Desktop: New "Now Playing View" sidebar

[MattSuda]

Spotify is introducing a new "Now Playing View" sidebar in the desktop app and Web Player to go along with the recently released "Your Library" sidebar.

Together, the individually customizable design of these new views provides a richer experience, more context, and quicker access to personal favorites.

The Now Playing View in the right sidebar shows the album art and info of the current song or podcast you are playing and also shows more information about the artist.

When you expand the album art in the bottom left corner of the app, it will no longer hover over the Your Library sidebar. Instead, the new right sidebar will open up. You can resize the Now Playing View sidebar to your preferred size.

You can open and close the Now Playing View sidebar by clicking the button in the bottom right of the desktop app.

The Now Playing View sidebar will open up on the right side of the app by default when you start playback, but you can disable this behavior under Settings ➜ Display ➜ Show the now-playing panel on click of play.

The Friend Activity feed is still accessible via the "friends" button next to your profile picture in the top right corner of the main content area. There is also an option in Settings. You can swap between showing either the Now Playing View or the Friend Activity feed in the right sidebar.

The new Now Playing View sidebar is now rolling out to all desktop users worldwide, so you should be seeing it soon.

You can read more info about the new desktop experience in the Spotify Newsroom post:

➜ Spotify’s Desktop Experience Gets a Brand-New Look With Redesigned ‘Your Library’ and ‘Now Playing’ ...

You can read more info and give feedback about the new Your Library sidebar here:

➜ Desktop: New Your Library sidebar

FAQ:

This section will answer your frequently asked questions and will be updated with the latest answers.

The Now Playing View sidebar keeps opening at the start of playback, how do I turn this behavior off?

• The Now Playing View sidebar will open up on the right side of the app by default when you start playback, but you can disable this behavior under Settings ➜ Display ➜ Show the now-playing panel on click of play.

How do I get the album art to expand in the bottom left corner like before? When I try to expand the album art, it opens the Now Playing View sidebar to the right.

• Unfortunately, that is no longer possible. When you expand the album art in the bottom left corner of the app, it will no longer hover over the Your Library sidebar. Instead, the new right sidebar will open up. You can resize the Now Playing View sidebar to your preferred size.

Can I hide certain sections in the Now Playing View sidebar?

• Right now it's not possible to hide sections, so you will see all of the sections. However, you can drag and resize the sidebar to your prefered size.

Feedback:

Where can I give my feedback about the new Now Playing View sidebar in the desktop app?

• We welcome your feedback about this change. The best way to share your feedback is to comment here in this thread.

Updates:

This section is to inform you of updates to the new Now Playing View sidebar such as changes and new features.

July 2023:

• Click to enlarge album art on album pages
  
  When you are viewing an album page, you can now click on the album art at the top next to the title to view it bigger in the middle of your screen.

[Halfman]

Hi Spotify team, please rollback this change. The UI and UX hasn't been so bad since I use Spotify (More than 10 years).

The playlists list takes so much space (I would say something like twice more height than before), you need to scroll, scroll and scroll again to find a playlist.

That "Now Playing" sidebar is automatically shown every time I listen to a new album or playlist, it replaces the friend activity sidebar and honestly the information displayed there are useless.

[Fruitymcdoo]

Came to leave a comment with feedback on the new Now Playing sidebar. This feature could be great but right now it has some issues in its implementation.

1. The sidebar has replaced the old Now Playing view - which could be accessed by clicking on the artwork, the arrow is still present above the artwork to represent this. Clicking the arrow - which is on the left side - now opens a sidebar on the right side of the screen. This is counter intuitive. All of the Now Playing information should be condensed into one section. At the very least the arrow should be removed since it no longer correctly represents how the interface reacts. 

2. The information displayed on the Now Playing sidebar is not helpful. Rather than an Artist Profile, I would like to see information about what I am specifically listening to. This could be organized based on how I am listening to the music. If I am playing an album, I would like to see the whole album tracklist there. If I am just playing from an artist, then the Artist Profile can be displayed. If a playlist or a radio is up, show the next upcoming songs along with the playlist description. 

It would also be nice to be able to see more of your queue from this screen. When I click "Open Queue" at the bottom, it should open up a view of my queue within the Now Playing tab. I don't want to lose my place on the main screen when the Now Playing tab could handle it for me.

Overall I hope this feature gets some more work and I think it could be really great! On a personal note, please bring back full screen album artwork! When I'm in Full Screen, I just want to see the album artwork and a blurred version of it on a neutral background. Album artwork is beautiful, please give us a way to focus on it! Thank you!

- Nick Saris

[matt-l]

I do not like the new "now playing" UI in many ways. 

1. It keeps popping up on its own. I realize there is a setting in the display settings, but every time the app updates, it miraculously reverts to showing as standard.  
2. It replaces the friend list. This is one of the only reasons I use Spotify over other services. If this goes away in the future, I will also leave. 
3. I will go to the artist's page if I want more information. 

[quazel]

I close the info panel on the right side because my screen isn't big enough to see the music I care about. It opens up every time I click on a playlist. I'll open it from the view menu if I want to. Like Friend Activity (never), but until then. Go away.

