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How To Set A Default Music Provider On Google Home

Last Updated: January 16, 2020

Google Home is the internet giant’s attempt to challenge Amazon Alexa’s dominance. Early versions weren’t up to much but later versions have really upped the ante. The device is intelligent, helpful and not bad looking either. One of the first things you will likely do with your new device is change the apps. This tutorial will walk you through setting the default music provider on Google Home.

Smart Home

By default, Google Home uses Google Play Music as the default player. That app is fine and does a good job but if you have a Spotify subscription or prefer Deezer or some other audio player, you can switch the default to your preferred player.

Nobody buys a Google Home for playback quality. The speaker is poor and sound reproduction is not very good at all. However, if it’s background music or news, the speaker is fine. For anything more than that, you may want to invest in some Bluetooth speakers or connect your Google Home to your home cinema equipment using Google Cast. Aside from that shortcoming, Google Home has Alexa beat when it comes to music.

Not only does the Google Play Store have several million tracks available either free or as part of a subscription but Google also has YouTube. The free version of YouTube has another bunch of million tracks and YouTube Music has millions more. Good luck trying to find something not on either of those platforms!

One downside Google Home does have it with voice recognition. Ask for an obscure band name or track and the device will have real difficulty understanding your request. This is a recurring theme with my device and with those of people I know. It’s a small thing but an annoyance nonetheless.

Change default music provider on Google Home

Changing the default music app on Google Home is very straightforward. Like I said, Google Play Music is the default and it is very good but it isn’t the only show in town. If you are already subscribing to Spotify, there is no need to also subscribe to Google Play Music. You can just change the app to Spotify instead.

Here’s how:

  1. Open the Google Home app on your phone.
  2. Select the three line menu icon or the Account icon at the bottom of the screen.
  3. Select Music to access the app list.
  4. Select the app you want to set as default.
  5. Select Link Account and log into your app if prompted.

What you see within the Google Home app depends on your device. At the time of writing, my phone app has the three line menu icon and my tablet app has an account icon. When you select Music, you should see the default player as it will have a dot in the center of the circle on the right. Selecting another music player will fill that circle instead. That’s it for setting the default as it will save dynamically.

Depending on the music provider you use, you may or may not be asked to log in. I used Spotify for this example and was asked to log in and to link my account. Other apps may be different.

Troubleshooting changing default music app on Google Home

As you can see, changing the default music provider is very straightforward. Even though there is very little to go wrong, something occasionally does. There are a couple of problems that seem to appear quite frequently so I thought I would include them here in case they happen to you too.

Language compatibility

One frequent issue I see on the Google support forums is support for other languages. Google Home doesn’t support many languages so some users have it set to US English and work with that. If you have your mobile phone set to a language other than US English, even if you have Google Home set to US English, it won’t always work.

Set your phone to the same language, make your changes on your Google Home and reset the phone language to the one you’re most comfortable with. It’s a pain but it works.

Region incompatibility

Not all Google Home for sale in places other than the Google Store are from the region they are being sold in. A friend of mine bought one from eBay but it was originally from Europe. That means he couldn’t get US-based apps to work properly as they were region locked.

He uses a VPN to make his Google Home work properly. I have seen others in the support forums do the same thing but the other way round. Buy a Google Home from a US seller and use a VPN in Europe to access Spotify and other services.