YouTube Music for Android rolls out versatile ‘Recently Played’ widget

Abner Li | Dec 2 2021 - 5:05 pm PT

Previewed in October and officially announced yesterday, YouTube Music’s new “Recent Played” widget is now available on Android 12.

By default, “Recently Played” is 5×2 with two sections. The top is a simplified Now Playing with play/pause and thumbs up, similar to “Turntable.” You can resize (5×1 or 4×1) the widget to just be this row, with the like button disappearing in the latter configuration. Tapping this area opens the app and not the player.

The bottom half provides “quick access to your recently played videos, albums, playlists, and more.” YouTube Music specifically surfaces content that users have manually selected to play. It can show 4, 5, 8, or 10 recent tracks, with the largest 5×4 configuration also boosting the album artwork of what’s currently on. (You can increase it to 5×5, but that only adds more padding above and below.)

Like on iOS, a tap instantly starts playback with this serving as an out-of-app replacement for “Quick picks” or the Library tab’s “Recent activity” carousel. This widget has the upside of being persistent compared to the changing positions of sections in the Home feed.

This should complete YouTube Music’s collection of new widgets, with Recently Played and Turntable reflecting Material You and Dynamic Color. The original Now Playing just picks up rounded corners on Android 12.

Version 4.55.55 of YTM for Android 12 widely rolled out to the Play Store this morning. The homescreen object went live as a server-side update this afternoon rather than immediately appearing after updating. Force stop (and relaunch) YouTube Music if you don’t see the widget.

With this addition, remaining MY widget rollouts from Google include Photos (next week), Play Books, Calendar, and News.