Outline-style icons start appearing in YouTube Music for Android

Abner Li | Mar 24 2021 - 2:11 pm PT

Following a brief test earlier this week on the main website, YouTube Music for Android is now beginning to more widely see outline-style icons.

This change starts in the bottom bar with Home, Explore, and Library getting ever so slightly tweaked to accommodate the new style. Meanwhile, the top app bar sees thinner icons for Cast and Search. In the Library tab, the icons for Downloads, Playlists, Albums, Songs, Artists, and Subscriptions are all refreshed.

Various overflow menus throughout the app have also been updated. Lastly, this change modernizes the Now Playing screen with like/unlike, as well as everything that appears when you tap cover art, modified.

YouTube TV has yet to be updated, but the direction toward uniformity and consistency is clear. In the case of YouTube Music, the outline style doesn’t make a significant difference beyond making the app feel lighter — and somewhat more generic. For some, the lines are slightly too thin, but muscle memory is not impacted. Visibility is improved in one regard as the starker outline is much more apparent against dark backgrounds than the previous gray.

These outline-style icons are not yet widely rolled out, but appearing for more YouTube Music Android users today following a server-side update. Try force stopping the application and reopening.