YouTube for Android rolls out new miniplayer, settings redesign

Abner Li | Oct 22 2024 - 3:04 pm PT

Following the announcement last week, YouTube has widely rolled out the new miniplayer on Android and a redesign of mobile settings.

The previous miniplayer was docked above the bottom bar with the player at the left followed by the video and channel name. Play/pause and the close ‘x’ round out the controls.

This new design looks more like Android’s picture-in-picture window, but with a bar — light or dark theme (Ambient mode would be nice here) — at the bottom where play/pause is flanked by 10-second rewind and skip. You can move the miniplayer to any of the four corners, as well as expand the window to take up the full width of your screen by pinching out. Tap the top-right corner to close. The transition to the system PiP when you exit the app is smooth enough.

We’re seeing this miniplayer redesign widely rolled out with version 19.41.39 of YouTube for Android. Force stop from App info if you’re not seeing it yet.

YouTube last week announced the Sleep Timer for everyone, which should also be more widely available, but we’re not seeing the fine-tunable playback speed yet.

Meanwhile, YouTube has redesigned the settings menu with section headers — Account, Video and audio preferences, Help and policy, and Developer preferences (which has nothing listed) — and thin outline-style icons for each item.