YouTube Tests New ‘Play Something’ Floating Button for Random Video Discovery

Washington, December 30 — YouTube is currently experimenting with a new feature designed to enhance the user experience on its mobile app. The feature, a floating “Play Something” button, is aimed at users who struggle to decide what to watch next.

This new feature, spotted in the YouTube app for Android, enables users to instantly play a random video by tapping the “Play Something” button. Located just above the bottom bar of the app, the button offers a quick way to dive into new content without having to sift through endless recommendations.

Once users tap the button, YouTube automatically selects a video and begins playing it, offering a more spontaneous, streamlined browsing experience. Notably, this feature makes use of the portrait-oriented YouTube Shorts player to display the videos.

Whether the video is a traditional YouTube clip or a YouTube Shorts video, the content is presented in the Shorts player’s vertical format. While the feature works smoothly for short-form content, some users hope that future updates will expand the display to include full-screen videos as well.

YouTube has been experimenting with various iterations of this random video selector for over a year. Previous versions included a “Play Something” banner and a button resembling the classic black-and-white YouTube logo. However, the floating button design seen in the current test is the most refined version to date.

At present, the feature is still in the testing phase, and there’s no official word on when or if it will be fully rolled out to users.