Groove Music has been on life support ever since Microsoft ended the Groove Music Pass in 2017.
Today, Microsoft put the final nail in the coffin on its Groove Music service.
The company officially announced that Groove Music OneDrive streaming will end on March 31st.
Microsoft posted a new FAQ page on its support site, stating that OneDrive music streaming in Groove Music will be retired at the end of the month. Tracks stored in OneDrive can still be played using the web player, but you can no longer stream them from the cloud in Groove Music.
Music stored in OneDrive will also stop syncing on March 31st. Data stored in the Groove Music service will be deleted 30 days after that. The music is still available in OneDrive, and any downloaded music and playlists are still available in the Groove Music app.
The only solution for users to keep playing music in Groove is to download their entire collection from OneDrive and store it locally. The FAQ also mentions that Forza Horizon 3 music streaming will be affected, also ending on March 31st.
Earlier, Microsoft provided a tool for Groove users to switch to Spotify to keep streaming.
A third-party Windows 10 app called Sonca also allows users to stream music from a variety of cloud services including OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Yandex Disk. That app is available at an 80% discount following Microsoft’s announcement.
While Groove Music continues to function with local music, it seems as though the app itself may be on life-support. Many people are pointing out that Spotify’s official Windows Store app hasn’t been updated since it debuted in 2017, despite being Microsoft’s recommended replacement for streaming music.
For those who still prefer the Groove Music interface, you can keep OneDrive locally synced (available offline) to continue using the app. But streaming music tracks from OneDrive will cease to be an option at the end of the month.