YouTube app miniplayer redesign works like picture-in-picture

Abner Li | Jul 24 2024 - 4:44 pm PT

YouTube for Android is testing a redesign of the miniplayer that serves as an in-app picture-in-picture (PiP).

Today, the YouTube miniplayer is docked to the bottom bar. The video — which is cropped and pretty short — appears at the left with the name and channel after that, while the play and close buttons are at the right.

The new design looks like a picture-in-picture window. It lets you browse YouTube, while still watching the video.

This rectangular card features rounded corners that cut into the video and has the play/pause button flanked by 10-second rewind/skip. The background for the controls is white or dark depending on the theme. (It’s a bit distracting and an Ambient mode effect here would be cool.)

Old vs. new

Notably you can resize this new miniplayer video to take up the entire width of the screen. Drag the rectangle, like picture-in-picture, to move it around. To close, tap the ‘x’ button in the top-right corner or move it to the bottom of your screen.

This picture-in-picture miniplayer is not yet widely rolled out to YouTube for Android, and we’ve only received one report of it today.