Play Music serves as a model for the major YouTube Music website makeover

YouTube Music faced a lot of criticism at the time when it initially took the place of Google Play Music. YouTube Music has made its platform far better with every new update. With the addition of a new sidebar for navigation and quick access to all your playlists, the most recent update to YouTube Music on the web pays homage to Play Music.

The Home, Explore, and Library sections are moved to a new sidebar as part of the makeover, which also reorganizes the web app’s navigation. The former top-tab navigation has been replaced with a sizable search box that asks you to “search songs, albums, artists, and podcasts.”

You may extend the sidebar by clicking the new hamburger menu icon (three horizontal lines) next to the YouTube Music logo in the upper left corner. This shows a longer section that provides rapid access to all your library’s playlists behind the three top-level navigation options. Additionally, there is a button at the top of the area that enables playlist creation from any location within the app.

Even after you open the Now Playing area, the sidebar is still visible. Depending on your preferences, this either adds unnecessary clutter or makes the program more helpful and easier to use.

A smaller window size causes the sidebar to totally vanish. You must select it by clicking on the hamburger menu. This is a slight reversal from the prior style, which positioned the navigation buttons at the top.

The design significantly alters how the YouTube Music website operates compared to the standard YouTube web version. Additionally, a sidebar with top-level navigation options is provided. This sidebar can be expanded to show additional options like your subscriptions, history, and downloads (if you have a paid membership).

The Google Play Music website from the past has been redesigned for YouTube Music. Play Music had a large search bar at the top, with the rest of the navigation choices and your playlists organized in a sidebar, even though its design today feels noticeably older.

With their typical widescreen setup, laptop and desktop screens are ideal for the new YouTube Music design. With the new design, you can access all your playlists and more navigation choices without really giving up much information.

On tablets that are landscape-oriented, YouTube Music still only provides a stretched-out phone interface. We can only hope that, like Google has done for many of its other apps, a sidebar-based design for tablets and foldables will soon be introduced, given how broadly the desktop revamp has already been adopted.

On music.youtube.com, you may access YouTube Music for the web. Although there is a free, ad-supported tier, you must pay $10 per month or include it in your $12 YouTube Premium subscription to access the complete feature set.