTube Music, there are a few important things we’d like to discuss. 

Firstly, the cancellation isn’t immediate. You will still be charged for the current month (if you haven’t been already), and no refunds will be available.

However, you’ll stop paying for YouTube Music Premium from the following month and onwards. Check your billing date and unsubscribe before it’s due to avoid being charged for an extra month. 

Secondly, the “Pause Instead” option is quite important. It serves as a temporary cancellation of the service, meaning that you won’t be charged, but you also won’t get to enjoy the perks of YouTube Music Premium. 

In a way, it’s better than “standard” cancellation because unsubscribing from YT Music will render the chosen payment method ineligible for future renewals. Consider it if you’re having second thoughts, but know that it doesn’t have any strings attached you should be worried about. 

Related: Learn how to cancel YouTube Premium in our separate guide.

How to Cancel YouTube Music Free Trial

Your YouTube Music free trial expires after 1 month (or 3 if you’ve been lucky enough to catch a promo), but it’s important to cancel your subscription before the trial period ends. YouTube will start charging you a standard monthly fee as soon as the free trial expires. 

To avoid this, you’ll need to follow almost exactly the same steps as we just described above, with a few notable differences:

1. 1. Launch YouTube.
2. 2. Open “Paid Memberships” from your profile.
3. 3. Locate your YouTube Music Free Trial Membership.
4. 4. Select “Manage Membership” and choose “Deactivate”. 
5. 5. Follow the prompts by responding with “Continue to cancel” and “Yes, Cancel”.

How to Cancel YouTube Music on iPhone

Apple users can unsubscribe from YouTube Music Premium or cancel their free plan with a bit more flexibility compared to PC and Android users. We’ll list two easy ways by which this can be done below.

Method #1: Unsubscribing Through iPhone Settings (Faster Option)

This method is only viable if you’ve subscribed to YouTube Music through your Apple account (instead of Google). Instead of launching the YT app, you’ll need to find your subscription plan from your phone’s settings, but all other steps are more or less the same as usual:

1. 1. Open “Settings” on your iPhone (the cogwheel icon).
2. 2. Tap your account name. 

1. 3. Choose “Subscriptions”.

1. 4. Locate and tap your YouTube Music subscription.
2. 5. Find the plan you wish to unsubscribe from and select “Cancel Subscription”.

Method #2: Cancel YouTube Music on iPhone via App (Longer Option)

If you’ve used your Google credentials to sign up for YouTube Music, the fastest way to unsubscribe is to open YouTube on your iPhone, open “Paid Memberships”, find the plan, and click “Deactivate”. It’s easy, simple, and almost the same as the first method. Just follow these steps:

1. 1. Open YouTube from your mobile iOS device.
2. 2. Tap your profile image in the bottom right corner.
3. 3. Tap the cogwheel icon in the top right corner.

1. 4. Go to “Purchases and memberships”.

1. 5. Select YouTube Music Premium.

1. 6. Tap “Manage” and continue using a mobile browser of your choice.

• 7. The browser will take you to YouTube’s Help page. Click the “Cancel Now” button.

• 8. Click the “Deactivate” button next to your YouTube Music subscription.

• 9. Click “Continue to cancel” and verify your decision, or go with “Pause instead” if you just want to pause your subscription.

How to Cancel YouTube Music on Android

YouTube Music users who prefer the Android app over the web player can unsubscribe from this service just as easily as they would on a computer. 

The steps are the same, and the only difference (apart from using the YT Music app instead of the browser-based web player) lies in how the interface looks, so let’s break down how to do it:

1. 1. Open the YT Music App on your Android phone.
2. 2. Tap your profile icon.
3. 3. Tap “Paid memberships”.

1. 4. Choose the plan you wish to unsubscribe from.

1. 5. Select “Deactivate” next to the chosen plan.

1. 6. When prompted, tap the button to continue.

