In what seems to be a test, YouTube is testing a new button that lets you start playing random videos on your phone or tablet.
The power of YouTube lies not only in its absolutely gigantic collection of the web’s content, but also in its recommendation engine. But, for users who just want to get content going without picking through a ton of options, a new button is starting to show up which makes it all a mystery.
Top comment by jesse Cockayne
This "Feature" WAS on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus) as of the update on Sept 13th. However, this was so annoying it forced me to uninstall all updates to YouTube and then turn off automatic updates to prevent it from ever coming back.
It adds a button to your feed in the lower right corner. There is no way to turn it off or remove it, the button also sits on top of EVERYTHING in the corner, including the built in Back button for android. and the button is HUGE, like 3 times the size of any other button. I kept hitting it on accident while either just trying to scroll up or down or when I would try to hit the back button, and then it would immediately jump into a random video, and when you did manage to hit the back button, it then reset your feed so you lost your place when are taken back to your feed.
Most annoying thing ever, this NEEDS to die!
As spotted by Android Police, a black button in YouTube’s mobile app allows users to start playing YouTube Shorts at random.
This is a bit redundant given that there’s a Shorts button in the bottom bar that’s much more obvious, but it’s not the first time YouTube has played around with this idea. A while back, a Reddit thread showed off a “Can’t decide what to watch?” widget in the home page which opened up random videos in the same viewing style as Shorts, but with full-length videos, with the caption “try a new way to discover videos.”
The folks at Android Police saw the same option, with videos under 20 minutes being shown in the clip below.
It’s unclear how widely this is being tested – we’re not seeing either option on our end – but it’s a nice addition nonetheless. If you’re seeing this, let us know in the comments below.
More on YouTube:
- All the ways YouTube doesn’t feel like a Google app
- YouTube crackdown leads to ‘hundreds of thousands’ of ad blocker uninstalls
- International YouTube Premium price increase underway in these countries
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