YouTube Music is finally adding a feature Spotify has had for years — but of course, there's a catch
Finally, we can find that one song that's stuck in our head
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It appears that YouTube Music could soon receive a long-awaited search feature that could help it better compete against the rest of the best music streaming services.
There's nothing inherently wrong with YouTube Music, but it does lack some of the usability that other apps like Spotify have. This includes being able to quickly search within a playlist for a certain song. However, a screenshot shared on Reddit from user xerus9915 reveals that a new "Find in Playlist" option is at least in the works.
According to the post, the feature is available on version 8.45.3 of the app, but the post also notes that it is still impossible to search through radios saved to their library. When fully functional, this feature would be a big win for long-time YouTube Music users, as the current best means to search within playlists is via a browser extension, leaving app users out in the cold.
However, there is some bad news as the addition is only appearing on select iOS devices at the moment, although other Reddit users commenting on the post claim that the feature has not appeared on their iOS devices. This could indicate that the “find in playlist” feature is still in the A/B testing phase, which would match Google’s usual approach when it comes to new features.
On the plus side, it looks like "Find in Playlist" is as easy to use as we would hope. All users will need to do is tap the three-dot menu located next to a playlist. Once there, simply selecting the option and then searching for a specific song will reveal if anything matching the search term is in that playlist.
This isn’t the only new feature announced for YouTube Music, as the company announced a brand new AI feature being tested as part of the YouTube Labs project. This new addition is based around trivia and commentary, offering the user facts and stories about the tracks and artists.
For the time being, we will have to wait and see when YouTube Music fully releases the means to search for a song or artist, and which phones will gain access. However, we would hope that it comes sooner rather than later, and we will make sure to update you as soon as we know more.
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Let us know if this is a change that would bring you back to using YouTube Music if you recently dropped it, or if there are other features and additions that you would like to see in the future.
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Josh is a staff writer for Tom's Guide and is based in the UK. He has worked for several publications but now works primarily on mobile phones. Outside of phones, he has a passion for video games, novels, and Warhammer.
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