[Ghost813]

Now playing is showing too little content for notebook users, and we want to remove unnecessary elements so we can see more information about the song

[mmacinga]

The new "Now Playing" feature populates into the friends activity section of the windows desktop app. I can no longer simply view the cover art of the current song I'm listening to. My suggestion is to move this feature onto the left side of the screen to maintain the friends activity portion of the screen. I often like to see the album art of what I'm listening to AND see what my friends are listening to at the same time. 

[kylefoley]

With the release of the new "Now Playing View", it seems that it automatically opens even after you've closed it. There should be a setting that makes it so it never opens again. It's intrusive and gets in the way of me browsing music. 

[fordianslip]

If you're gonna do these bad UI decisions, at least let me shrink your text and adjust the windows to my hearts content. That way, if I wanted the Now Playing view, I could customize it on a vertical monitor.

[grr4]

I keep having to toggle off the now playing screen in settings every time I login on the web player. Is there anyway to make this the default permanently? These changes to something that was finally working fine are really annoying.

[hupie]

Spotify has done it again. Everytime I think the interface can't get worse and here we are, bravo.

[hyperthonk]

The 'Now Playing View' is not a bad idea, however I believe the current execution isn't useful. Most of the information it shows is already shown in the bottom left corner of the screen. There shouldn't be two spots on the screen that show the album art, the title track and the artist. This is confusing and everything feels disconnected, like there are two UI's fighting to show me the same info.

The bottom left corner should be expandable into the 'Now Playing View', similar to how the album art originally was able to be expanded before this update. A solution that could work is moving the bottom left display to the bottom right of the screen, and then allowing it to expand over the 'Friend Activity' sidebar so there isn't repeated information. However, this would be a major design change but it's better than the current functionality in my opinion. 

Another issue I have with the 'Now Playing View' is that the song title and artist only have one line to show their name and most songs have to be slowly scrolled across. In fact, the 'Now Playing View' is taking up MORE screen space and somehow shows me LESS information than the bottom left display. Please make the song title and artist able to be readable at a glance. 

This new update just feels like a tacked on UI, it really doesn't feel part of the Spotify app. Thank you for your time.

[vinedelux]

I really have new UI look and having to getting used to it every update
and functions I really like and get used to get replaced/removed next update

[dreifach]

They really thought this through for portrait screen users.

[Carighan]

---

@hyperthonk wrote:

This new update just feels like a tacked on UI, it really doesn't feel part of the Spotify app. Thank you for your time.

---

Very much this, yes.

This feels like someone developed this Now-Playing sidebar for some specific use case, or an experimental UI that no longer has the bottom Now-playing-bar, and some manager liked it personally so they decreed it has to be used for everyone, no matter the protestations of the UI- and UX-teams.

[connor_wilson_3]

take it back please it sucks

[ElktoothChain]

Who asked for this travesty? We get no visualizer, no mini player, just an annoying fullscreen mode with arbitrary static background image and now the only reasonable way to play on desktop has been completely poisoned by this nonsense.

I've been paying for this service for over 10 years (because let's not even pretend the free version is remotely usable). A decade of my money. And it continues to get worse and more useless. The app lags like crazy on an iPhone XR with plenty of storage, the audio quality and volume are absolute trash even at "highest" settings with fast internet -- stop introducing NEEDLESS, POINTLESS features when the main features of the app are so lacking. And at least give us the option to toggle this silliness off once introduced.

It's like you guys really aren't even trying.

[squashlord]

I don't understand who this update is for. It looks cluttered, it covers up the friends list, and makes it more obscure to find out what the lyrics are. If I wanted to find out more info on the artist before, I would just have clicked on the artist's name - having an intrusive screen like this makes everything cramped and is generally an uncomfortable experience. 

I'd just gotten used to the whole mobile-ification of the thing, too. This change is wholly unnecessary.

[iEslam]

I appreciate Spotify for taking community feedback, here are my thoughts, in the nicest way possible. 
Big 🇱 for expanding song cover opening up "Now playing view"
Big 🇱 for when closing "Now playing view" your "Friend Activity" is not restored. 

On a side note:
Big 🇱 for the fact that a Premium subscription, which should mean an ad-free experience, is riddled with unwanted interruptions is a clear violation of our trust. Give us the option to disable this.
'Dismiss' and carrying on with my life, was easy the first 100 ads.

[hans-jürgen]

---

@MattSuda  schrieb:

July 2023:

• Click to enlarge album art on album pages
  
  When you are viewing an album page, you can now click on the album art at the top next to the title to view it bigger in the middle of your screen.

---

Is this only available for Premium users maybe, as I am a free user, and clicking on an album cover on top of the page does nothing for me (desktop version Spotify for Windows 1.2.10.760.g52970952).

Also I don't have an option in my display settings to enable or disable the new Now Playing sidebar. Maybe I need to wait for a new desktop version via the MS Store, or is it a test rollout independent from version number?

Maybe related as well: the play buttons for album tracks in the web player do not work anymore, so I cannot play a track from an album tracklist. There also is a related thread about it in the "Other" category:
Playing specific songs on a published album - The Spotify Community

[michaelBhavel]

Love with new update. I don't use pals Activity. This view alternatives lets in me to navigate to my playlist and consider the contemporary tune info.

Thanks