Groove Music

Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music or Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Not to be confused with Groove (music).
"Xbox Music" redirects here. Not to be confused with Xbox Music Mixer.
"Microsoft Groove" redirects here. Not to be confused with Microsoft Office Groove.

Groove Music
Developer(s)Microsoft
Stable release
Windows 1010.21102.1042.0. / October 27, 2021 (2021-10-27)
Preview release
Windows 11: 11.2110.34.0
Operating systemWindows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Windows 11
Platformx86, x64, ARM, ARM64[1]
PredecessorZune Music Pass, Xbox Music Pass
SuccessorMedia Player (2022)
Available in113 languages[2]
Typeaudio player
LicenseFreeware
Websitemusic.microsoft.com Edit this on Wikidata

The app is also associated with a now-discontinued music streaming service, Groove Music Pass, which was supported across Windows, Xbox video game consoles, Windows Phone, as well as Android and iOS.[3] As of 2014, The Groove catalogue had over 50 million tracks.[4][5] Its subscription service Groove Music Pass was officially discontinued on December 31, 2017, and the Android and iOS versions of the Groove Music app were discontinued in December 2018, restricting the player to its native Microsoft Store base.

Groove Music was superseded by Media Player in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The update was rolled out to Windows 10 users between January and June 2023.

History

Microsoft had previously ventured into music services with its Zune brand. The Zune Music Marketplace included 11 million tracks. The line of Zune players and Zune music store were somewhat unsuccessful, and the brand was largely discontinued at the beginning of the 2010s, although it continued to exist on different devices and the Zune Music Pass offered unlimited access to songs for US$9.99 per month.[6]

During its E3 2012 press conference, and in the wake of the upcoming release of Windows 8, Microsoft announced the relaunch of the service as Xbox Music. With the accompanying announcement of Xbox Video, this move was intended to position Xbox as the company's main entertainment brand. Both services launched on October 16, 2012.[7][8]

On July 6, 2015, Microsoft announced the re-branding of Xbox Music as Groove to tie in with the impending release of Windows 10. The new brand utilized the Microsoft-owned "Groove" trademark formerly used for the unrelated product Microsoft Office Groove (now OneDrive for Business). Joe Belfiore explained that the re-branding was intended to disassociate the service from the Xbox product line, making it more inclusive to non-Xbox platforms.[9][10][11]

On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced that its subscription service, Groove Music Pass, and music purchases on Windows Store would be discontinued after December 31, 2017, leaving support for playing music stored locally and on OneDrive. At the same time, Microsoft began advertising the competing service Spotify, displaying a banner ad for the service within the Groove Music user interface,[12] and offering the ability to migrate music collections and playlists to Spotify. As a side effect of the discontinuation, on May 31, 2018, Microsoft additionally announced that the Groove Music apps for Android and iOS would also be discontinued and cease functioning on December 1, 2018, with users being redirected to Google Play Music and iTunes Match for similar cloud synchronization functionality (the OneDrive app still offered limited music playback functions within).[13][14]

Microsoft began replacing the Groove Music app with a new Windows Media Player app in January 2022 via an update from the Microsoft Store; it initially applied to Windows 11, with Windows 10 following suit in January 2023.[15][16]

Groove Music Pass

Groove Music Pass (formerly Xbox Music Pass and Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued pay subscription service that allowed unlimited streaming of the service's catalog on any device with the service installed. The pricing in the U.S. included monthly and annual subscriptions.[17] A one-month trial offer was available, but those who previously tried the Zune Music Pass subscription prior to the rebranding were ineligible for this offer.[18] An advertising-supported streaming tier was previously available, but discontinued effective December 1, 2014.[6][19] Music could also be purchased directly from Windows Store.[20]

Users' purchased music, and playlists consisting of songs available on the service could be synced through OneDrive and accessed from multiple devices. Songs in a user's local library on a Windows 8.1 PC could be matched and made available to other devices if available on Groove Music Pass.[21][22] Custom "radio stations" could be generated using songs related to user-selected songs.[23] Songs could be downloaded for offline listening on smartphones.[24] Uploading of non-Groove music became available on Windows 10.[20]

Windows 10's Anniversary Update allowed users to hide features that require a Groove Music Pass from the interface.