1. 7. YouTube will ask you why you wish to cancel, choose your reason or simply tap “Other”.

1. 8. When prompted for the second time, choose “Yes, Cancel”.

Compared to deactivating YouTube Music on a PC, you’ll now be able to skip the “Manage Subscriptions” part, mainly because each plan has its own little segment in the YT Music app. 

There are only two minor things to look out for in this case. YouTube will ask you, “Did you know you can pause?”, which is just a tad more invasive than a simple suggestion you’ll get in the web player. Secondly, the overview of plans can feel a bit clunky if you have multiple subscriptions running at the same time.

The good thing is that you can cancel any plan, whether it be YouTube Music Premium or the YouTube Music Free Trial, by following the same steps. 

Read more: Discover Ask Music, the YouTube Music Playlist Assistant

Main Reasons Why People Are Canceling YouTube Music

Let’s now briefly touch on what led people to cancel their YouTube Music subscriptions. We did some research, and these 4 reasons seem to pop up most frequently.

• – Inferior Audio Quality: YouTube Music is leagues below more popular streaming platforms like Qobuz, Tidal, and even Spotify in terms of audio quality. It doesn’t offer lossless audio, and the 24-bit 256 kbps are weaker than Spotify’s 320 kbps audio quality, not to mention Qobuz’s 9,216 kbps. 
• – Clunky Playlist Management Tools: Making, sharing, and organizing playlists is one of the core features of any music streaming service worth its salt. According to numerous Reddit users, YouTube Music is lacking in this field, offering a simplistic set of basic functions that sometimes don’t work as intended due to bugs. Some users also reported issues of YouTube Music randomly pausing.

• – Unified Likes on YouTube & YouTube Music: Regular users have left YouTube Music for good because it’s difficult to search for quality content because reactions (as in “likes”) aren’t separated on both platforms. The point is that if it doesn’t matter which type of listeners are essentially “grading” content, the search algorithms can’t possibly work the way they’re meant to. 
• – Subscription Fees Have Gone Up: No one likes paying for the exact same service more than they’ve used to. Since YouTube Music didn’t receive any drastic upgrades in recent months, and yet they’ve decided to increase the prices of monthly subscriptions across all plans, both newcomers and long-time users are abandoning the ship.  

4 Things to Do Before and After Canceling YouTube Music

If you made the decision to leave YouTube Music, there are a few simple things you need to do. Here’s a short checklist so you don’t feel lost.

• – Backup Your Music Catalog: The first thing is to have everything backed up. Use Tune My Music’s Backup feature to safeguard your YouTube Music catalog. This way, you’re safe if a hiccup occurs later down the line.
• – Research the Alternatives: Check the available options for your new musical home. Is Spotify better compared to YouTube Music? How about the convenience of Apple Music? Or maybe Qobuz, the home of audiophiles?
• – Transfer Your Playlists: So you don’t have to manually build your playlists from scratch, use Tune My Music to transfer up to 500 songs in your playlists for free to any streaming platform you opt for.
• – Double-Check Your Cancelation: Once you’ve followed the cancelation steps in our guide, enter your YouTube profile once again and find the Memberships section. Just in case, double-check that your cancelation is off.

Are You Really Ready to Move on From YouTube Music?

As we steadily approach the finish line, we first want to recuperate:

The fastest way to cancel YouTube Music is to visit YouTube, click on your profile image, go to “Purchases and memberships”, find the “Memberships” tab, click on “Manage membership” next to the YT Music icon, click “Deactivate”, and confirm your decision.

With that said, do consider the benefits of YouTube Music before leaving. Despite the lower sound quality, it’s one of the most convenient music streaming services around. It also has the best social features, and you actually get it free of charge if you subscribe to YouTube Premium.

So, YouTube Music, Cancel Subscription, and that’s a wrap!

Whichever decision you make, don’t forget to take your playlists with you. Also, visit our blog’s How-To section for more useful info. Stay safe!