YouTube on Android gets a 'Play Something' button

Sometimes you struggle to find something to watch when you're on YouTube. Luckily, the media giant is adding a new button to its Android app that automatically searches for and selects videos for you to watch.

YouTube for Android gets a "Play Something" button

As reported by 9to5Google, people have discovered a new feature that has appeared on YouTube for Android. This feature adds a button that says "Play something" to the bottom right corner of the homepage. If you tap this button, YouTube will automatically search for something for you to watch.

According to the people who have this feature, this button will always launch the YouTube Shorts UI to show you the selected video. However, it is not limited to just choosing short videos; it can also choose to show you longer videos instead. With the minimalist Shorts UI, YouTube may have chosen this format to let users watch new videos without any additional distractions.

So how does YouTube decide which videos to show you next? Since the feature is new, people don't yet understand how its algorithm works. However, 9to5Google says it "probably" pulls from your suggested videos feed.

Right now, it seems like Google is testing this feature, so not everyone will see it on their device, and even if you do get it, there's no guarantee it will be available in the future. However, if you want to try it out, users are reporting that the new feature will appear after updating to version 19.50 or later. So update your app and see if YouTube has rolled out the button to your device.

If you don't want to trust the algorithm to find your next favorite video, check out these helpful YouTube channels. Or, if you're not a fan of the media giant's recent push toward shorter videos and algorithm-based recommendations, you can try one of these sites that are better than YouTube.

Lesley Montoya

Update 28 December 2024