On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Groove Music Pass service effective December 31, 2017. Existing subscribers were refunded, and Microsoft began promoting Spotify as an alternative by allowing saved playlists to be migrated to the service.[25]

Cloud Collection

Groove Music lets users create a collection of songs and playlists that roam through the cloud on all the supported devices.[21] The songs can be added from the Groove Music Store or matched (within the Groove Music Catalog) to songs either saved locally on the user's machine or uploaded to the user's OneDrive account for the country the user is in.

APIs for developers

The Groove Music API provides access to RESTful web services for developers to leverage the catalog and features of the service in their application or website.[26]

Geographical availability
Blue: Groove Music Pass was available
Dark Blue: Only Groove Music Store was available

Countries where Groove was available included:[27]

Supported formats

The app in Windows 10 supports a number of formats,[28][29] including:

See also

References
  1. "Get Groove Music". Microsoft Store. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  2. "Get Groove Music". Microsoft Store. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  3. "Xbox Music launches on iOS and Android, free streaming on the web". theverge.com. 9 September 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  4. "Xbox One: Xbox Music". winsupersite.com. Archived from the original on 1 July 2017. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  5. "Xbox Music service announced, coming to Xbox, Windows Phone, and Windows 8". theverge.com. 4 June 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2012.
  6. Brodkin, Jon (4 June 2012). "30 million-track Xbox Music service coming from Microsoft". Ars Technica. Condé Nast Digital. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  7. Wingfield, Nick (15 October 2012). "Xbox Music Leads Microsoft's New Push to Challenge iTunes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  8. Warren, Tom (4 June 2012). "Xbox Music service announced, coming to Xbox, Windows Phone, and Windows 8". The Verge. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  9. "Microsoft rebrands Xbox Music to Groove". The Verge. Vox Media. 6 July 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  10. "Windows 10 preview turns Xbox Music into 'Groove'". Engadget. AOL. 6 July 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  11. "Xbox Music is now Groove, as Microsoft recycles and rebrands". Ars Technica. 6 July 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  12. "Groove Music now shows an ad for Spotify, lets Windows Insiders transfer their music". MSPoweruser. 4 October 2017. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  13. Bright, Peter (31 May 2018). "Microsoft killing off the Groove Music apps for iOS and Android". Ars Technica. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  14. Lardinois, Frederic (2 October 2017). "Microsoft Will Soon Shutter It's Music Store and Streaming Service, Move Users to Spotify". TechCrunch. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  15. Baxter, Daryl (5 January 2022). "New and improved Windows Media Player is rolling out to Windows 11 users". TechRadar. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  16. Baxter, Daryl (13 January 2023). "The beat stops for Groove Music in Windows 10 as it's replaced by Media Player". TechRadar. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  17. "Xbox Music API – Music for Every App" (Press release). Microsoft. 4 April 2014. Archived from the original on 5 April 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
  18. Packham, Matt (16 October 2012). "Can Microsoft's New Xbox Music Service Do What Zune Couldn't". TIME techland.
  19. "Microsoft to discontinue free Xbox Music streaming". PC World. 22 October 2014. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  20. "Updates to Entertainment in Windows 10". Blogging Windows. Microsoft. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  21. "Digital Music: To the Cloud". winsupersite.com. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
  22. "Understanding Xbox Music". Thurrott.com. 11 January 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  23. "Xbox Music For Windows 8.1 Preview Adds Pandora-Like Radio Feature". TechCrunch. AOL Inc. 26 June 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  24. "Xbox Music". Xbox. Archived from the original on 28 March 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
  25. "Microsoft retires Groove Music service, partners with Spotify". The Verge. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  26. Viswav, Pradeep (20 December 2013). "Microsoft Launches Xbox Music API And Affiliate Program". Microsoft-News. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  27. "Xbox on Windows feature list". Microsoft. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  28. "Windows 10 Helpful Links - Microsoft Community". Microsoft Community.
  29. "File Formats Supported By Groove Music App In Windows 10". Into Windows. 29 June 2016.
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