YouTube Music getting big ‘Library’ tab redesign on Android [U: Also iPhone/iPad]

Abner Li | Aug 31 2022 - 3:08 pm PT

YouTube Music is significantly redesigning its Library tab on Android and iOS with a focus on making it faster to start playing content.

Update 8/31: After appearing and disappearing last week, YouTube Music’s Library design is back for some users. It was originally only spotted for Android, but it’s now showing up on both the iPhone and iPad.

However, this is not yet a wide rollout, but it will hopefully stick around for those that have the revamp again.

Update 8/26: Over the past day, YouTube Music has pulled the new Library design that we had live on several devices. It’s not clear whether this week’s appearance was an A/B test or accidental release. We did not encounter any performance issues with the revamp.

Original 8/24: Previously, the Library tab started with a “Recent activity” carousel that shows albums, songs, artists, and playlists with large previews that only allow two full items to appear. This is followed by links to pages for Downloads, Playlists, Albums, Songs, Artists, and Subscriptions.

The redesign switches to a list view that immediately shows content instead of requiring users to first select a page. Tapping a song from this view immediately starts radio playback.

“Library” is the default, but you can switch to Downloads, Uploads, and Device files from the top-left corner. One particularly great thing about this redesign is how your “View my” choice persists through app closures, visiting other pages, and even repeatedly tapping Library in the bottom bar. As such, you can permanently have the Library tab always show media stored offline.

Top comment by P_Devil

Liked by 2 people

Too bad the Liked Songs playlist is limited to a paltry 5000 songs. Still no point in anyone with larger libraries switching to YTM until Google fixes this. RIP GPM.

View all comments

Next up are chips for Playlists, Songs, Albums, and Artists. The first two have pill-shaped FABs (floating action buttons) for New playlist and Shuffle all, respectively. Meanwhile, Artists lets you filter and see Subscriptions.

Lastly, you can filter the main list by Recent activity, Recently added, or Recently played.

We’re seeing this YouTube Music Library redesign widely rolled out today on Android phones and now tablets, but not iOS. Close the app from the Recents menu to get this overhaul to load. Blue introductory prompts explain the UI, including how “your full listening history” is still available in the avatar/account menu.

This is the app’s biggest UI refresh in quite a while as the playlist and album page redesigns are still only on Android tablets.