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YouTube Music rolling out song search, like Google Play Music

Back in October, the main YouTube rolled out a slew of mobile updates like stable volume and a hum to search capability. Song search is now rolling out to YouTube Music.

In YouTube, it’s currently available on Android and accessed by launching search and tapping a new “Song” (vs “Voice”) tab. You can play, sing, or hum, just like Hum to Search in Google Search. YouTube is using “AI to match the sound to the original recording.”

This is now coming to YouTube Music. Once again, you tap the search icon in the top-right corner first. However, there’s a dedicated button — which uses the same icon design as in YouTube — next to voice search for slightly faster access. 

Some YouTube Music for iOS users already have this capability, but we’re not seeing it on our iPhone or Android devices.

Credit: u/Izmir_Stinger

It would be nice if all your finds were saved to a playlist, like Spotify, instead of just taking you to search results for the name of what was identified. Google Search can show matches by percentage.

Song search makes a great deal of sense in YouTube Music and was something that Google Play Music offered ages ago. (Opening the search bar would list a prominent “Identify what’s playing” button).

Meanwhile, you can also use Google Assistant (but not Gemini), Google Search, and Now Playing on Pixel devices.

More on YouTube Music:

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com