YouTube Music redesigns overflowing overflow menu on Android [U]

Abner Li | Feb 28 2024 - 10:54 am PT

After testing in October, YouTube Music has rolled out a redesign of the Now Playing overflow menu, but only on iOS.

Update 2/28: YouTube Music’s redesigned overflow menu is now widely available on Android. It’s ever so slightly shorter with the 8-item list below the three big buttons less crowded.

Update 1/27: After widely rolling out on iOS, Android users are starting to see the redesigned overflow menu. On this platform, you get Play next, Start radio, and Share as the three big buttons.

Original 1/12: In September, Now Playing was redesigned to add a carousel that provides access to common actions: like/dislike, Comments, Save to playlist, Share, Download, and Radio.

It’s a pretty good set of capabilities to prioritize, but you still need to open the overflow menu for most things. That list has grown quite unwieldy as YouTube Music has grown. Recent additions in the past year include the Sleep timer, Dismiss queue, and View song credits.

To alleviate that, YouTube Music is now making use of large buttons at the top of the sheet for Play next, Save to playlist, and Share.

Android vs. iOS

Top comment by Darren

Liked by 15 people

They need to fix the issue where playlists don't follow load in the Up Next queue on Android. It causes issues with Shuffle and Repeat - and what's worse is that this was FIXED in 2022 but for some reason in August they reverted the change.

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Those actions are moved from the list below, but you might still need to scroll on some devices to see everything. Regardless, it’s definitely a start at tackling the problem. (For example, would a grid design that emphasizes icons be a better approach?)

The only overflow menu to get a redesign today is in the YouTube Music Now Playing page. Other three-dot menus throughout the application remain the same.

At the moment, we’re only seeing this change on iOS. Compared to Android, the list has always been organized differently.

Meanwhile, the iPhone client has not received the gradient Now Playing background that came to Android in December. On that note, the app has yet to see the updated iOS 17 widget styles that could be used to add a play/pause button directly on the homescreen.