YouTube adds new swipe gestures to navigate through video history, rolling out to iOS this week

Ben Schoon | Jan 14 2019 - 1:21 pm PT

As more YouTube viewers hit mobile devices, the platform is testing new features to improve the experience on smartphones and tablets. This week, YouTube is launching a new set of swipe gestures for its mobile app to better navigate video history.

With these new swipe gestures, YouTube users can easily navigate through their video history. This includes a swipe forward to view the next recommended video, as well as a swipe backward to see the last video in your viewing history YouTube also says that when swiping back, the video will resume playback from where you left off (via TechCrunch).

This feature doesn’t come as a total surprise, though. One member of the 9to5Mac team has had the feature for a past several weeks, and over the summer we posted about some users seeing the functionality on Android. With today’s reveal, though, it seems that YouTube is rolling out the feature more widely.

Unfortunately, YouTube hasn’t commented yet on when or if this feature will be rolling to Android users. With 70 percent of its viewing time currently on mobile devices, it seems likely this feature will arrive on Android eventually as long as it sees positive reception on iOS.