YouTube Music rolls out split-view Now Playing redesign on Android, iOS [U]

Abner Li | Apr 23 2026 - 11:48 am PT

The split-view Now Playing redesign that YouTube Music has been working on since last year is now widely rolling out.

Update 4/23: This redesign is now seeing a second wave of availability. It should now be widely rolled out on Android and iOS.

Original 4/14: At the top, you’ll notice how the “Song” and “Video” switcher now uses icons, while the cover art is slightly larger than before.

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The placement of the button carousel and main controls is unchanged, but the progress bar switched from a thin line and playhead to a thicker container. The line gets thicker when you tap and scrub.

Meanwhile, YTM has removed “Lyrics” and “Related.” The bottom part of Now Playing is now dedicated to your Up Next queue. You can swipe anywhere in the player (including the very top) to slide it up halfway.

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Top comment by matteventu

Liked by 25 people

While there are some design elements of the new version that I appreciate and that make it look more modern (i.e. scrub bar), overall this is a major UX regression.

1- Lyrics button is now crammed in the "chips" bar, which pushes the "save" button out of the screen and makes it require a scroll and tap (in place of a single tap as before).

2- While I appreciate the presence of the split-screen view which may be useful to some users I guess, there no longer is an easy and immediate way to go from now playing screen to full-screen queue. You need to either double swipe up, or make an oblong and unnatural swipe up gesture. Otherwise, it will just open the split screen view.

3- The bottom part now feels extremely unbalanced, with all that empty and wasted space around "Up next" where there used to be the UP NEXT / LYRICS / RELATED buttons.

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This redesign introduces a new dual-pane design that lets you see cover art, controls, and what’s next. Swipe up again to get the previous fullscreen design.

You’ll find Lyrics just after the thumbs up/down capsule, while Related can be opened by tapping the song title and right-facing chevron.

The split-view Now Playing redesign is now widely rolling out to YouTube Music for Android (version 9.14) and iOS (9.15). This is a server-side update, with dismissing the queue and force stopping the app triggering the new look.

iOS