YouTube Music tests full-screen album art in Now Playing

YouTube Music's Now Playing screen has long trailed rivals in one specific way: the album art has stayed small while apps like Apple Music moved to full-screen, even animated, covers.

A leaked screenshot shared by Telegram user Hamada suggests that's about to change, showing what appears to be a limited test of full-screen album art in the app.

The basic functionality of YouTube Music has not been an issue at all. The app is free with ads, comes as part of a YouTube Premium subscription, and offers a reliable recommendation system which finds the proper next song for you.

However, the Now Playing screen with its tiny thumbnail has seemed to be one of the less modern design elements of the application amidst other companies offering larger and more immersive thumbnails on their interfaces.

Judging from the leaked comparison pictures, the test version uses artwork taking up the whole screen instead of the small thumbnail in the current version, making its interface more similar to those offered by Apple Music and Spotify.

It seems like a limited experiment rather than a widespread rollout. Tests conducted using various devices and accounts confirmed a lack of access to the new feature – this is how Google conducts its early tests, rolling them out quietly among selected users to see whether the product will become more popular or not.

There were many experiments on A/B tests from Google that have never seen the light of day, and this is an unofficial leak from one screenshot.

YouTube Music rolled out a major Now Playing redesign earlier in 2026, introducing a dual-pane layout that combined larger cover art, playback controls, and the Up Next queue into a single view.