YouTube Music Now Playing testing fullscreen cover art [Update: Tweaks]
9to5 Google 2026-07-28 16:47:00
Context: YouTube Music is testing a new fullscreen cover art feature for its Now Playing interface, which takes up the entire screen, including the status and system navigation bars. This redesign is an update to the previous split-view redesign introduced earlier this year. The new feature is still in testing and not widely rolled out yet.
Key Facts
- YouTube Music's new fullscreen cover art design has the album art taking up the entire screen, including the status and system navigation bars, which might significantly crop the artwork.
- The new design lets users tap on the cover art to switch between the new fullscreen view and the previous square artwork view.
- The update, introduced on July 28, shrinks the album art so it no longer appears behind the controls and progress bar, allowing users to see more of the square artwork.
- The background of the pill-shaped buttons in the actions carousel becomes transparent with this redesign, and YouTube Music drops the artwork-based color theming for this screen.
- The new fullscreen cover art feature also applies when watching music videos, reflecting the prevalence of portrait, Shorts-esque video content.