YouTube Music search now distinguishes between ‘Featured’ and ‘Community’ playlists

Abner Li | Apr 13 2021 - 11:14 pm PT

In February, Google said its streaming service would add “even more” playlist creation features and increase discoverability of those user-generated collections. That has so far been the only app roadmap provided by the company this year. YouTube Music is now implementing those plans in search by distinguishing between Featured and Community playlists.

YouTube Music has long categorized search results by top result, songs, albums, playlists, videos, and artist. Google is now separating the fourth item into “Featured playlists” and “Community playlists.”

The former are curated by Google directly and may not appear for every query, while those latter playlists come from YouTube users, often on the main service. “Featured” and “Community” now also serve as filters to refine results at the top of search.

This distinction lets users easily filter between editorial content and those from end users. While playlists from YouTube Music often have a custom cover, it’s easy to jump into a community creation.

Last year, YouTube Music started surfacing “Your channel” inside the application with the ability to share and browse. Playlists today can be set to Private, Unlisted, or Public, with the two latter options allowing collaborators to add songs. Meanwhile, Google offers ML song suggestions to populate a playlist.

This change marking Featured and Community playlists is widely rolled out to YouTube Music for Android, iOS, and web today.